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This Book Will Show You How to See Reality Clearly, and Savor Every Miracle
A favorite book of Tim Ferriss, Naval Ravikant, AND Eckhart Tolle
Matt Karamazov
February 28, 2025 ⢠Estimated Reading Time: 24 minutes
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My friend Jeremy Steingraber said that this book is one of his favorites that Iâve ever recommended, and heâs been subscribed to The Reading Life for years.
The book is called Awareness, by Anthony de Mello, and itâs tonightâs featured book breakdown. A favorite of everyone from Tim Ferriss and Naval Ravikant to Eckhart Tolle, itâs a âspiritualityâ book that doesnât take itself too seriously, and the author was an Indian Jesuit priest who originally delivered the material as a wildly popular lecture.
âLectureâ makes it sound so much more boring than it actually is. Itâs a âlecture,â sure, but itâs not a âlecture,â if you know what I mean.
Since itâs more of a public talk in book form, itâs almost like youâre right there in the audience as de Mello shows us that thereâs much more to life than just getting through it, and we certainly donât have to struggle and fight back against it all the time.
We can actually enjoy our time here on this planet, and there are multitudes of unfathomable mysteries surrounding us each day that will ensure we never get bored.
Inside my full breakdown, I lay out all the Key Ideas and more within Awareness, and theyâre free to read, with a collection of my book notes etc. here in this newsletter.
NowâŚin a complete 180-degree turn, my latest YouTube video breaks down 10 wealth-building principles from 9-figure entrepreneur Brandon Dawson.
I've read hundreds of business books, and this ranks near the very top out of all of them. Dawson seems to be one of those rare individuals who both has bigger dreams and wants you to achieve yours as well.
Heâs also done this whole business-building thing before, having sold his last company for $151 million and building his current business to something like a half-BILLION-dollar valuation.
I always advise that people learn from someone who has actually done the thing that you want to do, and so if your goal is to grow your business to unimaginable heights, Brandonâs your guy and this is your book.
Anyway, if you enjoy this video and/or find it interesting, please consider subscribing to my channel and sharing the video with a friend. Thanks!
Now, letâs step into Awareness, by Anthony de Mello!
Most people are not nearly as alive and awake as they could be. This classic book teaches why waking up is much closer and easier than you might think.
You'll also learn to experience the gorgeous reality of everyday life that is always available to us, if only we have eyes to see.
Here in this newsletter, Iâve pulled out a few samples from each section, but like I said, the full breakdown is completely free, and you can read it right here. Happy reading!
đ Passion Struck, by John R. Miles - This is an incredible leadership book, by one of the most impressive people Iâm honored to call a friend. Iâve honestly lost track of how many awards this book has won, but it deserves every one of them, and by reading it, youâll not only begin living a more intentional, purpose-driven life, youâll also inspire many others to do the same.
This Book is For:
*People who feel as though theyâre lacking a certain sense of stability in their lives, and who want to find ways of coping with the rapid pace of change and restoring their equanimity and peace.
*Seekers on any spiritual path who love learning about Eastern philosophy and what it has to say about not taking life so seriously, feeling âat homeâ in the universe, and witnessing the everyday miracles that are all around us.
*Readers who love discovering books that often deliver lightning bolts of inspiration and insight that will change the way they think forever.
*Anyone who wants to see further and deeper into the true nature of reality, with the help of one of the most humane, supportive, and surprising spiritual teachers the world has ever known.
Summary:
âBut Iâll promise you this: I have not known a single person who gave time to being aware who didnât see a difference in a matter of weeks. The quality of their life changes, so they donât have to take it on faith anymore. They see it; theyâre different. They react differently. In fact, they react less and act more. You see things youâve never seen before."
What does it feel like to imagine oneself as intimately connected with Reality - with everything that exists - and to live with your eyes (and your heart) wide open?
Anthony de Mello points the way to an understanding - and awareness - of what such a fully realized life feels like, and just like life, this book is full of surprises.
Awareness began as a series of lectures that were later combined into a book, so it helps to imagine him speaking to an audience while you read it, and that youâre in that audience. I wish I was!
De Mello was a Jesuit priest and spiritual teacher, and he uses stories, parables, jokes, and striking insights - which he combines with his deep humanity, and his infinite care and affection - to wake people up to the life that's been sitting right in front of them the whole time they've been alive.
It's a favorite book of Tim Ferriss, who has mentioned it quite often on his extremely popular podcast. Awareness is also one of only two books on the recommended reading lists of both Eckhart Tolle and Naval Ravikant. The other book is the Tao Te Ching, which places Awareness in excellent company!
De Mello's whole "project" is to get you to see Reality in a completely different way - the way you would if the "doors of perception" were cleansed, so to speak. Traditional ways of approaching this same topic always seem to miss the mark. Mainstream psychology and what passes for religion these days don't really solve your problems; they just exchange your problems for other problems.
