Stop Fixing Yourself: Wake Up, All Is Well (The Anthony De Mello Legacy Library)

by Anthony de Mello

What Tony did for me was to help me understand the way our society programs people to habitually undermine their own happiness and then to blame themselves for it. Again, like so many of us, I was raised on the old formula that had me believing that if I worked hard, success would follow, and then happiness would come out of that. So, I followed the prescription. I worked hard on changing myself and my situation. Then, around the time I happened onto Tony’s work, I came to the realization that this formula was not the way happiness happened. It actually blocked happiness by producing a chronic condition of always seeking and never finding. Ironically, the first time I opened one of Tony’s books at random, I landed on a page which posed the very question that drives this old formula: What do you need to do to change yourself? Tony’s answer to this question astounded me. He said, you don’t have to do anything; it’s enough for you to simply be watchful and awake. Awareness, he said, releases reality to change you. He asserted that by simply being aware, all that is false and neurotic within you will drop and your eyes will open to the divinity surrounding you. You will suddenly see that all is well; that you are already happy, right now, and always have been; that you are already at peace right now, and always were, but you just did not know it. That’s where life becomes beautiful, he said, and all we have to do is to be aware of our reactions—positive and negative—and let gr...

What Tony did for me was to help me understand the way our society programs people to habitually undermine their own happiness and then to blame themselves for it. Again, like so many of us, I was raised on the old formula that had me believing that if I worked hard, success would follow, and then happiness would come out of that. So, I followed the prescription. I worked hard on changing myself and my situation. Then, around the time I happened onto Tony’s work, I came to the realization that this formula was not the way happiness happened. It actually blocked happiness by producing a chronic condition of always seeking and never finding. Ironically, the first time I opened one of Tony’s books at random, I landed on a page which posed the very question that drives this old formula: What do you need to do to change yourself? Tony’s answer to this question astounded me. He said, you don’t have to do anything; it’s enough for you to simply be watchful and awake. Awareness, he said, releases reality to change you. He asserted that by simply being aware, all that is false and neurotic within you will drop and your eyes will open to the divinity surrounding you. You will suddenly see that all is well; that you are already happy, right now, and always have been; that you are already at peace right now, and always were, but you just did not know it. That’s where life becomes beautiful, he said, and all we have to do is to be aware of our reactions—positive and negative—and let gr...

For two weeks I observed the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that generated the way I reacted to people and events (which mostly were stressful), and how those reactions distorted the way I saw the world. Then one fine day, I experienced the big discovery Tony was pointing to. I discovered that, in that exact moment, I had everything I needed to be happy. The only reason I was ever unhappy or discontent was because I was focused on what I did not have. That discovery happened in New York at Grand Central Station during rush hour. I was late and had missed my train. I was angry with myself, but I managed to step back into awareness. As I stood in the crowd, I observed my angst rattling my nerves, agitating me with anger and self-judging thoughts that were turning into projections, looking to blame someone else. But as I allowed my reaction to be the way it was, getting clear that the reaction was in me and not reality, and refraining from judging myself for having judged myself, the reaction gradually passed. All at once, I was aware of the splendor of Grand Central Station and dazzled by the immense human drama happening all around me. Something wonderful awakened in me and I felt love for every single person in that crowd. It was like a veil had been lifted, revealing the beauty and joy that was always there, free for the taking. Awareness had set me free. That freedom is what Anthony De Mello is pointing to. Our world needs it more than ever, and you can find your way to...

For two weeks I observed the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that generated the way I reacted to people and events (which mostly were stressful), and how those reactions distorted the way I saw the world. Then one fine day, I experienced the big discovery Tony was pointing to. I discovered that, in that exact moment, I had everything I needed to be happy. The only reason I was ever unhappy or discontent was because I was focused on what I did not have. That discovery happened in New York at Grand Central Station during rush hour. I was late and had missed my train. I was angry with myself, but I managed to step back into awareness. As I stood in the crowd, I observed my angst rattling my nerves, agitating me with anger and self-judging thoughts that were turning into projections, looking to blame someone else. But as I allowed my reaction to be the way it was, getting clear that the reaction was in me and not reality, and refraining from judging myself for having judged myself, the reaction gradually passed. All at once, I was aware of the splendor of Grand Central Station and dazzled by the immense human drama happening all around me. Something wonderful awakened in me and I felt love for every single person in that crowd. It was like a veil had been lifted, revealing the beauty and joy that was always there, free for the taking. Awareness had set me free. That freedom is what Anthony De Mello is pointing to. Our world needs it more than ever, and you can find your way to...

