AWAKE

“The day after his ordination as a Jesuit in India, Anthony de Mello made a promise; Learn to truly help people so that their concierge was not useless.

He learned from Mello, and what he learned he taught through his writings, and, more directly in the workshops and retreats he directed throughout the world. What he taught was always the importance of being aware - of waking up from our illusions about ourselves, about the world and about others, and the importance of realizing that we are the happiness we seek.

Enjoy this book. Let the words penetrate your soul and listen, as Tony would suggest, with your heart. Listen to their stories, and you will listen to your own stories. I leave him with Tony - a spiritual guide - a friend who will accompany him all his life. ”

J. Francis Stroud, SJ De Mello Spirituality Center Fordham Bronx University, New York.

ON THE AWAKENING

Spirituality means waking up. Most people are asleep, but they don't know it. They are born asleep, they live asleep, they marry asleep, they have sleeping children, they die asleep without ever waking up. They never understand the charm and beauty of what we call human existence. All mystics - Catholics, Christians, non-Christians, whatever their theology, regardless of their religion - affirm one unanimous thing: all is well. Although everything is a mess, everything is fine. This is undoubtedly a strange paradox, but the tragic thing is that most people never realize that everything is fine, because they are asleep. They have a nightmare.

Last year I heard on Spanish television a story about a gentleman who knocks on his son's bedroom door and says:

- Jaime, wake up! Jaime replies:

- I don't want to get up, dad. The father shouts:

Get up, you have to go to school.

- I do not want to go to school. -

Why not?

- For three reasons: the first, because it is boring; the second, because the children make fun of me; and the third, because I hate school.

- Well, I'm going to give you three reasons why you MUST go to school - replies the father -: The first is because it is your duty; the second, because you are forty-five years old; and the third, because you are the director.

Wake up, wake up! It is already grown. He is too big to be asleep. Wake up! Stop playing with your toys.

Most people say they want to leave the kindergarten, but don't believe them. Do not believe them! All they want is to patch their broken toys. “Give me back my wife. Give me back my job. Give me back my money, Give me back my fame and my success. ” That is what they want; They want their toys changed. That's it. Even the best psychologist will tell you that people really don't want to heal. What he wants is a relief; A cure is painful.

Waking up is unpleasant, you know it. You are pleasantly and comfortably lying down. It is irritating to be woken up. That is the reason why a wise man will not try to wake people up. I will be wise now and in no way will I try to wake you, if you are asleep. Actually, it is not my business even if I sometimes say:

Wake up! I should do my thing, dance my own dance. If you take advantage of it, great !; if not, what a pity! As the Arabs say: "THE NATURE OF THE RAIN IS THE SAME, BUT MAKES THORNS GROW IN THE PANTANS AND FLOWERS IN THE GARDENS".

ON LEGITIMATE EGOISM

The first thing I want you to understand, if you really want to wake up, is that you don't want to wake up. The first step to wake up is to have enough honesty to admit that they don't like it. They do not want to be happy. Do you want a test? Let's rehearse It will take exactly one minute:

They could close their eyes or keep them open, it really doesn't matter. Think of someone you love very much, someone close to you, someone who is very valuable to you, and give that person mentally: `` I'd rather be happy to have you, see what happens, He would prefer to be happy to have you. If I could choose, I would definitely choose happiness. How many of you felt selfish when they said that? It seems that many. Come on, how have we been brainwashed? Do you see how our brain was washed so that we think: How can I be so selfish? But look who is selfish. Imagine that someone says to you: How can you be so selfish as to choose happiness instead of choosing me love? ?: Excuse me, but how can you be so selfish as to demand that I choose you over my happiness?

Once a woman told me that when she was a child her Jesuit cousin organized a spiritual retreat in the Jesuit church in Milwaukee. He began each conference with these words: The test of love is sacrifice, and the measure of love is selflessness. What a wonder! I asked her: Do you want me to love her at the cost of my happiness? S, I replied. Wouldn't it be wonderful? She would love me at the cost of her happiness, and I would love her at the cost of my happiness, so we would have two unfortunate people, but may love live!

ON THE DESIRE OF HAPPINESS

I was saying we don't want to be happy. We want other things. Or more exactly: We don't want to be unconditionally happy. I am willing to be happy as long as I have this and that. But this really is to tell our friend or our God or anyone:

You are my happiness. If I don't have you, I refuse to be happy.

It is very important to understand that. We cannot imagine happiness without those conditions. It is very true. We cannot imagine happiness without them. They have taught us to encrypt our happiness in them.

