Awareness

by Anthony de Mello

get in touch with negative feelings that you’re not even aware of.

Gloominess, for instance. You’re feeling gloomy and moody. You feel self-hatred or guilt. You feel that life is pointless, that it makes no sense; you’ve got hurt feelings, you’re feeling nervous and tense.

understand that the feeling is in you, not in reality.

We spend all our time and energy trying to change external circumstances, trying to change our spouses, our bosses, our friends, our enemies, and everybody else. We don’t have to change anything. Negative feelings are in you.

No person on earth has the power to make you unhappy. There is no event on earth that has the power to disturb you or hurt you. No event, condition, situation, or person.

Reality is not problematic. Problems exist only in the human mind.

The feeling is in you, not in reality.

Never identify with that feeling.

Don’t say, “I am depressed.”

if you want to say gloominess is there, that’s fine. But not: I am gloomy. You’re defining yourself in terms of the feeling. That’s your illusion; that’s your mistake.

Your depressions and your thrills have nothing to do with happiness. Those are the swings of the pendulum.

there’s an African tribe where capital punishment consists of being ostracized. If you were kicked out of New York, or wherever you’re residing, you wouldn’t die. How is it that the African tribesman died? Because he partakes of the common stupidity of humanity. He thinks he will not be able to live if he does not belong.

No event justifies a negative feeling. There is no situation in the world that justifies a negative feeling. That’s what all our mystics have been crying themselves hoarse to tell us.

In the Bhagavad-Gita, the sacred book of the Hindus, Lord Krishna says to Arjuna, “Plunge into the heat of battle and keep your heart at the lotus feet of the Lord.”

Meister Eckhart said very beautifully, “God is not attained by a process of addition to anything in the soul, but by a process of subtraction.”

don’t do anything to be free, you drop something. Then you’re free.

How do you change things?

The person who is asleep always thinks he’ll feel better if somebody else changes. You’re suffering because you are asleep,

You are the one who needs to change,

There’s a powerful story about a little boy walking along the bank of a river. He sees a crocodile who is trapped in a net. The crocodile says, “Would you have pity on me and release me? I may look ugly, but it isn’t my fault, you know. I was made this way. But whatever my external appearance, I have a mother’s heart. I came this morning in search of food for my young ones and got caught in this trap!” So the boy says, “Ah, if I were to help you out of that trap, you’d grab me and kill me.” The crocodile asks, “Do you think I would do that to my benefactor and liberator?” So the boy is persuaded to take the net off and the crocodile grabs him. As he is being forced between the jaws of the crocodile, he says, “So this is what I get for my good actions.” And the crocodile says, “Well, don’t take it personally, son, this is the way the world is, this is the law of life.” The boy disputes this, so the crocodile says, “Do you want to ask someone if it isn’t so?” The boys sees a bird sitting on a branch and says, “Bird, is what the crocodile says right?” The bird says, “The crocodile is right. Look at me. I was coming home one day with food for my fledglings. Imagine my horror to see a snake crawling up the tree, making straight for my nest. I was totally helpless. It kept devouring my young ones, one after the other. I kept screaming and shouting, but it was useless. The crocodile is right, this is the law of life, this is the way the world is.” “See,” says the crocodile. But t...

This may be my favorite story of all time. The only problem with this is if you think this is a problem.

There is no explanation you can give that would explain away all the sufferings and evil and torture and destruction and hunger in the world!

reality is not problematic, you are the problem.

Many people swing into action only to make things worse. They’re not coming from love, they’re coming from negative feelings. They’re coming from guilt, anger, hate; from a sense of injustice or whatever.

when sleeping people swing into action, they simply substitute one cruelty for another, one injustice for another.

Woke social justice warriors

This seems crazy. Who you are not what you do? Unless it’s just some “eternal life” bullshit.

Everything becomes beautiful when you change.

We see people and things not as they are, but as we are. That is why when two people look at something or someone, you get two different reactions. We see things and people not as they are, but as we are.

Trump

When you finally awake, you don’t try to make good things happen; they just happen.

People are so busy accusing everyone else, blaming everyone else, blaming life, blaming society, blaming their neighbor. You’ll never change that way; you’ll continue in your nightmare, you’ll never wake up.

