Understanding De Mello Part 2: Awareness, Awareness

Anthony De Mello encourages us to cultivate awareness every day, throughout the day. If you remember to do his simple process throughout the day, you will get it. You will become more and awake awake and as a result freer. Before you believed what society's programming told you, that once every worldly thing falls into place, I’ll find happiness and peace.” Through awareness, you discover the truth that it's through your natural state of happiness that everything fall into place.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Happiness Podcast which is based on the awareness centered approach of Anthony D'Mello.

I am Don Joseph Gohe,

The director of the D'Mello Spirituality Center.

And this is the second part of the three part podcast I'm doing to present Anthony D'Mello in a nutshell.

So in the last podcast I had you practice being aware of all the negative pessimistic thoughts in your head without judging them or needing them to change in any way,

But simply observing the content and the way it generates your emotional state and your perspective.

As you practice becoming increasingly aware of your negative stress provoking thoughts over a couple of weeks,

The reactivity begins to quiet down.

You might even find yourself laughing at your worried thoughts and fearful illusions.

You also might discover what researchers found in a study on worry,

Namely that 85% of what people worry about never happens.

And even with the 15% that does happen,

79% of the time people handle the difficulty just fine.

As your mind quiets down,

Feelings of happiness arise for no apparent reason.

Happiness begins to happen all on its own without you having to do anything.

You discover that transformational change is a consequence not of doing something,

But of something dropped,

Which most often is fear.

It's as if joy and happiness have been available all the while,

There for the taking.

That's when you realize that happiness is your natural state.

You don't have to do anything to acquire it because you have it already.

The only real problem comes from holding to the false belief that without a change in the world outside you,

You can't be happy inside.

It's like unless this person does what I want,

Or until I'm out of debt,

Or get that sale,

Or achieve that goal,

Or until my mother-in-law moves out,

I can't be happy.

Or we think,

I can't be happy until my neurosis is gone.

Well the good news is you can be happy right now with the neurosis,

And your pile of bills,

And even with your mother-in-law.

There's only one reason why you're not experiencing bliss at the present moment,

And it's because you're focused on what you don't have instead of what you do have.

As the thinking that turns into your fear of failure quiets down,

As your worried thoughts about succeeding and your need to change other people calm down,

You begin to relax into the peace and quiet of just being yourself.

You stop driving with your brakes on,

Which is all the shame and self-doubt that fear produces.

That's freedom.

Try to imagine living like that.

Reviews

Insightful explication … as always, simple yet profound truth.

Thank you 🙏