Awareness - Anthony De Mello
One-Sentence Summary:
A book to become aware of what you are doing, thinking and feeling through stories and insightful questions.
Rating On Time Of Review:
I end up continuously examining myself deeper and deeper. Possibly a staple in my future reading list.
Book notes below. My thoughts are in italics. Opinions are mine during the time of review.
Date Reviewed: May 8, 2020
On Waking Up
“What they want is relief; a cure is painful.” / What psychologists think people actually want… and yeah. If we think about drugs and how people want immediate solutions… it’s relief from the present situation.
On The Proper Kind of Selfishness
“She would love me at the cost of her happiness and I would love her at the cost of my happiness, and so you’ve got two unhappy people, but long live love!” / though this seemed laughable at first.. it tends to become a common way decisions are made in relationships. It makes me wonder further on whether the need for compromise in a marriage or partnership has become an acceptable norm because so many people have chosen to be unhappy for love but need a way to justify their decision. Humans are animals of justification after all.
Are We Talking About Psychology In This Spirituality Course?
“Maybe they should have suffered a little more. Maybe they ought to touch rock bottom and say, “I’m sick of tall.” It’s only when you’re sick of your sickness that you’ll get out of it. Most people got to a psychiatrist or a psychologist to get relief. I reap: to get relief. Not to get out of it.” / On the matter of ‘convincing’ someone… it requires an internal realization for someone to change their mind. At times, the harsher the truth they experience the faster they change their minds. This is also why one should seek to be in uncomfortable situations often so they can experience the bottoms.
“Do you know one sign that you’ve woken up? It’s when you are asking yourself, “Am I crazy, or are al of them crazy?”” / Realizing that you are putting on a great act yourself and so is everyone around you. Everyone is a lunatic and they are crazy. The faster you accept and realize this the easier it is to ‘wake up’… it brings upon the question of whether you truly want to wake up.. and the choice you make after knowing what it means to ‘wake up’.
Neither is Renunciation the Solution
The more you reject something the more you empower it. Seek to understand the root of the desire to drop it. It’s like constantly asking ‘why’ till you get to the root of everything… you can’t drop a desire till you examine it for what it truly is. Don’t push it away.
Listen and Unlearn
“Are you listening, as most people do, in order to confirm what you already think?”
“The first step, as I said was a readiness to admit that you don’t want to wake up, that you don’t want to be happy. There are all kinds of resistances to that within you. The second step is a readiness to understand, to listen, to challenge your whole belief system.” / hmmm… getting comfortable with accepting the unknown and embracing insecurity… not an easy thing to just ‘get’… will have to let this marinate over the years.
The Masquerade of Charity
It’s fine to be selfish. When you do something for someone you get something. Even if it’s a sense of fulfillment. Selfishness has a spectrum and it’s not a binary ‘negative’ society makes it seem to be. Be selfish. A mother saving her child or a soldier dying for his country… there is a reason for this act. There is always an element of self. A mother won’t save a random child like her own… a soldier won’t die for a random country like he did his own. I think such a win-win relationship makes sense. I do things to make the world better but it’s also because I’m doing it in the manner I want and in the hopes that I’ll be rewarded for it in the future. It’s always a two-way street.
“You’re a healthy individual because you’re self-interested. That’s healthy.”
Self-Observation
“We’re always fixing things, aren’t we? It never strikes us that things don’t need to be fixed. They really don’t. This is a great illumination. They need to be understood. If you understood them, they’d change.” / Introspection is required to build systems that don’t change but accentuate what’s within.
Awareness Without Evaluating Everything
“No judgment, no commentary, no attitude: one simply observes, one studies, one watches without desire to change what is. Because if you desire to change what is into what you think should be, you no longer understand.” / Everyone thinks their opinion or advice matters. It doesn’t which also allows me to know who I’d rather speak to… avoid those who jump to giving advice on something they think they have much to speak on but actually don’t. Same lesson for me too. Don’t seek to change people. Seek to understand the cause of their behaviour. Seek to understand and accept. When I work with entrepreneurs, this will be important to incorporate as I seek to understand the company they wish to create and where I could help… but understanding is required for all this. Same thing with investing. Seek to understand the company… constant observation of the business.
