Awareness

Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality

Anthony De Mello

(Thanks, Casey!)

This book was passed along to me on a whim by a friend who thought I might like it. And, despite the heavy Christian undertones, I indeed did. I’m secretly a sucker for self-help books and this one spoke to me in many ways. Although De Mello does include some Buddhist parables, Hindu insight, as well as conservative psychological analysis, this book was a bit too “Jesus-y” for me. (is that a word?) However, I believe he hits on a lot of salient points re. wisdom, growth, change, insight, and spirituality that would speak to every reader differently. These below being what I walked away with. I recommend this book as an easy read.

Wake Up! The book calls us to do and become aware of the “I” vs. “me” in each of us. “I” being the solid, unchangeable essence that cannot be affected or wavered by outward forces, and the “me” that, he argues, should be given the freedom to feel disappointment, frustration, devastation and selfishness, but not to identify with it. Allow the feelings to flow through us, but do not fight them off. Instead, attempt to understand their root and why we are affected. Even in suffering, we should not fight to feel better, but rather just acknowledge the feelings and let them move through us.

“Pleasant experiences make life delightful. Painful experiences lead to growth. Pleasant experiences make life delightful, but they don’t lead to growth in themselves. What leads to growth is painful experiences. Suffering points up an area in you where you have not yet grown, where you need to grow and be transformed and change. If you knew how to use that suffering, oh, how you would grow.” p.107 (don't know if I fully agree with this)

“Here comes a low feeling. Instead of getting tense about it, instead of getting irritated with myself about it, I understand I’m feeling depressed, disappointed, whatever. I admit the feeling is in me, not in the other person. I don’t identify with the feeling. “I” is not that feeling. “I” am not lonely, “I” am not depressed, “I” am not disappointed. Disappointment is there, one watches it. You’d be amazed how quickly it glides away. Anything you’re aware of keeps changing." P. 177

He strongly states that the more we try to fight and better ourselves, the more we give power to our faults. Rather, he states, that we should have a certain degree of passivity.

“The harder you try to change, the worse it can get. … The more you resist something, the greater power you give to it. …. You always empower the demons you fight. That’s very Oriental. But if you flow with the enemy, you over come the enemy. How does one cope with evil? Not by fighting it but by understanding it. In understanding, it disappears." p.121

“I thought of a nice image for that, a sailboat. When a sailboat has a mighty wind in its sail, it glides along so effortlessly that the boatman has nothing to do but steer. He makes no effort; he doesn’t push the boat. That’s an image of what happens when change comes through awareness, through understanding.” P. 159

“Insight. Not effort, not cultivating habits, not having an ideal. Ideals do a lot of damage. The whole time you’re focusing on what should be instead of focusing on what is. And so you’re imposing what should be on a present reality, never having understood what present reality is." P. 152

On Listening to Life:

“Now, you need awareness and you need nourishment. You need good, healthy nourishment. Learn to enjoy the solid food of life. Good food, good wine, good water. Taste them. Lose your mind and come to your senses. That’s good, healthy nourishment. The pleasures of the senses and the pleasures of the mind. Good reading, when you enjoy a good book. Or a really good discussion, or thinking. It’s marvelous. Unfortunately, people have gone crazy, and they’re getting more addicted because they do not know how to enjoy the lovely things of life. So they’re going in for greater and greater artificial stimulants." P. 164

“…What kind of feeling comes upon you when you’re in touch with nature, or when you’re absorbed in work that you love? Or when you’re really conversing with someone whose company you enjoy in openness and intimacy without clinging? What kind of feeling do you have? Compare those feelings with the feelings you have when you win an argument, or when you win a race, or when you become popular, or when everyone’s applauding you. The latter feelings I call worldly feelings; the former feelings I call soul feelings. Lots of people live empty, soulless lives because they’re feeding themselves on popularity, appreciation, and praise, on “I’m OK, you’re OK”, look at me, attend to me, support me, value me, on being the boss, on having power, on winning the race. Do you feed on that? If you do, you’re dead. You’ve lost your soul." P. 184

I’ve often said to people that the way to really live is to die. The passport to living is to imagine yourself in your grave. Imagine that you’re lying in your coffin. Any posture you like. … So imagine you’re lying flat and you’re dead. Now look at your problems from that viewpoint.

Changes everything, doesn’t it? P. 169 (I would go one step further and add, not only look at your problems, but the course of your life. Are you proud of the one wild and precious life you’ve lived?)

An Italian poet said, “We live in a flash of light; evening comes and it is night forever.” It’s only a flash and we waste it. We waste it with our anxiety, our worries, our concerns, our burdens." P. 170