Awareness: Conversations with the Masters

Very inspiring and a lot of food for though. My intentions are to immediately gift this to close friends . Excellent

10/10 recommend for anyone actually looking to WAKE UP! Grab your highlights cuz this book is 184 pages of PURE GOLD if u ask me. If you’re ready to face reality, break through illusions, obliterate programmed conditioning, crush attachments, and finally understand what ever-lasting happiness and love is... this book is a hilariously honest yet radical slap in the face of the deepest truths!OK, so the only downside to this book is that this book spits so much reality-shattering truth this may be the last book you’ll ever read on this topic again… he recommends Summerhill by A.S. Neil at the end of the book maybe I’ll try that one but when skimming a few options at the bookstore today, Anthony puts all other “spiritual wakening” book to shame. Reader be warned — first and last spiritual book I’ll ever recommend now.Happy (slightly painful) awakening!!!

I thank God for this book. It changed my life. At 21 years of age I was so lost in the world and confused. It brought everything together into an integrated whole, a "oneness". It told me things I already knew to be true but had forgotten. It challenged me, and yet at the same time encouraged and helped me. I feel very deeply thankful for Anthony de Mello and his writings. I feel very connected to him, like he is here helping me in life. His writing is so honest and true that every word and every sentence is full of purpose and meaning. It speaks about even silence has great purpose and meaning. I remember reading it for the first time and not being able to put the book down. I had an inner smile and a hunger for this kind of refreshing insight into life. It speaks directly to your heart, bypassing your mind. It speaks with living words, not just pointing a direction but taking you down that road, almost carrying you. I must have read it 3 times to begin with and then only pulling it out when I needed some encouragement and to remember how to live. I reached a point where as it said at the end of the book that you will come to a point where you don't need it anymore, and I felt I didn't. I have lost my way many times since, but I can keep coming back because it planted and nourished a seed of awareness within me. I started listening to Allan Watts and Eckhart Tolle after words. I appreciate all of their teachings, but there is something about this book that is like my first true love in life, that it will always be special to me, innocent. I have matured much since my first true love but I will always remember and be thankful for that experience. I am currently ordering this book for a friend who I think will find a treasure trove in "Awareness" here.Whatever you are doing in life, do it well. If you are sweeping the street, be the best street sweeper in the world. If you are walking down the hall of your house walk it as the best hall walker in the world, when you breath, breath as the best breather in the world. Stay connected to your source. (recent Julia Roberts movie) - "Smile with your mouth, smile with your whole body, even smile with your liver."Love your self first. Then when Love given to you by the Universe overflows your cup, let it flow out to others and it will be unconditional as you are not in "need" of anything at all. It's when we give all that we have to others first that we become depleted and unfulfilled, and thus have to be conditional with our giving as we try to allocate our limited energies and Love to give to those around us, as we are in a state of "need" ourselves. Love yourself and let yourself become filled with Love first, only then can the Love that flows from you be with out selfish need, unconditional and true.

This isn't an easy read. Its complicated and written in an odd format that is convo/ stream of consciousness. Considering its written from an aloof clergy man....it is hard to absorb. But. The message is there. And I am "aware" in a way I never have been before. If you're thinking of reading this book: do it. It may change your life.

I read several books a week. This one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s tight in your face with truths about your existence.Please do not read this book if your sure you know it all, are sure your religion is the only path to heaven and / or believe the news is factual. No, this book doesn’t condemn religion nor the media. It will rock you in ways you’ve never even dreamt of. It may just get you to see when you open your eyes and become the Eagle that you’ve always been.Or you can be the Eagle raised with chickens that knows he’s a chicken and dies a chicken.This book will help you you understand waking up, the risks and benefits in being awake. And it is so worth the journey. 👍🏻

De Mello makes a few good points about awareness/mindfulness in this book but it is mostly empty platitudes or downright stupid advice interspersed with bad theology. The Vatican issued a statement about De Mello's work in 1989 stating it was full of grave theological errors. They are correct. De Mello created a mish-mash of eastern philosophy and pop-psychology and then misquoted and misinterpreted the Bible to support his nutty ideas. He simultaneously criticizes religion while trying to use to support his claims.This is the worst book on the concept of mindfulness I have read. His ideas about love are particularly terrible. His advice is to tell the people you love that you don't love them and, through awareness training, detach yourself from all other people because that will allow you to love people more. You will somehow come to love everyone this way. De Mello was a celibate Catholic priest. His ideas might work in that life situation but I don't think it would go over too well if you went home and told your spouse and children that you didn't love them. Good luck with that!Don't waste your time with this book despite all the positive reviews. Read Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn instead. Solid, scientific advice on mindfulness minus the pseudo-philisophical silliness, heretical Christianity, and new age eastern mysticism. Mindfulness/awareness is a discipline of the mind. You can incorporate these practices into religion or not and you will still get results. It's brain training, not soul training. Get a good meditation app like Headspace and get to work. That's all you need rather than this silly book.

