Anthony de Mello...Wake Up to reality
Making up stories and pretending being readers of some other's minds?. Being away from reality and "wanting to be miserable and have pity on myself? Believing those silly stories someone out of ignorance or wanting to dominate or who knows why, made us to believe? So many things are not true, some others false ideas have created erroneous guidance to society.
to be more likely a fig or a pomegranate, not an apple. (BuzzFeed). The buddha was not chubby nor a god (Wikipedia); fortune cookies were brought to the USA by the japanese not by the
I used to make up stories in my mind and feel pity on myself, discouraged or depressed, and I see that it happens to some people around too. Better to stop doing it! Better to see what really is. I better do not "imagine" what is in my husband's mind because it is not the truth. Even simple words like "always" are not always the truth. Stop...and question the reality of the facts and the feelings we create, are they consequences of the facts or of our imagination or perception of the facts?.
Anthony de Mello helps us see how we are influenced by our surroundings, by our culture.
We have been thought to do things for the grades, for acknowledgement and praise, to feel good when someone compliments us and feel sad when on the contrary, they give us a sign of rejection. "People come over to my center in India and they say, “What a lovely place, these lovely trees” (for which I am not responsible at all), “this lovely climate.” And already I’m feeling good, until I catch myself feeling good and say, “Hey can you imagine anything as stupid as that? I was not responsible for the trees; I wasn’t responsible for choosing the location. I didn’t order the weather; it just happened. But “me” got in there, so I’m feeling good. I’m feeling good about “my” culture and “my” nation. How stupid can you get? I’m told my great Indian culture has produced all these mystics. I didn’t produce them. I’m not responsible for them. Or they tell me, “That country of yours and it's poverty ---it’s disgusting.” I feel ashamed. But I didn’t create it. What’s going on? Did you ever stop to think? People tell you, “I think you’re very charming” so I feel wonderful. I get a positive stroke"
It is frequently what happens to most of us, we feel good when we have someone else's approval or we feel bad when don't have it. We are so use to approval, praise, acknowledgement, all that we learned in school when we behaved. Anthony de mello call these the drugs that we look for, even though it may hurt when we don't get them. How many people do you know who are unaffected by praise or blame? "That isn’t human", he said. "Human means that you have to be a little monkey, so everybody can twist your tail and you do whatever you ought to be doing. But is that human? If you find me charming, it means that right now you’re in good mood, nothing more".
Picture from "Things You Believed are not true: Humans didn't evolve from apes, we share a common ancestor" and from "List of Common Misconceptions"