A sannyasi is a wandering mendicant who, having attained enlightenment, understands that the whole world is his home and the sky is his roof.

A sannyasi is a wandering mendicant who, having attained enlightenment, understands that the whole world is his home and the sky is his roof.

“I cannot believe this,” the villager exclaimed to the sannyasi when their paths crossed. The sannyasi responded, “What is it you cannot believe?” “I had a dream about you last night,” the villager said. “I dreamed that the Lord Vishnu said to me, ‘Tomorrow morning, you will leave the village, and you will run into a wandering sannyasi.’ And here you are!” “What else did the Lord Vishnu say to you?” the sannyasi asked. “He said that you possess a precious stone and that, should you give it to me, its value will make me the richest man in the world,” the villager said. “So—do you have such a stone?” The sannyasi began rummaging through his knapsack and, after a moment, pulled out an object. “Would this be the stone you saw in your dream?” said the sannyasi, handing the stone to the villager. The villager could not believe his eyes. It was the same stone—a diamond as big as his fist. He held the diamond in his two hands with great care. “Could I have this stone?” he asked. “Of course,” the sannyasi said. “Please, take it. I found it in the forest, and you’re welcome to it.” The villager took the diamond and went to sit under a tree on the outskirts of the village. He held the diamond close to his heart, and he experienced great joy. Now, this is the kind of joy most people feel the day they get something they really want. Have you ever stopped to ask how long that kind of joy lasts? You got the girl you wanted, right? You got the boy you wanted. You got that car. You got the...

“I cannot believe this,” the villager exclaimed to the sannyasi when their paths crossed. The sannyasi responded, “What is it you cannot believe?” “I had a dream about you last night,” the villager said. “I dreamed that the Lord Vishnu said to me, ‘Tomorrow morning, you will leave the village, and you will run into a wandering sannyasi.’ And here you are!” “What else did the Lord Vishnu say to you?” the sannyasi asked. “He said that you possess a precious stone and that, should you give it to me, its value will make me the richest man in the world,” the villager said. “So—do you have such a stone?” The sannyasi began rummaging through his knapsack and, after a moment, pulled out an object. “Would this be the stone you saw in your dream?” said the sannyasi, handing the stone to the villager. The villager could not believe his eyes. It was the same stone—a diamond as big as his fist. He held the diamond in his two hands with great care. “Could I have this stone?” he asked. “Of course,” the sannyasi said. “Please, take it. I found it in the forest, and you’re welcome to it.” The villager took the diamond and went to sit under a tree on the outskirts of the village. He held the diamond close to his heart, and he experienced great joy. Now, this is the kind of joy most people feel the day they get something they really want. Have you ever stopped to ask how long that kind of joy lasts? You got the girl you wanted, right? You got the boy you wanted. You got that car. You got the...

“Can you imagine how liberating it is to never be disillusioned again, to never be disappointed again? You’ll never feel let down again. Never feel rejected. Want to wake up? You want happiness? You want freedom? Here it is: Drop your false ideas.”

Contrary to what your culture and religion have taught you, nothing—but absolutely nothing of the world—can make you happy. The moment you see that, you will stop moving from one job to another, one friend or lover to another, one place, one spiritual technique, one guru to another. None of these things can give you a single minute of happiness. They can only offer you a temporary thrill, a pleasure, that initially grows in intensity then turns into pain if you lose them and boredom if you keep them. Think of the numberless persons and things that so excited you in the past. What happened? In every single instance, they ended up causing you suffering or boredom—did they not? It is absolutely essential that you understand this because, until you do, there is no question of your ever finding the Kingdom of Joy.

People have a vague idea as to what this thing is, and they read books and consult gurus in an attempt to find out what they must do to gain that elusive thing called Holiness or Spirituality. They pick up all sorts of methods, techniques, spiritual exercises, and formulas. Then, after years of fruitless striving, they become discouraged and confused and wonder what went wrong. Most often, people blame themselves. They think, “If I’d only practiced those techniques more regularly, or, if I had been more fervent or more generous, then I might have made it.”