“The great Socrates said, “The un-aware life is not worth living.” That’s self-evident truth. Most people don’t live aware lives. They live mechanical lives, mechanical thoughts - generally somebody else’s - mechanical emotions, technical actions, mechanical reactions.” / ties into one’s identity… like the sense of pride you get when your country wins in the Olympics, or when South Korea is congratulated for handling the COVID outbreak well, or when you get complimented on the shirt…. I didn’t do shit to help South Korea, I didn’t win that Olympic medal, I didn’t make this shirt… it’s all from identification self-imposed from a society filled with unawareness of the self…. Where your sense of self is so weak that you rely on the collectivism to give meaning to the individuality.
When someone compliments me… it may say more about the person than me. It might simply mean that they are in a great mood and I’m just a recipient of that mood. Not that they are attracted to me. As behaviour comes from an internal state… then doing work where one constructs a system that can produce more positive internal states in people would be work worth doing.
Finding Yourself
Observe the self. Whether I talk poorly of myself or praise myself… don’t interject thinking “oh I shouldn’t think this.”… don’t worry. Just observe. Watch it like an outsider would.
Be aware that the thoughts you think are your own… thinks you believe in… may not really be from within but influenced from outside..
Stripping Down to the “I”.
“All suffering is caused by my identifying myself with something, whether that something is within me or outside of me.” / Quite the fascinating chapter that was confusing at first… and required multiple rereads to understand. But it’s a chapter on splitting out the labels and identifications imposed on the self… to try and get to the root.. always first principles. The root of what the desires and identifications mean. The more I identify with various labels… the more I suffer. Quite the valuable chapter in looking at the desires causing anxiety within me… and realizing that the desire is the result of an identity I’ve imposed on the self. Like, the desire for security of income through investments/jobs is also so that I can spend my time patiently doing the work I love.. and that is tied to the identity that someone with my pedigree shouldn’t be in any financial crunch of sorts limiting such an intellectual pursuit. It’s like seeking permission through the wealth… to get the ‘okay’ that what I’m pursuing is fine…
On Dependence
“Loneliness is not cured by human company. Loneliness is cured by contact with reality…….. You can only know what aloneness is when you drop your clinging, when you drop your dependency.” / A rather refreshing look separating out being lonely and aloneness. One can appreciate and seek aloneness and find comfort and a strong sense of presence in it. This is rather different from the feeling of loneliness and for me… this is something I’ve created upon myself.. to feel such anxiety.
“…when emptiness surfaces, what do you do? You run away, turn on the television, turn on the radio, read a book, search for human company, seek entertainment, seek distraction. Everybody does that. It’s big business nowadays, an organized industry to distract us and entertain us.” / Just stop. It’s also a way for me to throw away my identity as an extrovert and actually embrace the silent walk.
How Happiness Happens
“You fear no one because you’re perfectly content to be nobody. You don’t give a damn about success or failure. They mean nothing.” / the free soul. Is this true freedom? It true success when you fear nothing? When you understand yourself?
“… react less and act more.”
“Get rid of your fear of failure, your tensions about succeeding, you will be yourself. Relaxed.” / Not what ’strategically’ makes sense. But what makes sense for you. Easier said than done. It’s the greed and ’need to win’ that stumps you.
“… in awareness you will understand that honour doesn’t mean a thing. It’s a social convention, that’s all.”
“Someone once said, “The three most difficult things for a human being are not physical fears or intellectual achievements. They are, first, returning love for hate; second, including the excluded; third, admitting that you are wrong.”… / ah fuck. I think I was wrong about investing… yeah I definitely love investing… and it only took 2 years and applying for 200+ jobs to realize that I loved the act of investing. But, I do not think I was wrong to leave the role of investing in a public fund. Because I’ve also learned that I like to take control of systems and if I’m investing… I need to be managing my own money. Turns out, I also love creating and sharing ideas.
