ANTHONY De MELLO: Awareness

Of all the books I have read, I return again and again to the writings of Anthony de Mello. More than any other writer he inspires me to continue my spiritual journey. I trust that you will find these few quotations stimulating, provoking or just plain confusing!

This eastern saying which he often quotes sums up much that I have gained from reading his thoughts: "When the sage points to the moon, all that the idiot sees is the finger." It captures so well my experience of how religion distracted me from actually connecting with God.

"A religious belief," said the Master, "is not a statement of Reality, but a hint, a clue about something that is a mystery, beyond the grasp of human thought. In short, a religious belief is only a finger pointing to the Moon. Some religious people never get beyond the study of the finger. Other are engaged in sucking it........Rare indeed is the religionist who is sufficiently detached from the finger to see what it is indicating - these are those who having gone beyond belief are taken for blasphemers." (One Minute Nonsense)

Another of his thoughts captures some of the thinking that has helped me to integrate my spirituality with my exploration of personal development thinking: The Master kept constantly reminding people of their robot-like existence: "How can you call yourself human if every one of your thoughts, feelings and actions are mechanical, arising, not from yourself but your conditioning."  (One Minute Nonsense)

For me spirituality is about becoming the person I am made to be. And that is a journey of becoming free from my past conditioning, from my unhelpful habitual responses and  becoming able to choose my own responses and interpretations of events.

Much of Anthony de Mello's writing is about this growth in awareness. And so it is, perhaps, that of all his books it is this one on Awareness that I return to most often.

John