Mind Blogging. Mind Boggling.

'Awareness' is wisdom-packed and humorous. A book I hope to keep returning to. 

It was written in the late 80s by Antony De Mello, an Indian spiritual figure, officially a Christian Pastor. In summary, the book advocates being clear-eyed about reality, not distorting it with our various filters and moods. A short 180-page book, it consists of 3-8 page essays on specific themes (spoiler section SS for more) linked to the broad message. The author wants the reader to think of the reading experiences as a 'spiritual retreat'. Most essays are imbued with entertaining jokes relevant to the thrust of the essay(sample in SS). With its infusion of humour, it's like the book which got me into meditation: 'Joy on Demand', where every concept came along with its own comic panel. Despite being levity-packed, 'Awareness' is not a quick read because each of the essays are thoughtful, requiring one to stop and ponder. Some essays provide challenging new perspectives (sample in SS). He quotes from religions, philosophers and history from across the world.     

Spirituality books such as Awareness thrive on and demonstrate the power of analogy. One of my favorites (not from this book) is the story of the 'Zen farmer and his horse'. (link) The Zen farmer's story is also, in a nutshell, the story of the book 'Finite and Infinite Games' (FIG), another spiritual book I read last month. In FIG, the author Robert Carse (another Christian pastor!) links my favorite topic, Sport, to spirituality and life. Thesis being that sport is often played with the motive of getting to a conclusive result and ending the game, but a good life is played with the spirit of 'continuing' the game. A and S, to who I read out parts of the book, found the analogies of the book too contrived; i.e. a simple concept made complex by an analogy. While there is some merit in there argument, I found that book to have some lustrous ideas.    

Strong Spoiler-laden Section SSS 

One of my favorite themes and a central theme in the book:  That of 'Beginner's mind'. It particularly stood out because it is a key part of my experience as a new father. The book repeatedly mentions the child being spiritually advanced because (s)he does not know labels and approaches everything with curiosity.  

The book quotes J Krishnamurthy: "the day you teach the child the name of a bird, the child will never see the bird again". It refers to the child's 'beginner's mind' appreciation of the bird - the color and the sun shining off it, the flutter of its wings, the bird call, etc.  And how it can go away once we supply a 'label' to the child. Once we label things, there is a risk of us ceasing to appreciate the beauty of it. 

A memorable joke from the book, on this topic of labels: : When they were drawing up the Russian-Finnish border, a farmer had to decide whether he wanted to be in Russia or Finland. After a long time, he said he wanted to be in Finland, but he didn't want to offend the Russian officials. When the officials visit, the farmer said to them: "It has always been my desire to live in Mother Russia, but at my age I wouldn't be able to survive another Russian winter"

Analogies in Awareness with two recent spiritual reads (some weak spoilers in there) 

There were some analogies between some of the themes of Awareness and FIG that gave me goosebumps (like good analogies always give me).   

Awareness talks about the concept being different from reality, as mentioned in-depth in the spoiler section. Awareness says 'a concept is static but reality is in flux'. These themes are the very essence of FIG. 'Infinite players continue their play with the expectation of being surprised....it's a triumph of future over the past'. Infinite players do not regard the past as having an outcome  ' (the author is contrasting it with finite games, where the game ends with a definite outcome of a winner and loser) . The 'I' vs 'me' concept of Awareness also finds parallels in the Infinite player playing finite games. 

I recently wrote passionately on this blog, about how the word 'love' is distorted in Bollywood, referring more broadly to the modern day and age. (link) Awareness talks about love in the same vein, saying modern languages have 'desecrated the word love'. Awareness, in its messages on 'love', also has analogies to my top spiritual read of 2024, 'How to be an adult in relationships' by David Richo. Contrary to the title, it's a read with a spiritual bent of mind.  

Labels: Books

# posted by Ashwin Ravikumar @ 1:50 PM 0 Comments