“You can be happy right now, with the neurosis, You want even better news? There’s only one reason why you’re not experiencing what in India we call Anand - bliss, bliss. There’s only one reason why you’re not experiencing bliss at this present moment, and it’s because you’re thinking or focusing on what you don’t have.” / like what Naval Ravikant said… happiness is a choice… and I do believe that. I am guilty of focusing on what I don’t have.. those that stem from desires.
Listen to yourself in order to listen for others.
Labels
“You know what’s going to happen to you if you identify yourself with these things [labels like I’m a failure, a lawyer, a businessman]. You’re going to cling to them, you’re going to be worried that they may fall apart, and that’s where your suffering comes in.” / No need to give myself labels to create a sense of identity others can understand… or to even justify my existence of behaviour.. because that’s where my suffering begins. I suffer when the world doesn’t respond to my identity and well.. that’s because I’m holding onto the label too tight.
Obstacle to Happiness
“Then you don’t have to apologize to anyone, you don’t have to explain anything to anyone, you don’t give a damn what anybody thinks about you or what anybody says about you. You have no worries; you’re happy. That’s what I call being a success.”
“If I change my profession tomorrow, it’s just like changing my clothes. I am untouched. Are you your clothes… Are you your profession? Stop identifying with them. They come and go.” / You are what you repeatedly do. What your profession was before doesn’t matter. Let it all go. What people with such identities did also don’t matter either. Career titles are labels that need be shedded and unheeded.
“You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It’s only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings.” / As Taleb says, via negativa. Subtract to improve. Happiness is one such thing that wanes the more you add on.
Four Steps to Wisdom
First step => get in touch with the negative feeling
Second step => the feeling is in you, not reality…. You’re the problem. Not the world.
“As one man said, “I got a pretty good education. It took me years to get over it.” / How modern education fails to teach one to live.
Like the angst I feel from the question of ‘is this the right path?’… ‘am I on track?’… how foolish. For there is no way to know. There is no right path. It’s all made up in my mind to think there is one but there isn’t. People are obsessed with finding things that ‘work’ and ‘pivoting’ but there is no answer. No one knows until you go through it.
Third step => don’t identify with it. “Don’t say, “I am depressed.” If you want to say, “It is depressed,” that’s all right.” / let the feelings be. They will pass. They just exist in the present reality. That is all. It’s human insecurity and desire to feel special that makes you want to embody said feelings.
“What you need is to be free. What you need is to love. That’s it; that’s your nature.” / you don’t have to belong to a tribe. You really don’t. That’s just the need to feel desired. Which becomes the proxy for desiring wealth, status, achievement etc… to be desired.
“You don’t do anything to be free, you drop something. Then you’re free.” / Subtract the ego.
Fourth Step => we think everything will be solved if other people change. Nope. It’s not them. It’s you.
When you change, everything changes.
Change as Greed
“To say no to people - that’s wonderful..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…. I won’t feel obligated to be with you; I won’t feel obligated to say yes to you.” / It’s not about being polite or socially correct. It’s all rooted in a weak desire to be liked. To feel like your identity, your titles should be respected what school you went to to be respected, it’s all folly. That’s true selfishness of the negative kind. It’s rooted in desire to live the illusion fed to you by the weak masses.
“… begin to be aware of your present condition…. 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.”
A Changed Person
To not give a shit of what others think.. to no longer desire to impress anyone.. even in the most unconscious of ways. To feel the need to explain things.. to be fine being misunderstood.
“Nobody ever rejects you; they’re only rejecting what they think you are.” / their image of you.. something you can’t control.
Losing the Rat Race
“You’re never so entered on yourself as when you’re depressed. You’re never so ready to forget yourself as when you are happy. Happiness releases you from self.” / maybe this can be the indicator for me to realize what I’m feeling. That I’m in such a state and my mind is leading me down the road of self pity and blaming the world when it has nothing to do with the world but myself. Hence, choose happiness.
Permanent Worth
“One understands one’s personal worth when one no longer identifies or defines one’s self in terms of these transient things… I’m really neither beautiful nor ugly.” / ignoring how we are judged/perceived in the minds of others. Transient things like money, work success, mate, are all fragile things.
