Some Thoughts from a book . . .

June 11, 2009

Dear Fellow Travelers,
Last night I finished a book that might be of interest to some of you (it is not for everyone!)—“Awareness” by Anthony de Mello. One of the many things that intrigued me about the book is the way he makes the reader (in this case, yours truly) rethink things he believes. I know this turns some people off, but I actually enjoy it. Anyway, I thought I would share with you a few quotes from the book. I would love to read your comments.
1. “Your beliefs give you a lot of security, but faith is insecurity” (p.18).
2. “We see people and things not as they are, but as we are” (p.88).
3. “No one has the power to put pressure on you” (p89).
4. “You are responsible for the negative feeling, not the other person” (p.90).
5. “I have no right to make any demands on you” (p.90).
6. “The selfish thing is to demand that someone else live their life as YOU see fit” (p. 93).
7. “It is not selfish to life your life as you see fit” (p-.93).
8. “You can’t imitate Christ by imitating His external behavior” (p. 96).
9. “Nobody was mean to you. Somebody was mean to what he or she thought was you, but not to you” (p. 97).
10. “Nobody ever rejects you; they’re only rejecting what they think you are” (p. 97).
11. “The final barrier to the vision of God is your God concept” (p. 102).
12. “. . . most people spend all their energies trying to rearrange their exterior world to suit their tastes” (p. 110).
13. “Not even the greatest guru in the world can take a single step for you” (p. 112).
14. “Life is something that happens to us while we are busy making other plans” (p.114).
15. “We always hate what we fear” (p. 117).
16. “We think we know, that is our tragedy; so we never discover” (p. 129).
17. “You always empower the demons you fight” (p. 147).
18. “You don’t chase darkness out of the room with a broom, you turn on a light” (p. 147)
19. “Loneliness is when you are missing people, aloneness is when you’re enjoying your-self” (p. 149).
20. “Dying is wonderful; it’s only horrible to people who have never understood life” (p.150).
21. “Wisdom occurs when you drop barriers you have erected through your concepts and conditioning” (p. 160).
22. “One cannot make a slave of a free person, for a free person is free even in prison” (p. 161).
23. “You were given a taste of the drug called approval, appreciation, attention” (p. 162).
24. “Learn to enjoy the solid food of life. Good food, good wine, good water. Taste them. Lose your mind and come to your senses” (p. 164).
25. “Unfortunately, people have gone crazy, and they’re getting more and more addicted because they do not know how to enjoy the lovely things of life” (p. 165).