Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality

If you had told me, an depressive athiest with a history of alcoholism and self-loathing, five years ago that I'd find the greatest book on the most revolutionary wisdom in the Christian section of the bookstore, I would have told you a) get away from me, and b) gimme whatever you're smoking.

Since that time I've come into a bit of a "spiritual path", and read countless books on awareness/mindfulness/presence, or whatever you'd like to call this path.

Many are wonderful. This was the finest of all, though. This is not a Christian book at all. It is simply another expression of the "one true wisdom" which cuts across all spiritual teachings, religious or otherwise.

It is what the Buddha was talking about. It is what Jesus was talking about. It is what Lao Tzu was talking about. It is what Eckhart Tolle, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Tara Brach, Thich Nhat Hahn, Byron Katie are talking about today.

There's really only one teaching over the past six thousand years or so. You pick your favorite teacher. De Mello is, after reading this book, mine. Perfectly hilarious and light, but forceful and to the point, without getting bogged down in words. Like someone who so confidently knows the subject matter, so confidently lives it, that there is no need for pretense.

If you don't like it because it goes against your doctrine, your dogma, your beliefs, that's fine. When you have suffered enough, you will be ready to wake up from your dream.

This is a sweet and funny and profound book which warmed up my heart and consistently made me laugh. De Mello was a universally respected Jesuit priest who managed to go far beyond the orthodox catholic dogma and into the very heart of spiritual alivennes and connectedness. Several centuries earlier a similar attempt was made by Loyola, another Jesuit troublemaker; however, in A., DeMello dispenses with the extraneous mumbo jumbo and goes straight to the heart of the matter. God is presence itself and through awareness we are simultaneously connected to who we truly are and to the sacredness of all life. De Mello reminds us time and again of this simple yet profound truth; i especially admire his skilfull use of anecdote and parable, which reminds me of another great spiritual teacher... Perhaps it is not coincidental that De Mello lived and worked in Goa, that syncretic ex-Portuguese colony known for its eccentric inhabitants and practices. What impresses me the most about this book is that DeMello manages to weave into his teachings the best elements of Buddhist and Hindu traditions (their emphasis on awareness, mindfulness) and combines them with what is best in Christianity (the emphasis on love, openness of the heart). In addition to that, he is consistently funny (no mean feat for a work on spiritual matters)... and even manages to be cranky in a way that makes me laugh. Perhaps as importantly, the book shows that Christianity may not be all about biblethumping -in the right hands it is a vibrant, contemporary, compassionate, and profound spiritual practice. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about mindfulness from a master teacher.

It's true and important to understand that De Mello often communicates through contradiction. For instance, he tells us "The only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your ideas." (Awareness pg. 35) No doubt, all of us can think of countless other ways and specific situations in which someone could be of help to us in a way other than by "challenging our ideas". However, this is a style De Mello has intentionally chosen in order to battle the sea of misconceptions that he sees over flooding our society. Rather than go through the semantic hoops that are technically necessary in order to make the subtle distinctions that he is after, De Mello chooses to "shock the truth out of us". He says things that are not intended to be completely accurate, and are sometimes even logically inconsistent, but rather contradict our culture's common assumptions, forcing us to either totally dismiss what he says or, if we read with an open mind, to consciously think about the point that De Mello is trying to communicate.

This is a stylistic choice that fits with his view that logic is unable to fully capture reality. He explains, "the guru cannot give you the truth. Truth cannot be put into words, into a formula. That isn't the truth. That isn't reality. Reality cannot be put into a formula. The guru can only point out your errors. When you drop your errors, you will know the truth. And even then you cannot say."

There's a lot of good advice in this book that has helped me to get past some of the messages society tells us about what it takes to be a "success." I highly recommend for anyone who is feeling at all disillusioned with Western culture and is willing to read with an open mind.

I read this book about two years ago and the material has been on my mind ever since! De Mello seems to introduce material and concepts that you never really knew existed. He stresses some key points in the book: waking up to "reality" and experiencing life free of internal constructions and false perceptions; being "AWARE" of your moods, self, and surroundings; along with a plethora of other life changing topics. De Mello also ties a great deal of his material with his faith (Catholicism... although he HATED such labels)-- this may discourage some readers but it is secondary to his real message. My only criticism is that I wish he would have gone deeper into some of the concepts. I find myself trying to apply some of the concepts, which make perfect sense, but find that some of them are limited in scope. For instance, how far can one take the practice of not assuming any labels?