So that is the first thing we should do if we want to wake up, which is the same as saying:

If we want to love, if we want to be free, if we want joy and peace and spirituality.

In that sense, spirituality is the most practical thing in the world.

I challenge anyone to think of something more practical than spirituality as I have defined it. Not as piety, not as devotion, not as religion, not as worship but as spirituality -

Wake! wake! let's look at the anguish that is everywhere, let's see the loneliness, let's see the fear, the confusion, the conflict in people's hearts, the internal conflict, the external conflict.

Imagine that someone shows you how to get rid of all that. Imagine that someone shows you how to stop this tremendous expenditure of energy, health, emotion that is the result of these conflicts and that confusion.

They would like to?

Imagine that someone shows us the way to love each other

the others, and to live in peace and with love. Can you imagine anything more practical than that? But instead, there are people who think that big business is more practical, that politics is more practical, that science is more practical. What is the use of taking a man to the moon if we cannot live on earth?

Is psychology more practical than spirituality? There is nothing more practical than spirituality. What can the poor psychologist do? It can only relieve tension. I am a psychologist, and I do psychotherapy, and this great conflict comes to me sometimes, when I have to choose between psychology and spirituality. I wonder if this makes sense to any of those present. It made no sense to me for many years.

I will explain: It made no sense to me for many years, until suddenly I discovered that people have to suffer enough in a relationship to become disillusioned with all relationships. Isn't that terrible? You have to suffer enough in a relationship to wake up and say: I'm tired! There has to be a better way to live than depending on another human being. ” And what was I doing as a psychotherapist?

People came with their relationship problems, their communication problems, etc., and sometimes, what I did helped them. But I'm sorry to say that sometimes it didn't help them because that kept them asleep. Maybe they should have suffered a little more. Maybe they should get to the bottom and say, "I'm tired of everything." Only when you are tired of your tiredness can you overcome it. Most people go to the psychiatrist or a psychologist for relief. I repeat: to receive relief, not to heal.

There is a story about Juanito, who, they said, was mentally retarded. But obviously it was not as you will see. Juanito goes to pottery class at his school for special children and takes his piece of clay and starts modeling it. Take a piece of clay and go to the corner of the room to play with her. The teacher approaches and says:

-Hi Juanito!

-Hello! - Juanito answers

-What do you have in your hand, Juanito?

- This is a little cow dung.

-What are you doing with that manure?

- I'm making a teacher.

The teacher thinks: "Juanito had a regression, " so he calls the principal, who was passing at that time and says:

- Juanito had a regression.

Then the director approaches Juanito and says:

-Hello! son.

-Hello! - Juanito replied

-What do you have in your hand, Juanito?

- A little cow dung

-What are you doing with manure?

- A school principal.

The principal thinks that this case is for the school psychologist. "Call the psychologist!" He says.

The psychologist, an intelligent guy. He approaches Juanito and says:

-Hello!

-Hello! - Juanito replies.

- Juanito, I know what you have in your hand.

-That?

- A little cow dung.

- Right.

- And I know what you're doing with him.

-That?

- You're doing a psychologist.

- You are wrong. There is not enough manure!

And they said he was mentally retarded!

The poor psychologists are doing a good job. They really do. There are times when psychotherapy is a great help because when you are about to go crazy, crazy to bind, you are about to become a psychotic or a mystic, the opposite of a madman.

That is what a mystic is, the opposite of a madman.

Want to know a sign that you have already woken up? This is when you ask yourself: "Am I crazy, or are the others crazy?" That's right, really, because we are crazy. The whole world is crazy. Crazy

certificates! The only reason we are not locked in an insane asylum is because we are too many. So we are crazy. We live from crazy ideas about love, relationships, happiness, joy, all things. We are crazy to such an extent that I have come to believe that if everyone agrees on something, you can rest assured that everyone is wrong! All new ideas. All the great ideas, when they started, were in the minority of one. That man called Jesus Christ - a minority of one -. Everyone said something different about what He said. Buddha - minority of one - Everyone said something different from what he said. I think it was Bertrand Russell who said: "Every great idea begins as blasphemy, " that is true, and said exactly. You will hear many blasphemies during these days - "He has blasphemed!" Because people are crazy, everyone is crazy, and the sooner you see it, the better for your mental and spiritual health. Do not trust them. Do not trust your best friends. Disillusion yourself of your best friends. They are very bright. The same as you in your dealings with other people, although you probably don't know it. Ah, you are so cunning, so subtle, so witty. You are playing a great role.