Suppose there is a way to stop that tremendous drain of energy, health, and emotion that comes from such conflicts and confusion. Would you want that? Suppose there is a way that we would truly love one another, and be at peace, be at love. People ask me all the time, what do I need to do to change myself? If you are one of those people, I’ve got a big surprise for you! You don’t have to do anything. In fact, the more you do, the worse it gets. All you have to do is understand. The trouble with most people is that they’re busy trying to fix things in themselves that they really don’t understand. Stop fixing yourself. You’re OK. Don’t interfere. Don’t fix anything. Simply watch. Observe. These things in you that you struggle to fix just need to be understood. If you understood them, they would change.

Most people have never stopped to consider this simple fact: Their efforts are going to get them nowhere. Their efforts will only make things worse, as things become worse when you use fire to put out fire. Effort does not lead to growth. Effort, whatever the form it takes, whether it be willpower, habit, a technique, or a spiritual exercise, does not lead to change. At best, effort leads to repression and a covering over of the root problem. Effort may change the outward behavior, but it does not change the inner person.

All mystics—no matter what the theology and no matter what the religion—are unanimous on one thing: all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. They say you are already happy right now, though you don’t know it. Strange paradox, to be sure. Tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep, even though they don’t know it. They are having a nightmare. They don’t understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing we call human existence.

First your society and your culture taught you to believe that you would not be happy without certain persons and certain things. Just take a look around you. Everywhere you look, people have built their lives on the unquestioned belief that without money, power, success, approval, a good reputation, love, friendship, spirituality, or God, they cannot be happy. What is your particular combination? Once you swallowed this belief, you naturally developed an attachment to some person or thing you were convinced that, without it, you could not be happy. Then followed your efforts to acquire your precious thing or person, to cling to it once it was acquired, and to fight off every possibility of losing it. This finally led you to abject emotional dependence so that the object of your attachment had the power to thrill you when you attained it, to make you anxious lest you be deprived of it, and make you miserable when you lost it. Stop for a moment and contemplate in horror the endless list of attachments that you have become a prisoner to.

Take a look at the society we live in. It is rotten to the core, infected with attachments. What is an attachment? An attachment is an emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy.

Whenever you are anxious and afraid, it is because you might lose—or fail to get—the object of your attachment, isn’t it? And any time you feel jealous, isn’t it because someone might make off with what you are attached to? Almost all of your anger comes from someone standing in the way of your attachment, doesn’t it? See how paranoid you become when your attachment is threatened? You can’t think objectively. Your whole vision becomes distorted, doesn’t it? Every time you feel bored, isn’t it because you are not getting a sufficient supply of what you believe will make you happy? Of what you are attached to? And when you are depressed and miserable, the cause is there for everyone to see: Life is not giving you what you have convinced yourself you can’t be happy without.

Hardly anyone has been told the following truth: In order to be genuinely happy, there is one and only one thing you need to do—get deprogrammed and get rid of those attachments.

All you need to do is open your eyes and see that you do not really need the object of your attachment at all—that you were programmed, brainwashed into thinking that you could not be happy or you could not live without that particular person or thing.

Take a moment now to review all of your attachments. To each person or thing that comes to mind, say: “I am not really attached to you at all. I am merely deluding myself into the belief that without you I will not be happy.” Do this honestly and see the change that comes about within you. When you’re ready to exchange your illusions for reality, when you’re ready to exchange your dreams for facts, that’s when life finally becomes meaningful. That’s where life becomes beautiful. Can you imagine how liberating it is to never be disillusioned again, to never be disappointed again? You’ll never feel let down again. Never feel rejected. Want to wake up? You want happiness? You want freedom? Here it is: Drop your false ideas.

The first false belief: You cannot be happy without the things that you are attached to and that you consider so precious.

Another false belief: Happiness will come if you manage to change the situation you are in and the people around you. It’s not true. You stupidly squander so much energy trying to rearrange the world. If changing the world is your vocation in life, go right ahead and change it, but do not harbor the illusion that it will make you happy. What makes you happy or unhappy is not the world and the people around you, but the thinking in your head.

