Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality

J. Francis Stroud, S.J., recalls Anthony de Mello telling the parable of an eagle that was raised among chickens and did not realize that it was an eagle. De Mello applies the story to Stroud, who recognizes it as a comment on his own unrealized potential: a result of false conditioning. Stroud explains that de Mello’s work aims to awaken people to their innate greatness by encouraging them to achieve true awareness. Stroud states that after de Mello’s death, he undertook the task of preserving de Mello’s speeches in their original, spontaneous style, and he credits several colleagues for their support in this endeavor. He then invites readers to engage openly with de Mello’s guidance.

Awareness is a work of spirituality presented as an edited transcription of various talks given by Anthony de Mello, a Jesuit priest. De Mello addresses a live audience, using jokes, anecdotes, and parables to teach a method of spiritually “waking up” by unlearning one’s conditioning, observing one’s thoughts and feelings without judgment, and distinguishing between the observing “I” and the conditioned “me.”

De Mello defines spirituality as