Wake Up!
Where are we in life? What do we truly want at the core? Have we actually seen the true breadth of our own existence? These are the questions that Anthony De Mello, Jesuit priest born in Bombay, India in 1931, tackles throughout his work examining and investigating the idea of spirituality, awareness, and existentialism at large.
I have to admit, Anthony De Mello’s work is quite polarizing to most people upon first reading it. Currently, I’m reading his book Awareness, which is structured into short, consumable chapters that you can read throughout tiny pockets in your day. At large, and as alluded to in the title, he delves into how we can become more aware as humans of our existence and ideology. Throughout the book, there are gems sprinkled throughout, but one of the most stark remarks in the entire book that left a profound impact on me is:
“The first thing to understand, if you really want to wake up, is that you don’t want to wake up.”
How completely true or opposite to reality does that sound upon first reading it? That ultimately depends upon your own perspective on things. However, it makes sense if you start to ponder at it for a bit longer.
As Anthony De Mello states, we all are born asleep and sleep walk throughout life hoping to eventually wake up through some grandiose form of enlightenment. I’ve definitely spent a lot of time trying to wake up, whatever that may entail. The other side of the coin will say that we don’t know, or want to know, what is on the other side of the the door we’re so intrigued by.
Let’s back track to the quote and take it from a parallel perspective, one quite literal at that. When most of us wake up to an alarm or our own internal circadian rhythm, there is a moment of thought that it’s easier and more comfortable to stay in bed and sleep. How many of you did that this morning? I’m raising my hand to that one. We don’t want to wake up.
Wise gurus and therapists all know that we don’t want to be woken up and just want to dance our own dance, finding some sort of relief along the way. Note the key difference here - we want relief and not necessarily the cure. That’s a scary thought to think about. I thought I would at least want my physical injuries to be cured, but in reality, even for those physical ailments, I only want relief and not a full on cure more often than not.
The elephant in the room remains though: how do we finally wake up if we’re asleep? The answer varies depending from person to person even though there is one fundamental, fixed answer. It’s not for the faint of mind though, leading to the variability in answers. If you’re willing to strip everything down to its core and come in with an open mind, then you can fully and readily accept the answer of:
You need to be willing to learn anything and everything and have it directly confront your entire belief system. How awake you ultimately will become directly depends upon how much you’re willing to keep your mind open, no matter how daunting the truth is.
That’s a tough pill to swallow, but it comes down to your general awareness for life. The awakening here comes from becoming aware on a dual front: within and with everything else around you. We often constrain this awakening with only the inner awareness that is already tough as hell to discover. Actually, I don’t even know if that’s something you can discover or if it’s more of a state of progress you measure but never truly reach 100% capacity. I honestly don’t know.
Looking at other’s perspectives by observing them constantly is the main driver to awakening in my opinion. In of itself, that is probably the wrong thing to say, but oh well. Observing other things, whether it’s people, nature, objects, etc., and understanding how and why they take shape and form the way they do from moment to moment is likely the first step to trying to wake up from this convoluted thing we call existence.
In a time like now, I think it’s vital we all take the time to observe others and their way of life in order to become more accepting of our differences. The world has definitely been asleep for quite a long time with the way we’ve structured the societal model, and now is as good a time as ever to slowly wake up.
I laugh a little whenever I read one of Anthony De Mello’s quotes that explains if you are on the right path towards awareness and awakening:
“Do you know one sign that you’ve woken up? It’s when you are asking yourself, ‘Am I crazy, or are all of them crazy?’”
We all get caught up in the craziness inside our own heads that we forget that people think about the same crazy thoughts at one point or another most likely. I mean that’s how communities form; otherwise, we’d all be lone wolf types.
I don’t know what I know or don’t know anymore after opening my mind to the eye-opening truths that Anthony De Mello shares through his work. Will I ever know - maybe or maybe not. Maybe that’s the point he was trying to make all along. Not knowing what we know, only to come back to it and reassess our understanding, may be the way to go about it.
Regardless, I want us all to wake up and try to live a more full experience. Time to take off the blindfold and open our eyes to reality. It’ll take weeks, months, and years to fully comprehend what Anthony De Mello shared, but it’s the general blueprint we all hear from various sources to finally see what we couldn’t see before and fully wake up.
“To know reality you have to know beyond knowing.” - Anthony de Mello