I'm not praising you, right? But I repeat: You want to wake up, you are playing a great role, and you don't even know it. They think they love. Ha! Who do they love? Even self-denial makes them feel good, right? “I am sacrificing myself! I am living according to my ideal. ” But you get some benefit from that, don't you? They always get something from everything they do, until they wake up.

So here is the first step: Realize that you don't want to wake up. It is quite difficult for him to wake up if he was hypnotized to believe that a piece of old newspaper is a check for a million dollars. How difficult it is to separate from that piece of old newspaper!

TAMPOCO WAIVER IS THE SOLUTION

Whenever you practice renunciation, you are deceived. What about that!. It cheats. What does he give up? Whenever you give up something, you are forever bound to what you give up. There is a guru in India who says: “Whenever a prostitute comes to see me, she speaks only of God. She says she is tired of the life she leads. Who loves God. And whenever a priest comes to see me, he speaks only of sex. ” All right, when you give up something, you are tied to that thing forever. When he fights something, he is tied to it forever. As long as he fights against her, he is giving her power. It gives him as much as the one he uses to fight him.

This includes communism and everything else. so that it must

"Receiving" their demons because when they fight against them they empower them.

Has anyone told you this? When he gives up a thing, he is tied to it. The only way out of it is to look through the thing. Don't give up on her, look through her. Understand its true value and you won't have to give it up; she will simply fall from her hands, but of course, if she doesn't see that, if you are hypnotized and believe that you will not be happy without that thing, that one or beyond, you are enslaved. What we have to do for you is not what the so-called spirituality tries to do - that is, get you to make sacrifices, to give up things. That is useless. You are still asleep. What we have to do is help you understand. If I understood, I would simply stop wishing for that thing. This is another way of saying: If you woke up, you would simply stop wishing for that thing.

LISTEN AND DISAPPEAR

Some of us are awakened by the hard realities of life. We suffer so much that we wake up. But human beings stumble upon life again and again. They still walk like sleepwalkers. They never wake up. Tragically it never occurs to them that there may be another way. It never occurs to them that there may be a better way. However, if life has not hit you enough, and if you have not suffered enough, then there is another way: listen. I don't want to say that

You have to agree with what I am saying. Because agreement or disagreement has to do with words and concepts and theories; They have nothing to do with the truth. The truth is never expressed in words. The truth is suddenly perceived, as a result of a certain attitude. So you may not agree with me and yet perceive the truth. But there has to be an attitude of openness, be willing to discover something new. That is the important thing, not that you agree or disagree with me. After all, most of what I am giving is really theories. No theory adequately encompasses reality. So I can talk to you, not about the truth, but about the obstacles of the truth. I can describe those obstacles. I can not describe the truth. No one can do it. All I can do is describe their falsehoods, so I can leave them. All I can do for you is to challenge your beliefs and the belief system that makes you miserable. All I can do is help you unlearn. That's what learning is all about spirituality: unlearning, unlearning almost everything we've been taught. A willingness to unlearn, to listen.

Are you listening, as most people do, in order to confirm what you already think? Observe your own reactions as I speak. He will often be alarmed, or shocked, or shocked, or irritated, or upset, or frustrated. Or he will say, "Wonderful!" But are you listening to see if what he hears confirms what he thinks? Or are you listening to discover something new? That is important. It is difficult for people who are asleep. Jesus proclaimed the Good News, and yet he was rejected. Not because it was good, but because it was new.

We detest the new, we detest it! And the sooner we accept this fact, the better. We do not want anything new, especially when it is disturbing, especially when it implies change. Especially if it implies saying: "I was wrong." I remember that I met in Spain with a Jesuit of eighty-seven years; He was a superior and a professor of mine in India thirty or forty years ago. And he attended a workshop like this. "I should have heard it seventy years ago, " he told me. "Look: I've

been wrong all my life. " God, hear that! It is like seeing one of the wonders of the world. That, ladies and gentlemen, is faith! An openness to the truth, regardless of the consequences, no matter where it leads. That is faith. Not belief but faith. Beliefs give you a lot of security. But faith is insecurity. One does not know. One is willing to follow and is open. Completely open! He is willing to listen. And look closely, being open does not mean being gullible, it does not mean swallowing everything that the speaker says. no way. You have to question everything I am saying. But question it from an attitude of openness, not stubbornness. And question everything. Remember these beautiful words of Buddha: "Monks and scholars should not accept my words out of respect but should analyze them, just as a goldsmith analyzes gold - cutting, scraping, rubbing, melting."