Put this program into action, a thousand times: (a) identify the negative feelings in you; (b) understand that they are in you, not in the world, not in external reality; (c) do not see them as an essential part of “I”; these things come and go; (d) understand that when you change, everything changes.

(a) identify the negative feelings in you; (b) understand that they are in you, not in the world, not in external reality; (c) do not see them as an essential part of “I”; these things come and go; (d...

The more you do, the worse it gets. All you have to do is understand.

Think of somebody you are living with or working with whom you do not like, who causes negative feelings

You are responsible for the negative feeling, not the other person.

you’re making a demand. You have an expectation of this person.

You have an expectation of this person. Can you get in touch with that? Then say to this person, “I have no right to make any demands on you.” In saying that, you will drop your expectation.

I’m a dictator, you’re a dictator. I want to run your life for you; I want to tell you exactly how you’re expected to be and how you’re expected to behave, and you’d better behave as I have decided or I shall punish myself by having negative feelings.

you’d better behave as I have decided or I shall punish myself by having negative feelings.

Some of you ask me what I meant when I said, “You go ahead and be yourself, that’s all right, but I’ll protect myself, I’ll be myself.” In other words, I won’t allow you to manipulate me. I’ll live my life; I’ll go my own way; I’ll keep myself free to think my thoughts, to follow my inclinations and tastes. And I’ll say no to you. If I feel I don’t want to be in your company, it won’t be because of any negative feelings you cause in me. Because you don’t anymore. You don’t have any more power over me. I simply might prefer other people’s company. So when you say to me, “How about a movie tonight?” I’ll say, “Sorry, I want to go with someone else; I enjoy his company more than yours.” And that’s all right. To say no to people—that’s wonderful; that’s part of waking up. Part of waking up is that you live your life as you see fit. And understand: That is not selfish. The selfish thing is to demand that someone else live their life as YOU see fit. That’s selfish. It is not selfish to live your life as you see fit. The selfishness lies in demanding that someone else live their life to suit your tastes, or your pride, or your profit, or your pleasure. That is truly selfish. So I’ll protect myself.

There’s a story of a disciple who told his guru that he was going to a far place to meditate and hopefully attain enlightenment. So he sent the guru a note every six months to report the progress he was making. The first report said, “Now I understand what it means to lose the self.” The guru tore up the note and threw it in the wastepaper basket. After six months he got another report, which said, “Now I have attained sensitivity to all beings.” He tore it up. Then a third report said, “Now I understand the secret of the one and the many.” It too was torn up. And so it went on for years, until finally no reports came in. After a time the guru became curious and one day there was a traveler going to that far place. The guru said, “Why don’t you find out what happened to that fellow.” Finally, he got a note from his disciple. It said, “What does it matter?” And when the guru read that, he said, “He made it! He made it! He finally got it! He got it!”

So begin to be aware of your present condition whatever that condition is. Stop being a dictator. Stop trying to push yourself somewhere. Then someday you will understand that simply by awareness you have already attained what you were pushing yourself toward.

I’d much rather hear you say, “I’ve come awake,” than hear you say, “I’m sorry.”

Love this

Nobody ever rejects you; they’re only rejecting what they think you are.

Nobody ever accepts you either.

they seize upon the word—upon the words of scripture, for example—and they get it all wrong.

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.

A man born blind comes to me and asks, “What is this thing called green?” How does one describe the color green to someone who was born blind? One uses analogies. So I say, “The color green is something like soft music.” “Oh,” he says, “like soft music.” “Yes,” I say, “soothing and 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 is saying, “It’s soft like satin.” And on it goes. Neither of them knows what they’re talking about, because if they did, they’d shut up. It’s as bad as that. It’s even worse, because one day, say, you give sight to this blind man, and he’s sitting there in the garden and he’s looking all around him, and you say to him, “Well, now you know what the color green is.” And he answers, “That’s true. I heard some of it this morning!”

There is far too much God talk; the world is sick of it. There is too little awareness, too little love, too little happiness,

There’s too little dropping of illusions, dropping of errors, dropping of attachments and cruelty, too little awareness.

When we look at a person, we really don’t see that person,