If it is happiness that you seek, you can stop wasting your energy trying to cure your baldness, building up an attractive body, or changing your residence, your job, your community, your lifestyle, or even your personality. Do you realize that you could change every one of these things—you could have the finest looks, the most charming personality, and the most pleasant of surroundings—and still be unhappy?

Another false belief: If all of your desires are fulfilled, you will finally be happy. Not true. In fact, it is these very desires and attachments that make you tense, frustrated, nervous, insecure, and fearful. Look at your list of your attachments and desires and to each of them, say these words: “Deep down in my heart, I know that even after I have gotten you, I will not get happiness.” Ponder the truth of these words. The fulfillment of desire can, at the most, bring flashes of pleasure and excitement. Don’t mistake them for happiness.

You also falsely think that your fears protect you, that your beliefs have made you what you are, and that your attachments make your life exciting and secure. You fail to see that they are actually a screen between you and life’s symphony. It is quite impossible, of course, to be fully conscious of every note in life’s symphony. But if your spirit becomes unclogged and your senses open, you will begin to perceive things as they really are. You will begin to interact with reality, and you will be entranced by the harmonies of the universe.

Look at it this way: You don’t see persons and things as they are; you see them as you are. If you wish to see them as they are, you must attend to your attachments and the fears that they generate.

A loving heart is sensitive to the whole of life—to all persons. A loving heart doesn’t harden itself to any person or thing. There is nothing so clear-sighted as love.

You can keep as many attachments as you want, but for each attachment you pay a price in lost happiness. Think of it this way: The nature of attachments is such that, even if you satisfy many of them in the course of a single day, the one attachment that was not satisfied will prey upon your mind and make you unhappy. There is no way to win the battle of attachments, yet you have been trained to blame yourself and to be blind to your unhappiness as a result of your cultural and inherited programming.

To find the Kingdom of Joy is the easiest thing in the world but also the most difficult. It’s easy because it is all around you and within you, and all you have to do is reach out and take possession of it. It’s difficult because, if you wish to possess the Kingdom, you can possess nothing else. That is, you must drop all inward leaning on any person or thing and forever withdraw from them the power to thrill you, excite you, or give you a feeling of security or well-being.

We don’t want to be happy. We’re programmed to want other things. To 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.” It is the same as saying to someone, even God, “You are my happiness. If I don’t get you, I refuse to be happy.” If we want to come awake—which is the same thing as saying, “If we want to love, if we want freedom, if we want joy and peace and spirituality”—this is the first thing we need to understand. Want a little test to prove that you don’t want to be happy? Think of someone you love very much—someone you’re close to, someone who is precious to you—and, in your mind, say to that person: “I’d rather have happiness than have you.” Then, see what happens. Did you feel selfish when you said it? We’ve been brainwashed into thinking, “How could I be so selfish?” But look at who’s being selfish. Imagine somebody saying to you, “How could you be so selfish that you’d choose happiness over me?” Wouldn’t you feel like responding, “Pardon me, but how could you be so selfish that you would demand I choose you above my own happiness?!”

Society and culture determine what it means to be a success and drill it into our heads, day and night. Stop to consider this: Having a good job or being famous or having a great reputation has absolutely nothing to do with happiness or success. Nothing! It is totally irrelevant. Do you want to be one of those people who society says made it? Made what?! Made asses of themselves because they drained all their energy getting something that was worthless. They’re frightened and confused. Do you call that a success? They are controlled and manipulated. They are miserable. They don’t enjoy life. They are constantly tense and anxious. Do you call that human?

Wake up! You don’t need this. It’s wasting your life. You can be blissfully happy without your attachments. People think that if they had no cravings, they would be like deadwood, but in fact they would lose their tension. If you get rid of your fear of failure and drop your tensions about succeeding, you will be yourself. You will be relaxed. You won’t be driving with your brakes on. That’s what would happen.

There’s a lovely account from Tranxu, a great Chinese sage, that goes: “When the archer shoots for no particular prize, he has all his skills. When he shoots to win a brass buckle, he is already nervous. When he shoots for a gold prize, he goes blind, sees two targets, and is out of his mind. His skill has not changed, but the prize divides him. He cares! He thinks more of winning than of shooting, and the need to win drains him of power.” Isn’t that an image of most people? When you’re living for nothing, you’ve got all your skills, you’ve got all your energy, you’re relaxed, and you don’t care. It doesn’t matter to you whether you win or lose. Now there’s human living for you. That’s what life is all about.