When you do that, you are listening. He has taken a great step towards awakening. As I said, the first step is to be willing to admit that one does not want to wake up, that one does not want to be happy. Within one there are all kinds of resistance. The second step is to be willing to understand, to listen, to question your entire belief system. Not only their religious belief system, their political beliefs, their social beliefs, their psychological beliefs, but all their beliefs. Be willing to review them all, according to the metaphor of Buddha. And I will give you many opportunities to do that here.

THE FARSA OF CHARITY

Charity is really self-dress disguised as altruism. You say it is very difficult to accept that there may be times when you are not really trying to be loving or confident. Let's simplify it as much as possible. Let's make it as abrupt and as extreme as possible, at least to begin with. There are two types of selfishness. The first type is the one that consists in giving me pleasure in giving me pleasure. That is what we generally call selfishness. The second type is the one that consists of giving me the pleasure of pleasing others. This would be a more refined type of selfishness.

The first is very obvious, but the second is hidden, very hidden, and that is why it is more dangerous, because we come to think that we are really wonderful. But, after all, we may not be so wonderful.

You, lady, say that, in your case, you live alone, and that you go to the parish and spend several hours of your time. But you also admit that you do it for a selfish reason - you need to be needed - and you also know that you need to be needed in a way that makes you feel that you are contributing something to the world. But he also admits that, as they also need it, it is an exchange.

You are about to understand! We have to learn from you. That's right. You say: "I give something, I receive something." You're right. I will help, I give something, I receive something. that is beautiful. That is true, that is real. That is not charity, that is enlightened self-love.

And you, sir, you point out that deep down, the Gospel of Jesus is a gospel of selfishness. We achieve eternal life through our acts of charity. “Come, blessed of my father. When I was hungry you gave me food… etc. ” You say that confirms what I said. When we look at Jesus, you say, we see that deep down his acts of charity were fundamentally acts of selfishness, winning souls for eternal life. And you see that as all the impulse and meaning of life: the achievement of selfishness through acts of charity

Very good, but you see: You are cheating because you brought religion to this matter. That is legitimate. It is valid. But what if I speak of the Gospels, of the Bible, of Jesus, towards the end of this retreat? For now I will say this to complicate it further. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, ” and they who respond? when? When did we do it We did not know! They were not aware of it! Sometimes I have a horrible fantasy in which the King says:

- I was hungry and you fed me. And the people on the right say:

- That's right sir, we know that.

- I was not speaking to you - says the King - It is not so; You shouldn't know.

Don't you find it interesting? But you know You know inner pleasure when you do charity work. AHA! So is! It is the opposite of someone who says: “What was extraordinary about what I did? I did something, I got something. I had no idea I was doing something good. My left hand didn't know what my right hand was doing. ” Look: A good is never as good as when you don't know it's good. Or as the great Sufi would say: "A saint is holy until he knows it."

Some of you object to this, You say: "Isn't it the pleasure I receive when I give, isn't that eternal life here and now?" I would not know how to say. I call pleasure, pleasure, and nothing else. At least for the moment, until we talk about religion, later. But I want you to understand something from the beginning: that religion is not

- I repeat: it is not necessarily connected with spirituality. Please keep religion out of this for now.

All right, you ask: What about the soldier who falls on a grenade to prevent it from hurting others? And what about the man who got into a truck full of dynamite and took him to the North American camp in Beirut? What to say about him? "There is no love greater than this." But the Americans did not consider it that way. He did it deliberately. He was an extraordinary man. it is not true? but I assure you that he didn't think the same. He believed he would go to heaven. So is. The same as the soldier who fell on the grenade.

I am trying to visualize an action in which the ego is not, in which you are awake and what you do, do it through you. In that case, your action becomes a celebration. "Be done in me." I am not excluding that. But when you do, I am looking for selfishness. Even if only: "They will remember me as a great hero, " or "I could not live if I did not. I could not live with the thought that I fled. ” But remember, I am not excluding the other type of action. I never said there was no action in which the ego is not. Maybe there is. We will have to explore that. A mother who saves a child - who saves her son, you say. But

why should he not save his neighbor's son? It's yours. He is the soldier who dies for his country. Many of these deaths disturb me. I wonder: “Are they the result of brainwashing? The martyrs disturb me. I think they often washed their brains. The Muslim martyrs, the Hindu martyrs, the Buddhist martyrs, the Christian martyrs They were brainwashed!

