Reading & the Good Life
Join the conversation! Every Friday at Noon EST (Join here), Perennial Meditations readers are welcome to gather for Reading & the Good Life (a space for connection, contemplation, and conversations on the art of living).
This Friday begins our exploration of Anthony de Mello’s book Awareness: Conversations with the Masters. Learn more about the life and teachings of Anthony de Mello here.
Awareness, Awareness, Awareness
Anthony de Mello (1931 – 1987) was an Indian Jesuit priest and psychotherapist. A spiritual teacher, writer, and public speaker, de Mello wrote several books on spirituality and hosted numerous spiritual retreats and conferences.
In a chapter titled How Happiness Happens, de Mello explains,
Come home to yourself. Observe yourself. That’s why I said earlier that self-observation is such a delightful and extraordinary thing. After a while, you don’t have to make any effort, because, as illusions begin to crumble, you begin to know things that cannot be described. It’s called happiness. Everything changes, and you become addicted to awareness.
There’s the story of the disciple who went to the master and said, “Could you give me a word of wisdom? Could you tell me something that would guide me through my days?” It was the master’s day of silence, so he picked up a pad. It said, “Awareness.” When the disciple saw it, he said, “This is too brief. Can you expand on it a bit?” So the master took back the pad and wrote, “Awareness, awareness, awareness.” The disciple said, “Yes, but what does it mean?” The master took back the pad and wrote, “Awareness, awareness, awareness means—awareness.”
Selected Passages
Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. […]
— Anthony de Mello, Awareness
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Waking up is unpleasant, you know. You are nice and comfortable in bed. It’s irritating to be woken up. That’s the reason the wise guru will not attempt to wake people up. I hope I’m going to be wise here and make no attempt whatsoever to wake you up if you are asleep. It is really none of my business, even though I say to you at times, “Wake up!” My business is to do my thing, to dance my dance. […]
— Anthony de Mello, Awareness
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I was saying that we don’t want to be happy. We want other things. Or let’s put it more accurately: We don’t want to be unconditionally happy. I’m ready to be happy provided I have this and that and the other thing. But this is really to say to our friend or to our God or to anyone, “You are my happiness. If I don’t get you, I refuse to be happy.” It’s so important to understand that. We cannot imagine being happy without those conditions. […]
— Anthony de Mello, Awareness
If you are available on a Friday (at Noon EST), feel free to drop into one of our Reading & the Good Life meetups (Join here). It’s a highly casual space for connection and conversations on the art of living.
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
P.S. As always, feel free to comment, ask questions, or suggest future reads!
Read his book on Awareness at least 3 times! Chalked full of truth! Truly grateful has helped me drop the needless suffering in my life. I love how he puts it “suffering is when our illusions clash with reality “. The negativity is on the inside our response to it!
Regarding the state of happiness is within us to accept ourselves the way we are and to depend on anyone else, it takes some time to understand ourselves and it is a lifetime of learning every day