It's like the story of the man traveling with a brown package on his lap, who was asked by the train's conductor what was inside. The man explains that itâs an unexploded bomb he found in his garden and that he's taking it to the police station.
The conductor says, "Oh! You don't want to carry that around on your lap! Put it under your seat!"
Other âspiritualâ approaches and "fixes" just transfer the bomb from our lap to underneath our seat. In contrast, the following graphic explains de Mello's approach:
Waking up to Reality and to Life itself isn't "supposed" to be comfortable. Nobody likes being woken up! But Reality is so much more miraculous and incredible than most of us ever glimpse on a daily basis, and when you think about it, waking up is very much like breaking out of prison.
We're imprisoned in our concepts, our ideas, our blind beliefs, and prejudices, but to break out of this prison and to actually experience life, the first step is to realize that you are in prison in the first place, and that there is a way out. Anthony de Mello shows us all the way out in this book.
Importantly, you have to wake up, not anyone else. It's you. It's always been you, and we can never shift the responsibility of waking up onto someone else.
We never go to the doctor and get a prescription for our neighbor! We go to the doctor to get a prescription for ourselves! All change begins with you, and when you change how you look at things, the things you look at change.
It's this relentlessly curious self-observation that de Mello was known for, and his gift was to inspire feelings of care, connection, and curiosity in all of his listeners and readers. He taught that awareness isn't something "extra" that you have to add to your to-do list. It's not a task, or an obligation, but a way of seeing, and a way of bringing yourself to life.
De Mello taught that you don't have to "add" anything to your life to make it (or yourself, for that matter) into everything it could be. Rather, it's a process of subtraction. Itâs the dropping of your attachments, your labels, your concepts, and all the other obstructions to your happiness - which is, after all, your natural state.
Key Ideas:
#1: How Much Truth Can You Take Without Running Away?
âThe most difficult thing in the world is to listen, to see. We don't want to see. Do you think a capitalist wants to see what is good in the communist system? Do you think a communist wants to see what is good and healthy in the capitalist system? Do you think a rich man wants to look at poor people? We don't want to look, because if we do, we may change.
We don't want to look. If you look, you lose control of the life that you are so precariously holding together. And so in order to wake up, the one thing you need the most is not energy, or strength, or youthfulness, or even great intelligence. The one thing you need most of all is the readiness to learn something new.
The chances that you will wake up are in direct proportion to the amount of truth you can take without running away. How much are you ready to take? How much of everything you've held dear are you ready to have shattered, without running away?"
Sleeping is synonymous with stagnation, with staying the same. Waking up implies a change of state, moving from one state of being into another that's closer to reality.
What's more, waking up doesn't usually happen without a significant amount of discomfort and questioning of previously held beliefs.
Waking up is also about seeing. Importantly, it's about looking at what you've always been looking at, but seeing it differently. Seeing it in its true form.
Because reality is always new, always changing, waking up means that you will constantly be evolving and growing over the course of your life, always ready to unlearn and discard what you've long believed to be true.
Of course, that doesn't mean you'll never feel strongly about certain things ever again, or that you'll never take a courageous stand for some deeply-felt cause. Rather, you're more likely to maintain a variety of "strong beliefs, loosely held."
Living in a state of wakefulness means believing in something completely and totally, but always being willing to shed that belief once you learn that it's actually false, or that it needs to be updated in some way. Sleeping people never update their beliefs.
And you really have to keep updating your beliefs, because there's virtually nothing you can say about reality that will be totally true in the next moment. Reality is constantly changing. Once you try to âfixâ a belief inside time, it dies.
The only universal constant is change, and to be able to flow with that change and adapt to it and live with it means acquiring an openness and a flexibility that are prerequisites for true wakefulness. You can't run away from it, but you do have to move.
#2: Uninterrupted Happiness is Uncaused
âDo you want to be happy? Uninterrupted happiness is uncaused. True happiness is uncaused. You cannot make me happy. You are not my happiness. You say to the awakened person, 'Why are you happy?' and the awakened person replies, 'Why not?' Happiness is our natural state.
Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture.
To acquire happiness you don't have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have?
Then why don't you experience it? Because you've got to drop something. You've got to drop illusions. You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It's only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings. Do you know where these things come from? From having identified with all kinds of labels!â
Your happiness is like a clear blue sky, covered over with gray clouds of unhappiness. The blue sky is your natural state, and once you remove those obstructions, your fundamental peace, happiness, and perfection will be revealed.
You don't need to "acquire" anything that you donât already have to become happy; you simply need to shed what makes you unhappy.
It's the same with money. The question of whether money can "buy" happiness is nonsensical; what money can do, however, is to remove the sources of unhappiness. It's the exact same thing.