They have the idea that they must die, that death is a great thing. They feel nothing, they go straight. But not all of them, so listen to me well. I didn't say all of them, but I wouldn't exclude the possibility either. Many communists are brainwashed (you are willing to believe it). They both brainwashed that they are willing to die. Sometimes I think that the process we use to produce, for example, a San Francisco Javier, could be exactly the same process used to produce terrorists. A man could make a thirty-day spiritual retreat, and leave him inflamed with love for Christ, and yet, without the slightest awareness of himself. Not the slightest. It could cause suffering, it is believed holy. I do not intend to speak badly of Francisco Javier, who was possibly a great saint, but it was difficult to live with him. You know he was a terrible superior, he really was! Do historical research. Ignacio always had to intervene to undo the damage that this good man did for his intolerance. You have to be quite intolerant to achieve what he accomplished. Forward, forward, forward, forward, no matter how many bodies were left on the side of the road. Some critics of Francisco Javier defend exactly that. He used to expel the men from our Company, and they appealed to Ignacio, who told them: "Come to Rome and we'll talk." And, stealthily, Ignacio received them again. How much awareness was there in this situation? Who we are to judge, we do not know.

I am not saying that there are no pure motivations. I am saying that ordinarily everything we do is in our own interest. All. When you do something for the love of Christ, is that selfishness? Yes. When he does something for the love of someone, he does it for his own interest. I will have to explain: Imagine that you live in Phoenix and that you feed more than five hundred children every day. Does it make you feel good? Would you expect me to make you feel bad? But sometimes

it happens. And this is because some people do things to not feel bad. And they call this charity. They act because of guilt. that's not love. But thank God, you do things for people, and that seems nice to you. Wonderful! You are a healthy individual because you act in your own interest. That is healthy.

I will summarize what I was saying about charity without selfishness: I said there were two types of selfishness; Maybe I should have said three. The first is when I am pleased to like myself; The second is when I am pleased to please others. One should not take pride in that; You shouldn't believe yourself a great person; He is a very ordinary person, but he has refined tastes. Your tastes are good, not the quality of your spirituality. When he was a boy, he liked Coca-Cola, now he is older and he likes cold beer on a hot day. Now he has better taste. When he was a child, he loved chocolates; Now that he is older he likes a symphony, he likes a poem. It has better taste. But anyway, he is getting his own pleasure, with the difference that it is now the pleasure of pleasing others. Then there is a third type, which is the worst, when you do something good to not feel bad. He hates it, he is making sacrifices for love, but he complains. Oh! How little he knows himself if he thinks he does things this way.

If they gave me a dollar every time I do things that make me feel bad, I would be a millionaire. You know how it is:

- Could I talk to you tonight, father?

Yes, of course!

I don't want to talk to him and I hate to do it. I want to watch that TV show tonight, but how do I say no? I don't have the courage to say no. Of course, and I am thinking: God and now I have to endure it! .

Conversing with him does not make me feel good, and it does not make me feel good to say no, so I choose the least of the evils, and I say: `` Very good, of course. '' I will feel happy when this is over and I can stop smiling at him, but I start the session with him.

-How are you?

Wonderfully says, and talks and talks about how he liked it

This seminar

And I think: Oh, God, when will I get to the point? Finally, the matter is concretized, and I, metaphorically, smash it against the wall; I tell him:

Well, any idiot could solve that problem.

And I fire him.

I finally got rid of l, I say. And the next morning, during breakfast (because I regret being so rude) I approach him and say:

- How are things going?

Pretty well, he answers, and then adds: Look, what he told me last night, really helped me. Can we talk again after lunch?

God!

That is the worst kind of charity, when you do something to not feel bad. He doesn't have the courage to say he doesn't want to be disturbed. He wants people to think he is a good priest! When someone says: I don't like hurting people, I say: Don't tell me! I don't believe it. I don't believe anyone who says they don't like hurting people. We love to hurt people, especially some people. We love. And when it is another person who hurts someone, we rejoice. But we don't want to hurt others ourselves because that hurts us! There you have it. If we are the ones who hurt, others will think badly of us. They won't appreciate us, they'll talk against us and we don't like that!

Excerpt from the book: Awake by Anthony de Mello

Chapters:

INTRODUCTION ON AWAKENING

ABOUT THE LEGENDARY EGO SMO

ON THE DESIRE OF HAPPINESS

LA RENUNCIACI N TAMPOCO ES LA SOLUCI N ESCUCHE Y DESAPRENDA

LA FARSA DE LA CARIDAD

Introducci n sobre el Despertar de Anthony de Mello