Awareness

by Anthony de Mello

Do you want to change the world? How about beginning with yourself? How about being transformed yourself first? But how do you achieve that? Through observation. Through understanding. With no interference or judgment on your part. Because what you judge you cannot understand.

No judgment, no commentary, no attitude: one simply observes, one studies, one watches, without the desire to change what is. Because if you desire to change what is into what you think should be, you no longer understand.

As the life of awareness settles on your darkness, whatever is evil will disappear.

And look at a river as it moves toward the sea. It creates its own banks that contain it. When there’s something within you that moves in the right direction, it creates its own discipline.

I’m going to write a book someday and the title will be I’m an Ass, You’re an Ass. That’s the most liberating, wonderful thing in the world, when you openly admit you’re an ass. It’s wonderful. When people tell me, “You’re wrong.” I say, “What can you expect of an ass?”

One sign that you’re awakened is that you don’t give a damn about what’s going to happen in the next life.

But the “I” is never threatened; it’s only the “me” that is threatened.

Where there is love there are no demands, no expectations, no dependency. I do not demand that you make me happy; my happiness does not lie in you. If you were to leave me, I will not feel sorry for myself; I enjoy your company immensely, but I do not cling.

What I really enjoy is not you; it’s something that’s greater than both you and me. It is something that I discovered, a kind of symphony, a kind of orchestra that plays one melody in your presence, but when you depart, the orchestra doesn’t stop. When I meet someone else, it plays another melody, which is also very delightful. And when I’m alone, it continues to play. There’s a great repertoire and it never ceases to play.

Loneliness is not cured by human company. Loneliness is cured by contact with reality.

“The three most difficult things for a human being are not physical feats or intellectual achievements. They are, first, returning love for hate; second, including the excluded; third, admitting that you are wrong.” But these are the easiest things in the world if you haven’t identified with the “me.”

What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you.

When I’m listening to you, it’s infinitely more important for me to listen to me than to listen to you. Of course, it’s important to listen to you, but it’s more important that I listen to me. Otherwise I won’t be hearing you.

Say I’m looking at those trees and I’m worrying. Am I distracted? I am distracted only if I mean to concentrate on the trees. But if I’m aware that I’m worried, too, that isn’t a distraction at all. Just be aware of where your attention goes.

As the Japanese Zen masters say, “Don’t seek the truth; just drop your opinions.” Drop your theories; don’t seek the truth. Truth isn’t something you search for. If you stop being opinionated, you would know.

Life is easy, life is delightful. It’s only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings.

The second step (this is a four-step program) is to understand that the feeling is in you, not in reality.

There is a depression there right now, there are hurt feelings there right now, but let it be, leave it alone. It will pass.

When you finally awake, you don’t try to make good things happen; they just happen. You understand suddenly that everything that happens to you is good.

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

You don’t have to do anything. The more you do, the worse it gets. All you have to do is understand.

You know, sometimes people want to imitate Christ, but when a monkey plays a saxophone, that doesn’t make him a musician. You can’t imitate Christ by imitating his external behavior. You’ve got to be Christ.

Compassion can be very rude, compassion can jolt you, compassion can roll up its sleeves and operate on you.

I’d much rather hear you say, “I’ve come awake,” than hear you say, “I’m sorry.” I’d much rather hear you say to me, “I’ve come awake since we last met; what I did to you won’t happen again,” than to hear you say, “I’m so sorry for what I did to you.”

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

How easy it is to love everyone when you don’t identify with what they imagine you are or they are.

The guru can only point out your errors. When you drop your errors, you will know the truth. And even then you cannot say.

What is scripture, then? It’s a hint, a clue, not a description.

The final barrier to the vision of God is your God concept.

“When the sage points to the moon, all the idiot sees is the finger.”

We’re not told to kill the self, but to die.

You’re never so ready to forget yourself as when you are happy. Happiness releases you from self.

You are being danced!

Suffering points up an area in you where you have not yet grown, where you need to grow and be transformed and change.

Before enlightenment I used to be depressed. After enlightenment I continue to be depressed.

Do not suppress desire, because then you would become lifeless.

Don’t seek to fulfill desire so much as to understand desire. And don’t just renounce the objects of your desire, understand them; see them in their true light. See them for what they are really worth.

When you go through life with preferences but don’t let your happiness depend on any one of them, then you’re awake.

As the great Confucius said, “The one who would be constant in happiness must frequently change.”

Do you want to enjoy a melody? Do you want to enjoy a symphony? Don’t hold on to a few bars of the music. Don’t hold on to a couple of notes. Let them pass, let them flow. The whole enjoyment of a symphony lies in your readiness to allow the notes to pass.

Another illusion is that external events have the power to hurt you, that other people have the power to hurt you. They don’t. It’s you who give this power to them.

The concept is not the same as the reality. They’re different. That’s why I said to you earlier that the final barrier to finding God is the word “God” itself and the concept of God. It gets in the way if you’re not careful. It was meant to be a help; it can be a help, but it can also be a barrier.

“The day you teach the child the name of the bird, the child will never see that bird again.”

If you don’t look at things through your concepts, you’ll never be bored. Every single thing is unique.

Finally, if we are to believe the mystics (and it doesn’t take too much of an effort to understand this, or even believe it, but no one can see it at once), reality is whole, but words and concepts fragment reality.

“The ass that you mount and that you use to travel to a house is not the means by which you enter the house. You use the concept to get there; then you dismount, you go beyond it.”

Happiness is a state of nonillusion, of dropping the illusion.

An attachment destroys your capacity to love. What is love? Love is sensitivity, love is consciousness.

Love entails clarity of perception, objectivity; there is nothing so clear-sighted as love.

How can you love people when you need people? You can only use them.