“Pleasant experiences make life delightful, but they don’t lead to growth in themselves. What leads to growth is painful experiences. Suffering points up an area in you where you have not yet grown, where you need to grow and be transformed and change.” / When you feel that disappointment/depression/suffering… observe it. Try to see what it says about yourself. Seek to understand it and you will not go to it as often.
Even on the desire to seek fulfillment. That too is tying happiness to the desire for fulfillment. That too is identifying happiness with something else. Observe that.
Desire, Not Preference
Don’t suppress desire because it gives you energy. Seek to understand it. Remember, if you reject it it gets more prominent inside you. It’s only natural to desire. The key is to observe it and understand it. Scrutinize it.
“Every time you are unhappy, you have added something to reality.”
“As the great Confucius said, “The one who would be constant in happiness must frequently change.” Flow.” / hmm.. wonder if this is because I continuously evolve. The external environment can be used in tandem as an amplifier for the internal.. but changing the external environment alone won’t achieve change to do the internal. Change always happens internally.
Clinging to Illusion
When a society didn’t have anything… all were happy. Probably why the rural villages have happiness scores. They’re ignorant to the luxuries of developed worlds. But once luxuries come in… people start playing the relative comparison game and when someone has something you don’t… then you become unhappy.
“The day somebody tells me I’m a genius and I take that seriously, I’m in big trouble.” / it’s dangerous to cling to such a label… another illusion to tie ones self worth too.. because now you will live a life trying to proof the label to be true.. when it doesn’t mean anything.
“Life is something that happens to us while we’re busy making other plans.”
Cultural Conditioning
“I abhor all national flags because they are idols. What are we saluting? I salute humanity, not a flag with an army around it.” / yes… funny thing this sense of nationalism.
“Learn what it means to experience something fully, then drop it and maven to the next moment, uninfluenced by the previous one.”
Addicted Love
“… I made the great discovery that if you are angry, Mother, there’s something wrong with you….Whether there’s something wrong with me or not, I’ll examine that independently of your anger. I’m not going to be influenced by your anger.” / Honesty. But also.. when I feel rage and anger.. it definitely helps to sit down and examine myself.
“Nobody does wrong in awareness.”
Hidden Agendas
“The moment you make a goal out of it and attempt to get it, you’re seeking ego glorification, ego promotion. You want the good feeling that you’ve made it. When you do “make ti,” you won’t know."
“Charity is never so lovely as when one has lost consciousness that one is practicing charity, “You mean I helped you? I was enjoying myself. I was just doing my dance. It helped you, that’s wonderful. Congratulations to you. No credit to me.”
Assorted Landmines
“Loneliness is when you’re missing people, aloneness is when you’re enjoying yourself.”
Not Pushing It
Not forcing it. Not constantly pushing with effort.
Losing Control
“.. the sign of a sick child is that he is always hovering around his parents; he is interested in persons. The healthy child has no interest in persons, he is interested in things… he goes out to explore the world; he is curious.” / curiosity is what we should all strive for.
The Land of Love
“Think of a life in which you depend on no one emotionally, so that no one has the power to make you happy or miserable anymore.”
How? “The love of work which you enjoy doing for the love of itself; the love of laughter and intimacy with people to whom you do not cling and on whom you do not depend emotionally but whose company you enjoy….take on activities that you can do with your whole being, activities that you so love to do that while you’re engaged in them success, recognition, and approval simply do not mean a thing to you.” / that’s the goal… to continuously create… to have wonderful conversations.
“.. when you are addictions, when you are aware of your desires and fears…. Psychological insight is a great help, not analysis, however; analysis is paralysis. Insight is not necessarily analysis… “It’s the ‘Aha’ experience that counts.” Merely analyzing gives no help… the “Aha” experience, that’s insight. That is change.” / so much to unpack here. Very true… listening further to my gut my be the way.
Disclaimer - I’m writing this for myself. For my past, present and future self. Much of what I write is my opinion. If it somehow ignites agreement in you then great, I’d love to hear about it. If it sparks disagreement in you, don’t reach out because I don’t care for it. There always are obvious exceptions and the flawed person in me hasn’t considered them all.