I did not buy this book from Amazon; I stumbled upon it in a bookstore. I am so glad this happened to me!

This book contains more accurate spiritual wisdom than most other self-help books combined. It is an incredibly enlightening and amusing text, inviting us not take ourselves or life too seriously. De Mello hits on so many important points about how life and the human mind really work, shattering the misconceptions that cause our emotional turmoil and our conflicts with each other.

He challenges so many false paradigms that most people live under, and gets into all kinds of typically underrepresented topics such as language transcendence and conditioned responses. He uses a few anecdotal stories, but they are short and to the point - he's very adept at only including relevant details in his message. Most of the book is spoken directly to "you," the reader, and is not story-driven but rather an explanation of how our emotions work.

De Mello gets it - and by it I mean EVERYTHING about the human psyche - on a deeper level than 99.99% of the people I am currently aware of. He says "everyone's a lunatic" (in other words, everyone has parts of their mind that are insane due to unawareness), but without a trace of cynicism or accusation, because he's transcended the ego, and therefore also transcended blame. That's how beautiful this work is. He's just stating the absolute truth of reality, and why it's important for all of us to wake up to it.

If I were put in charge of educating the whole world, this book would be required reading by age 12 or so. It's that amazing, and that important to me. Just do yourself and the whole world a favor, and read it. The more people that read this book, the better off we will be as a society. It's an easy read; there's nothing terribly complicated in it and it's not too long. It could easily be read in less than a day.

This is a simple read, and so packed with pragmatic wisdom. I wish I could set my iPhone to play chapters audibly whenever it detects I'm sleeping while awake. It's a firm but playful nudge to help us shift from opinion to truth. From "lost in thought" to appreciation for what's hiding in plain sight. From chasing what we often forget is the "fool's gold" of life (money, fame, popularity, affirmation)... to a place where we stop seeking happiness... and start noticing the quiet, content love that surrounds us silently every moment. The book is packed with stories and humor and written in a very informal and playfully abrupt (but humble) style. It may not offer anything we don't already know, but help us unlearn some things that are distracting us during our journey.

I got great value from this book, it’s very informative and honestly I recommend this to anyone who’s thinking of buying it.

"Awareness" is an excellent presentation of Zen-like philosophy delivered before a Catholic audience. After having people recommend the book to me for many years, I finally read it and greatly enjoyed it--with one major caveat.

Like all celibate philosophers regardless of tradition (Buddhist, Catholic, whatever), De Mello loses me when he tosses aside sexual love--indeed, any physical affection at all--as unnecessary, unimportant, and even detrimental to our happiness.

De Mello goes so far as to say (pg 112): "There is yet another illusion, that it is important to be...loved and appreciated. Many say we have a natural desire to be loved and appreciated, to belong. That's false. Drop this illusion and you will find happiness. We have a natural urge to be free, a natural urge to love, but not *to be loved*."

Studies (and common sense) show that when babies and children are not loved, given physical affection, they fail to thrive. Lack of love--emotional and physical--inflicts trauma. What's true for children is equally true for adults, in less obvious ways.

I strongly reject De Mello's statement that we have no need ("urge") to be loved--only a need to give love. This is a recipe for spiritual abuse, a recipe for exhausting one's self with constant giving and no receiving, and a recipe for trauma.

With that caution in mind, I highly recommend "Awareness." Most of the book is really good!

This book reads like a transcription of talks given before live audiences. The initial chapters read like the joke-filled exhortations of a professional self-help writer, but the book begins to deepen around pages 60-70. De Mello was a Jesuit priest, a trained psychologist, and apparently a devoted student of both Eastern and Western religion. His knowledge is broad and deep, and he has obviously brought great passion to his learning.

At its core, this book is about the difference between reality and our constructs of reality, most of which we have inherited from our culture, our parents, our teachers, the clergy, and the media. The constructs are all second-hand and almost always false. Our suffering comes from the strife we feel when reality does not conform to our false understanding of how the world should be.

De Mello points out repeatedly that most people are not aware of the constructs they live by. These constructs include the ideas that we must succeed financially, that we must find another person to give us love, that illness and death are personal affronts, that we must adhere to this or that ideal, that our lives must go a certain way. Our false understandings control us through fear and desire, and they do so invisibly until we take the time to see them and root them out.