Buying stuff is unlikely ever to create some state of âblissâ within you that was never there before. But removing the stress and anxiety of not having enough, or being unable to fulfill your obligations is likely to make you a whole hell of a lot happier! Money can absolutely eliminate unhappiness.
It's important to realize, though, that you can be happy for no reason at all. Indeed, it's one of the most transformational mental shifts you can ever make, because when you're happy for no reason, your happiness can never be taken away from you.
No longer will you be happy or sad "because" someone said this or that to you, or because something or other happened and you feel really good about it, or awful, or whatever the case may be. When you realize that it's possible to be happy for no reason - indeed, that it's your natural state and birthright - the entire sky opens up to you.
The key to your happiness is always within you - it always has been and always will be.
Again, that's not to say that you won't be happy or sad because of external events ever again. You should celebrate your wins! You may feel sad when something awful happens to you! StillâŚyour fundamental, inalienable right to peace and happiness will never be at risk, no matter what.
The whole process is so easy but, at the same time, so incredibly difficult. You don't have to "do" anything, but how hard is it for people to do nothing?! It's so hard! The key, however, is not to add, but to remove. To drop the sources of unhappiness. As Anthony de Mello advises:
âUnderstand the obstructions you are putting in the way of love, freedom, and happiness and they will drop. Turn on the light of awareness and the darkness will disappear."
#3: Awareness is Not a Goal
âSome people see awareness as a high point, a plateau, beyond experiencing every moment as it is. Thatâs making a goal out of awareness. But with true awareness thereâs nowhere to go, nothing to achieve.
How do we get to this awareness? Through awareness. When people say they really want to experience every moment, theyâre really talking about awareness, except for that âwanting.â You donât want to experience awareness; you do or you donât."
If you were to say that you are trying to become happier, or more peaceful, or more serene, what you're actually doing is defining yourself as someone who is unhappy, violent, and restless. There's always going to be this unbridgeable gap between where you are and where you say you're going. You'll never get there.
Likewise, with awareness, when you say you want to become more aware, or you want to wake up, you're dead before you even started. Awareness - like freedom - comes at the beginning, never at the end. The only way to be more aware is to be aware! It's instantaneous! It's now!
You're either aware now, free now, or you never will be. Making it a goal just pushes it into the future, when actually, awareness is yours right now.
Book Notes:
âSpirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence."
âThe whole world is crazy. Certifiable lunatics! The only reason we're not locked up in an institution is that there are so many of us."
âThe trouble with people is that they're busy fixing things they don't even understand. We're always fixing things, aren't we? It never strikes us that things don't need to be fixed. They really don't. This is a great illumination. They need to be understood. If you understood them, they'd change."
âAs soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life. But life has no meaning; it cannot have meaning because meaning is a formula; meaning is something that makes sense to the mind.
Every time you make sense out of reality, you bump into something that destroys the sense you made. Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.â
âWho says that worrying doesnât help? It certainly does help. Every time I worry about something, it doesnât happen!â
Action Steps:
#1: Donât âDoâ Anything
âWhen you renounce something, you're stuck to it forever. When you fight something, you're tied to it forever. As long as you're fighting it, you are giving it power. You give it as much power as you are using to fight it."
You don't have to "do" anything to become "enlightened," or whatever it is you think you want to become. Peace and happiness...or enlightenment, if you must use that word...is your natural state, and all you have to do is let go of and drop all the obstructions that are clouding your vision of Reality as it already is.
You don't have to âdoâ anything! Striving for something implies that you don't already have it; when in reality, awareness is something that you've always had.
#2: Turn on the Light of Awareness
âThe only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your ideas. If youâre ready to listen and if youâre ready to be challenged, thereâs one thing that you can do, but no one can help you.
What is this most important thing of all? Itâs called self-observation. No one can help you there. No one can give you a method. No one can show you a technique. The moment you pick up a technique, youâre programmed again.
But self-observationâwatching yourselfâis important. It is not the same as self-absorption. Self-absorption is self-preoccupation, where youâre concerned about yourself, worried about ďťżyourself. Iâm talking about self-observation.
Whatâs that? It means to watch everything in you and around you as far as possible and watch it as if it were happening to someone else. What does that last sentence mean? It means that you do not personalize what is happening to you. It means that you look at things as if you have no connection with them whatsoever.â
#3: Get Into Today
When you enjoy something intensely, you need very little of it. It's because we've forgotten how to enjoy life that we're always looking for more, more, more. When you really get into today - when you live now, immediately - today is enough.
There are numerous ways you could bring this mindset into your actual life, but when it comes to living for today, it helps most of all to simply slow down. Tomorrow's problems will arrive tomorrow, but when you give your full focus and attention to today, and to what you're doing right now, then tomorrow tends to turn out alright.
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With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your week!
Until next timeâŚhappy reading!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
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