Awareness: A De Mello Spirituality Conference in His Own Word

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Ben Greenfield Fitness on 26 Dec 2019 : "Awareness, by Anthony de Mello", is one of the 24 must-read books recommended by "Eckhart Tolle", and I'm finding it incredibly enlightening. This one-of-a-kind, how-to-do-it book responds to the longing that, sooner or later, arises in every human heart for a greater connection to life, to our own spirit, to God. One of my favorite parts so far? “…continue to be aware, to live life from moment to moment. How marvelously it is described in those words of the gospel: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns … Consider the lilies of the field … they neither toil nor spin.” That’s the real mystic speaking, the awakened person. So why are you anxious? Can you, for all your anxieties, add a single moment to your life? Why bother about tomorrow? Is there a life after death? Will I survive after death? Why bother about tomorrow? Get into today. Someone said, “Life is something that happens to us while we’re busy making other plans.” That’s pathetic. Live in the present moment. This is one of the things you will notice happening to you as you come awake. You find yourself living in the present, tasting every moment as you live it. Another fairly good sign is when you hear the symphony one note after the other without wanting to stop it.” Damn. From Anthony de Mello to Eckhart Tolle Anthony de Mello had been my starting point on this journey thanks to a friend’s recommendation but many of his audios and films on YouTube referenced Eckhart Tolle as another worth knowing better. I looked him up and found him to be a giant in the field of self awareness. 35 million people tuned in to watch a series of Webinars with Oprah Winfrey and him in 2008 and Watkins Review named him as the most spiritually influential person in the world in 2011. I had never heard of him. That’s not quite true. Someone I knew had sent me a book months ago which has sat on my Kindle doing nothing. That book was called ‘The Power of Now‘. Its author? Eckart Tolle. I had mistaken it for yet another motivational book about how we can achieve anything blah – more fool me! Eckart Tolle’s base approach is pretty much identical to Anthony De Mello’s but perhaps Tolle came of age at a time when the internet was spreading and De Mello had recently died. I’d almost believe that Tolle plagiarised de Mello’s work but it is also perfectly possible that this was a Darwinian moment where two people come to the same conclusion without ever having come into contact with each other. Tolle’s story is that he was on the verge of suicide when he realised the thought “I can no longer live with myself” made him realise there were two (the self and I). De Mello claims to have come to that realisation through scriptures. What is most interesting is Tolle’s belief that this philosophy represents the next phase of human evolution and so the increasing number of people waking up to it is no coincidence. Tolle claims we have reached a point as a race where we will either wake up to self awareness or wipe ourselves out – either through war or by completely buggering up the planet in our ever increasing appetite for material possessions which we have persuaded ourselves (and which industry through continuous advertising helps keep persuading us) will make us happy. Tolle is definitely more to the point than De Mello but sometimes that is an issue in itself. De Mello moves slowly to help people like me wrap their heads around something they have never considered before. Tolle is fast and can leave some people on the offensive. Take this comment from someone on Eckhart Tolle’s Wikipedia Page talk area: Poof !! Your depression is already gone. Nothing like awareness that its all make believe that you are going through. Its a sarcastic response which means the person writing it is angry. But why be angry? Well Tolle is a lot to take on board and it is a bit annoying to have suffered from something for years and then for someone to turn up and say “Its very easy to get rid of that” because it almost points out your own stupidity. Why didn’t you see it. Imagine if you had hobbled around for years and someone told you if you took the stone out of your shoe you would be able to walk properly. Anthony de Mello would warm you up to the idea that it might be worth looking in your shoe and almost make you feel like you spotted the stone – even though he knew full well it was there all along. Tolle just says “You’ve got a stone in your shoe, take it out and you’ll walk fine”. My advice then is to put your pride to one side before you take on Tolle and you will learn a great deal very quickly. Its also worth pointing out that neither Anthony De Mello or Eckhart Tolle came to sudden revelations and then were instantly great spiritual teachers. Both studied for many, many years in order to put their initial revelations in context.