Even the love we think we feel toward others is often simply an expression of our need for approval and validation. We don't see this until we look deep inside and discover that we expect to get something in return from the person to whom we think we are giving selflessly.

Our most deeply cherished beliefs are the most dangerous. De Mello offers this excellent observation and parable:

--- quote ---

Reality, God, divinity, truth, love are unknowable; that means they cannot be comprehended by the thinking mind. That would set at rest so many questions people have because we're always living under the illusion that we know. We don't. We cannot know.

What is scripture, then? It is a hint, a clue, not a description. The fanaticism of one sincere believer who thinks he knows causes more evil than the united efforts of two hundred rogues. It's terrifying to see what sincere believers will do because they think they know. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a world where everybody said, "We don't know"?...

A man born blind comes to me and asks, "What is this thing called green?"

How does one describe the color green to one who was born blind? One uses analogies.

So I say, "The color green is something like soft music."

"Oh," he says, "like soft music."

So a second blind man comes to me and asks, "What is the color green?"

I tell him it's something like soft satin, very soft and soothing to the touch.

So the next day I notice that the two blind men are bashing each other over the head with bottles. One is saying, "It's soft like music"; the other saying, "It's soft like satin." And on it goes.

--- end quote ---

We see this kind of trouble in the world all the time. This is the difficulty of trying to use concepts that people understand to point them toward concepts that they don't understand. People get attached to the bits they understand, and their understanding ends there, often permanently.

We can only change our false concepts, De Mello says, when we become aware of them. In fact, our false understandings often lose their power as soon as we become aware of them. In this, he is in line with Socrates and the Buddhists, with the stoicism of Seneca and twentieth-century European existentialists. Life is flow. Abandon your ideas and go with it.

Of course, that's easier said than done. There's nothing more terrifying than being asked to accept what you cannot control or understand. Yet with the acceptance comes freedom.

De Mello notes that the few people who really do start to question their understanding of the world do so only after immense suffering. Only after it becomes too painful for them to hold on to their ideas of how the world should be. He notes that there are only two paths for those whose world-view is completely shattered: they become insane, or they become mystics.

De Mello is deeply critical not of religion, but of the way religion is practiced and misunderstood. If people devoted to awareness the time and energy they currently devote to worship, they and the world would be much better off. Toward the end of the book, he gives this excellent parable:

--- quote ---

There was a man who invented the art of making fire. He took his tools and went to a tribe in the north, where it was very cold, bitterly cold. He taught the people there to make fire. The people were very interested. He showed them the uses to which they could put fire--they could cook, keep themselves warm, etc. They were grateful that they had learned the art of making fire. But before they could express their gratitude to the man, he disappeared. He wasn't concerned with getting their recognition or gratitude; he was concerned about their well-being.

He went to another tribe, where he again began to show them the value of his invention. People were interested there, too, a bit too interested for the peace of mind of the priests, who began to notice that this man was drawing crowds and they were losing their popularity. So they decided to do away with him. They poisoned him, crucified him, put it any way you like.

But they were afraid now that people might turn against them, so they were very wise, even wily. Do you know what they did? They had a portrait of the man made and mounted it on the main altar of the temple. The instruments for making fire were placed in front of the portrait, and the people were taught to revere the portrait and to pay reverence to the instruments of fire, which they dutifully did for centuries. The veneration and the worship went on, but there was no fire.

--- end quote ---

This powerfully describes the problem of many of the world's religions, where people are taught to direct their worship outward through ritual, rather than inward toward awareness, growth, and change. They have duty without fire, maintaining the symbols without ever discovering the thing the symbols were meant to lead them to.

"These are the more dangerous idol worshippers," De Mello says. "They use a very subtle substance, the mind, to produce their God."

True spiritual practice is not a palliative to soothe us in times of trouble. It is the root of how we perceive and experience the world, and it comes from surrender, from accepting that we can simple be without having to know or control or even understand. "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow," De Mello reminds us. "They toil not, neither do they spin."

De Mello's insightful perspective never ceases to inspire. He is blunt, he is harsh, and he is aware. All of the self-help/spirituality writing greats come from the Eastern world. There's no cushy talk, no generic Westernized sales pitch on what happiness should be, only truth. Only the kick in the ass you need to wake up from your sleepwalking. Written for the average person wanting to find love everywhere.