Is Thinking An Evolutionary Mistake?
“… and if it is, how do we fix it.”
Anthony de Mello was a Jesuit priest, psychotherapist, best-selling author, and spiritual teacher. His early life was dominated by rigid Christian beliefs, but over time, he began exploring Eastern traditions, and how they were related to his earlier views. This exploratory vision culminated in an unconventional approach, which according to the Vatican, was incompatible with the Catholic faith. As a result, they banned many of his writings.
De Mello believed that the greatest human gift is awareness, to be in touch with one’s body, feelings, thoughts, and sensations. However, he found that most people are unaware; or in his words: they are asleep. They live asleep, marry asleep, breed children in their sleep, and die in their sleep. Much of his work, therefore, focused on waking people up, to help them break free from their conditioning, and to reprogram their minds.
In the foreword of his powerful book ‘Awareness’, de Mello explains the nature of his teachings with this hard-hitting parable:
One morning a farmer walked out to his yard and found an eagle’s egg. Unsure what to do, he put it into his chicken coup. The little eaglet hatched and grew up thinking he was a chicken. He clucked like a chicken, scratched the earth like a chicken, and…
