Book Club - Awareness

Awareness by Anthony De Mello 

A friend of mine lend me this book a couple months ago. As I've been really engaged in my self-growth process, I noticed a certain shift in the way I understood self-development books - some books were lighter, some heavier but always seemed to talk about the same concepts in a relatively simple way for the readers to grasp the essence of what the author wants to share.   

When I first started reading Awareness I knew right away this would be a different kind of material. The kind of information you don't have access easily. The author has a very unique way of explaining different concepts like : Selfishness, Finding yourself, Spirituality, Happiness, etc. It's so unique that most of the time I was shocked by the things I was reading - Like "wow I've never thought of this this way" 

This book hits differently if you are open to a different point of view

 

Here's some highlights that I wrote in my notebook while reading it. 
(Most of the stuff written here is taken from the book directly- Those are not my words unless otherwise stated)

 

P.62-63 About Love & Fear (Good or Evil)

There's only 2 things in the world - Love and Fear

Every source of our actions is either driven by fear or by love.

Example: Angry person - Where does the anger come from ? 

Fear of losing something, someone - fear of whatever it is that pushes the person to feel angry. 

Someone who is incapable of violence is fearless - Nothing scares him because he's from a place of love. 

Journal prompt for next time you feel angry - ask yourself "What is it that you fear ?"

 

P.109 About Desire & Happiness

"One must see things as they are not as we are"

P.110

"The one who would be constant in happiness must frequently change" 

That means following the flow of life, not resisting or looking back... but we always keep looking back... holding on to those memories or events.

Constant happiness -Let the events of life flow, let them pass  LIFE = FLOW

P. 113 About Clinging to Illusion

Illusions in this case is used as "popular belief" 

The Illusions

that it is important to be loved and appreciated. There's a slight difference between being loved and to love. Humans have natural urge to be free and to love but to to be loved. Imagine if you waited for someone to love to be happy ? Yes that's exactly how most people live their lives. 

That the external events have power over us. False. You give them power over you - that's why you are hurt. 

"Life is something that happens to us while we're busy making other plans" "Desire breeds anxiety and sooner or later it brings hangover"

Happiness is not the same as excitement or thrills.
Thrill - Comes from living a desire fulfilled
Happiness - Comes by contact with reality

p.177 About feeling low 

How to deal with low moments -
Step 1: Don't identify the low - instead of resisting just accept it and understand that I'm feeling depressed, disappointed.
Step 2: Admit the feeling is in me- not in others. As long as we don't deal with ourselves and think it's because of a external factor, the feeling won't go away.
Step 3: Don't identify with the "I". "I" is not that feeling. The feeling is there and one watches it. 

p.184  Soul feelings Vs Worldly feelings

What kind of feelings do you have when ;

- You're in touch with nature ?
- Absorbed in work that you love ?
- Conversing with someone in openness & intimacy ?

Compare those feelings with

The feelings you have when;

- You win an argument or win a race
- You become popular
- Everybody's applauding you

The former feelings - Soul feelings
The latter feelings -Worldly feelings 

" Lots of people gain the world and lose their soul"
- Wow that quote hit me hard.

I copied the next paragraph because it is simply perfect as it is.

" Lots of people live empty, soulless live because their feeding themselves on popularity, appreciation and praise, look at me, attend to me, support me, value me, on being the boss, on having power, on winning the race"

DO YOU FEED YOURSELF ON THAT ? 

____________________________________

* Personal thoughts

This page is probably my highlight of the book simply because I feel like it's a constant battle between focusing on "soul feelings" and "worldly feelings" because so much of our energy goes into chasing fame, achievements, appreciation. Social medias don't help at all and being a content creator I struggle a lot with this. This concept was really refreshing for me.   

Those were my notes without any adjustments, since these concepts helped me a lot finding peace and being more aware, I wanted to share them with you !

Ps: Graphics are mine though ;) 

Thanks for reading, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments :)

You can find the book here : Awareness