Anthony De Mello was Jesuit - but from India. His thought has influences from Asian philosophy.He tells how religion can be a barrier to spirituality … perhaps for things like this,the Catholic Church has, distanced itself from him, (he died in the 80s).The book starts simply. It’s written from lectures De Mello gave at a Retreat (Retreat: a Catholic quiet organised spiritual away time)Two things spring to mind: he tells how people don’t want to be cured - what they want is relief. (I’ve just looked - that’s in first chapter - which is short- all chapters are)And De Mello tells the cost of awareness -(perhaps its unconscious knowledge that keeps people from wanting cure …?)“self-condemnation, self-hatred, self-dissatisfaction.’He tells how to deal with these issues.This book is a constant teacher to me. a source of … wonder.I bought it in 2013. The simple beginning put me off at first. I was too literary.Since I started reading it - four five years ago, it’s been a constant.I find a thought swimming in the head - ‘ah that’s from De Mello’i said ‘source of wonder’ - yes. Because passages have effectively changed.From the first time I read them - their content which the first time was… words … now i read, and they are easy ideas, a clever ally pointing things out.I had a tendency to gloom and inner resentment at one time. The ideas imbued from this book have taught me the silliness - the waste of an unaware life.That said - there is a problem - which to his credit De Mello says (I paraphrase. This is an edit)‘Don’t agree with me on all this. If you’re not questioning this as we’re going - you’re not getting awake’(That De Mello note was a comfort to this one who finds it difficult to stop question)The problem is the possible unfortunate tendency to ubermensch.We’re human. Comparison may be odious but it - is - something we do.This book may be labelled Spirituality’ but a lot would have no problem putting it on the self-help shelf. (Chesterton asked the difference between spirituality and psychology).And there’s the problem.DeMello speaks virtually disparagingly of earthly success.Talks of a company CEO as a monkey pulled by societal strings.De Mello dehumanises himBecause of the book being also self-help - because of the general spiritual void - there will be those who read this book who are negatively outlier.Heck - I can feel like that!Sometimes among my peers I have not succeeded.But I know - I’ve been in a place and I wasn’t right for a number of reasons.What I’ve learnt - it has affected my mood, which obviously affects perception.If I didn’t have my, education- if I did think purely subjectively this book - the disparaging talk about earthly success - De Mello doesn’t include a bit where he says‘Those guys are on *their* thing, you’re on yours….’ (actually he probably would have said ‘guys on journey’ this was 80s and it was newish then’)I saw a TV documentary once its whole premise was John Lennon’s murder should be blamed on ‘Catcher In The Rye’.There was a copy among John Hinckley’s possessions.Uhhm dramatic.Fact is speaking disparagingly of others encourages disparaging thought and talk.Those under the cosh of a conceit -born of peer-failure may infer/translate/take - ‘this message is that I will be *better* than those without it’.A turn on the holier than thou.P.S in this early 21st century, ‘perfect’ means flawless. The meaning has changed. At the time of the writing of the KJV for instance - it meant ‘complete’. (Did get that via Shakespeare.)

I bought this from Amazon many years ago, and have just re-read it. Some past comments question the compatibility of de Mello's views with Christianity; and indeed the Church published a warning (but not disapproval).If you are a Christian within a particular culture, you may find it unsettling. For example, de Mello refers with approval to some ideas and attitudes of Eastern non-Christian mysticism.For myself the answer is:(1) it is wrong - and contrary to the teachings of the Church - to consider that all other religions lack insight or truth. The critical difference is in the question "Is Jesus Christ God?". If you believe Yes, and hold that in mind while reading the book, you will be alright.(2) The book is not an exposition of Christianity; but it does revive concepts which the Church in practice has neglected, but we're very much alive in other times e.g. the Desert Fathers.I suggest you read the book and apply the concepts to your own relationship with God. You will find that they are enriching and revealing. If you come across something with which you do not agree, simply reject it and read on.

This book changed my life forever. It will make you realise how social programming changes you and how you are not yourself. It also shows you a real meaning of religion and spirituality, how fake all religions are these and how we misinterpreted the gospel. This book should be a must read in every school. I also recommend his audiobook which I listen at least every 6 months. It helps you to get rid of a programming you get from the tv, radio and society around you. Must read!

We read this for our book club.Half the group thought it was outstanding. The other half, including me, thought it was largely a waste of time and didn't get it. It seems to be a transcript of a seminar in the '80s, but it's completely unstructured and comes across like the random thoughts of a drunk, meandering with no direction.There were a handful of gems of wisdom, but on the whole having finished reading it I'm still not sure what it was about or what I was supposed to learn.Each to their own, but this one wasn't for me.

Over the years l have collected so many books, and this one in my opinion, stands out from the crowd. It doesn't disapoint, unlike so many, that promise so much and yet deliver so little.I have recently sold most of my books as they don't speak to me in the same way and no longer serve me. Most just repeat same old, but this one is for keeps. Not so keen on his other books, apart from Rediscovering life which is also excellent.