One sign that you’re awakened is that you don’t give a damn about what’s going to happen in the next life. Because if you do, the next thing you will be doing is demanding other people contribute to your happiness. When we talk about self-worth, are we not talking, really, about how we are reflected in the mirrors of other people’s minds?

The concept is a help, to lead you to reality, but when you get there, you’ve got to intuit or experience it directly. But if Teillard’s prose had the rich intricacy of, say, Handel’s water music, then the writing of de Mello is the lone, sweet melody of a Pied Piper. Anthony was in love with life and humanity and, provided you have an open mind, you will be also when you finish reading this book.

It’s refreshing that he steers clear of politics or personal struggles and moves to the struggles that we must all go through. At times in this life, I reach out from the Puritan work ethic and strict quid pro quo level of spirituality to someone who is saying, “not this, not this”. You know, all mystics—Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion—are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. As you identify less and less with the ‘I,’ you will be more at ease with everybody and with everything.

It’s a pretty important lesson—probably one we need to master at some time or another, for the sake of sanity—so I suppose it bears repeating. If you’re ready to listen and if you’re ready to be challenged, there’s one thing that you can do, but no one can help you. The first thing I want you to understand, if you really want to wake up, is that you don’t want to wake up.I'm an ex-marketing executive turned self-education entrepreneur after an existential crisis in 2015.

We set up society this way and we allot different functions to different people for the welfare of everyone, so that we will function better and live more effectively—at least we hope so. Not just your religious beliefs, your political beliefs, your social beliefs, your psychological beliefs, but all of them.Awareness” is my all-time favourite book on ‘applied spirituality’ – simple yet profound – and everything else he said is inspirational if occasionally confronting. A nice definition of an awakened person: a person who no longer marches to the drums of society, a person who dances to the tune of the music that springs up from within. Reacting is like that knee jerk reaction that happens when you bump your knee on the table and yell out “f*ck,’ well at least I do. Take a minute to think about that: You are never in love with anyone, you’re in love with your prejudiced idea of that person. You were not allowed to enjoy the solid nutritious food of life – namely, work, play, fun, laughter, the company of people, the pleasures of the senses and the mind.

If it doesn’t hit you the first time, it might the second time, and what doesn’t hit one person might hit another.If all you experience is your concept, you’re not experiencing reality, because reality is concrete. This is a helpful inversion of the typical idea that you shouldn’t judge things you don’t understand. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict X Anthony de Mello was a Jesuit priest and psychotherapist who became widely known for his books on spirituality.