Take a look at the people around you. Is there a single person among them who hasn’t become addicted to those worldly feelings? Is there a single person who is not controlled by them, hungering for them, spending every minute of their waking life consciously or unconsciously seeking them? When you see this, you will understand how people attempt to gain the world and, in the process, lose their soul. For they live empty, soulless lives.

Now suppose you stopped all efforts to change yourself and ended all self-dissatisfaction. Would you then be doomed to go to sleep at night having passively accepted everything in you and around you? There is another choice besides laborious self-pushing, on the one hand, or stagnant acceptance, on the other. It is the way of self-understanding. It is far from easy because to understand what you are requires complete freedom from all desire to change what you are into something else. Consider the attitude of a scientist who studies the habits of ants without the slightest desire to change them. He has no other aim. He’s not attempting to train them or get anything out of them. He’s interested in ants; he wants to learn as much as possible about them. That’s his attitude. The day you attain a posture like that, you will experience a miracle. You will change—effortlessly and correctly. Change will happen; you will not have to bring it about. If what you attempt is not to change yourself but to observe yourself—to study every one of your reactions to people and things without judgment, condemnation, or desire to reform yourself—your observations will be nonselective, comprehensive, never fixed on rigid conclusions, and always open and fresh from moment to moment. Then you will notice a marvelous thing happening within you: You will be flooded with the light of awareness. You will become transparent and transformed.

If people want happiness so badly, why don’t they attempt to understand their false beliefs? First, because it never occurs to them to see them as false or even as beliefs. They see them as facts and reality, so deeply have they been programmed. Second, because they are scared to lose the only world they know—the world of desires, attachments, fears, social pressures, tensions, ambitions, worries, and guilt with occasional flashes of pleasure and relief and excitement. It’s like someone that is afraid to let go of a nightmare because, after all, it is the only world he knows.

What you call “the experience of happiness” is not happiness at all but the excitement and thrill caused by some person or thing or event. True happiness is uncaused. You are happy for no reason at all. True happiness cannot be experienced. It is not within the realm of consciousness. It is unselfconsciousness.

Look around and see if you can find a single, genuinely, happy person, someone who is fearless and free from insecurities, anxieties, tensions, and worries. You would be lucky if you found one in a hundred thousand. This should lead you to be suspicious of the programming and the beliefs that you all hold in common. But you have also been programmed not to suspect, not to doubt, just to trust the assumptions that have been put into you by your tradition, your culture, your society, and your religion. And if you are not happy, you have been trained to blame yourself, not your programming and not your cultural and inherited ideas and beliefs. What makes it even worse is the fact that most people are so brainwashed that they do not even realize how unhappy they are—like a man in a dream who has no idea he is dreaming.

The great Meister Eckhart said, “God is not attained by a process of addition to anything in the soul, but by a process of subtraction.” You don’t do anything to be free; you drop illusions.

If at first there is a sluggishness in practicing awareness, don’t force yourself. That would be an effort again. Just be aware of your sluggishness without any judgment or condemnation. You will then understand that awareness involves as much effort as a lover makes to go to her beloved, or a hungry man makes to eat his food, or a mountaineer to get to the top of his beloved mountain. So much energy is expended, so much hardship even, but it isn’t effort, it’s fun! In other words, awareness is an effortless activity.

The first truth: You must choose between your attachment and happiness. You cannot have both. The moment you pick up an attachment, your heart is thrown out of kilter and your ability to lead a joyful, carefree, serene life is destroyed.

No event justifies a negative feeling. There is no situation in the world that justifies a negative feeling. Life is easy; life is delightful. It’s only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, and your cravings. That’s what all our mystics have been crying themselves hoarse to tell us. But nobody listens. The negative feeling is in you, not reality. It comes from your programming. The first thing you need to do is get in touch with negative feelings that you’re not even aware of.

Almost every negative emotion you experience is the direct outcome of an attachment. So, there you are, loaded down by your attachments and striving desperately to attain happiness precisely by holding on to the load. It’s absurd, but this is the only method that everyone has been taught for attaining happiness, yet it’s a method guaranteed to produce anxiety, disappointment, and sorrow.