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“Four steps to wisdom. The first thing you need to do is get in touch with negative feelings that you’re not even arware of. – The second step is to understand that the feeling is in you, not in reality. – The third step: Never identify with that feeling. It has nothing to do with the “I”. – The fourth step: How do you change things? How do you change yourselves?”

Anthony de Mello in “Awareness”

On expanding the third step; never identify with negative feelings:

P. 80 “If you want to say depression is in there, that’s fine; if you want to say gloominess is in there, that’s fine. But not: I am gloomy.”
P. 80 “Your depression and your thrills have nothing to do with your happiness. Those are the swings of the pendulum.”
P. 81 “You don’t even need to be in love. Who told you you do? What you need is to be free. What you need is to love. That’s it; that’s your nature. But what you’re really telling me is that you want to be desired. You want to be applauded, to be attractive, to have all the little monkeys running after you. You’re wasting your life. Wake up! You don’t need this. You can be blissfully happy without it.”

The 4 Steps to Wisdom repeated again on P. 89: “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.

Tags: "Awareness" book, "I" vs "Me", Attachment, Awareness, Change, Detachment, Formula, Happiness, Identity, Negativity, Other, Parenting, Reality, Self, Suffering, Thrills, Understanding, Wisdom

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“When your illusions drop, you’re in touch with reality at last, and believe me, you will never again be lonely. – Lonliness is cured by contact with reality.”

11 Nov

Anthony de Mello in “Awareness”

Tags: "Awareness" book, Formula, Illusion, Lonliness, Other, Reality, Self, Suffering

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“What is the most important thing of all? It’s called self-observation. – No one can show you a technique. The moment you pick up a technique, you’re programmed again. – What’s [self-observation]? It means to watch everything in you and around you as far as possible and to watch it as if it were happening to someone else. – It means you do not personalize what is happening to you. It means you look at things as if you have no connection to them whatsoever.”

11 Nov

– Anthony de Mello in “Awareness” on Self-observation, P.35.

More on the process and understanding of self-observation, “I” vs “Me” and suffering below.

on P.46 “Be aware of your presence in this room. Say to yourself, “I am in this room.” It’s as if you were outside of yourself looking at yourself. Notice a slightly different feeling than if you were looking at things in the room. Later we’ll ask, “who is this person doing the looking?” I am looking at me. What’s an “I”? What’s “me”? … If you find yourself condemning yourself or approving yourself, don’t stop the condemnation and don’t stop the judgement or approval, just watch it. I’m condemning me; I’m disapproving of me; I’m approving of me. Just look at it, period. Don’t try to change it… Just observe what is going on.”

on P. 47 “Notice you have “I” observing “me.” This is an interesting phenomenon that has never ceased to cause wonder to philosophers, mystics, scientists, psychologists, that the “I” can observe “me”… The great mystics of the East are really referring to that “I”, not to the “me”. As a matter of fact, some of these mystics tell us that we begin first with things, with an awareness of things; then we move on to an awareness of thoughts (that’s the me); and finally we get to an awareness of the thinker. Things, thoughts, thinker. What we’re really searching for is the thinker. Can the thinker know himself? Can I know what “I” is? Some of these mystics reply, “Can the knife cut itself? Can the tooth bite itself?…Can the “I” know itself?”

P.47 “Am I my thoughts, the thoughts that I am thinking? No. Thoughts come and go; I am not my thoughts. Am I my body? They tell us that millions of cells in our body are change or are renewed every minute, so that by the end of seven years we don’t have a single loving cell in our body that was there seven years before. Cells come and go. Cells arise and die. But “I” seems to persist. So am “I” my body? Evidently not!”

P.48 “Is my name an essential part of me, of the “I”? Is my religion an essential part of the “I”?

P.49 – 50 “What constantly changes is “me”. Does “I” ever change? Does the observer ever change?… So when you step out of yourself and observe “me”, you no longer identify with “me”. Suffering exists in “me,” so when you identify “I” with “me,” suffering begins.”

P. 51 “Anytime you have a negative feeling towards anyone, you’re living in an illusion. There’s something seriously wrong with you. You are not seeing reality. Something inside of you has to change… The one who has to change is you.”

Tags: "Awareness" book, "I" vs "Me", Attachment, Awareness, Change, Definition, Detachment, Expertise, Formula, Other, Self, Self-observation, Suffering, Teacher, Technique, Top Quote