The Blessing: Lessons From The Way to Love (Part 2)
Love springs from awareness. To love someone, you must see them as they truly are.
In Part 1, we learned about the obstacles that get in the way of love. Our beliefs and attachments prevent us from living freely and loving fully.
Now, the focus shifts from attachment to awareness. Awareness is the ability to see ourselves and others as we truly are.
In the second half of the book, De Mello talks about how to live in a state of awareness. He also shares practices for achieving a deeper understanding of yourself and others.
“Now you will move through life living from one moment to another, wholly absorbed in the present, carrying with you so little from the past that your spirit could pass through the eye of the needle; as little distracted by the worries of the future as the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. You will be attached to no person or thing, for you will have developed a taste for the symphony of life. And you will love life alone with the passionate attachment of your whole heart and your whole soul and your whole mind and all your strength.”
This is the joyful experience of freedom from attachment. It’s a state of being fully present in each moment.
You don’t waste time obsessing about the past or worrying about the future. Instead, you give your full attention to the moment in front of you so you can experience it intimately.
“There is another way beside laborious self-punishing on the one hand and stagnant acceptance on the other. It is the way of self-understanding. This is far from easy because to understand what you are requires complete freedom from all desire to change what you are into something else.
Most people try to change the things about themselves that they can’t accept. They put immense effort into changing themselves, but it rarely works.
Instead of trying to change yourself, you can learn to understand and accept yourself exactly as you are. Rather than making you passive, self-acceptance is the foundation for growth. It’s easier to change when you understand yourself; acceptance is the first step toward self-understanding.
“When someone tells you how special you are, all you can accurately say is: This person given his particular taste and needs, desires, appetites and projections has a special desire for me, but that says nothing about me as a person. Someone else will find me quite unspecial and that too says nothing about me as a person. So the moment you accept that compliment and you allow yourself to enjoy it, you will give control of yourself to that person. You will go to great lengths in order to continue to be special to this person.”
When you understand yourself deeply, you don’t need to feel understood by others. To be truly free, you have to be free from other people’s judgments and opinions. By seeking their approval, you give them the ability to control you.
“Therefore, the first act of love is to see this person or this object, this reality as it truly is. And this involves the enormous discipline of dropping your desires, your prejudices, your memories, your projections, your selective way of looking, a discipline so great that most people would rather plunge headlong into good actions and service than submit to the burning fire of this asceticism.”
You can only love someone when you see them as they truly are. Otherwise, you just love the imaginary version of them you’ve created in your mind.
This means dropping your preconceived notions about them and ignoring your assumptions, judgments, and expectations. To love someone as they are in this moment, you have to be present and give them your full attention.
“Think of the terror that comes to the rich man when he sets out to really see the pitiful conditions of the poor, to a power-hungry dictator when he really looks at the plight of the people he oppresses, to a fanatic, a bigot, when he really sees the falsehood of his convictions when they do not fit the facts. The terror that comes to the romantic lover when he decides to see that what he loves is not his beloved but his image of her. That is why the most painful act the human being can perform, the act that he dreads the most is the act of seeing. It is in the act of seeing that love is born, or rather more accurately, that act of seeing is Love.”
To see yourself and others clearly, you have to stop fooling yourself. It’s challenging to face the painful truths about yourself and the world.
That’s why we put so much effort into distracting ourselves. We hurry through our days and always have another task to complete. We’ll watch TV, browse social media, or listen to a podcast - anything to distract us from our thoughts.
Those distractions get in the way of authentically seeing (and loving) each other.
“Think of some of the people you like and are drawn to you. Now attempt to look at each of them as if you were seeing them for the first time, not allowing yourself to be influenced by your past knowledge or experience of them, whether good or bad. Look at things in them that you may have missed because of familiarity, for familiarity breeds staleness, blindness and boredom. You cannot love what you cannot see afresh. You cannot love what you are not constantly discovering anew.”
You can treat everyone this way. Be fully present with them so they feel seen and appreciated. The best moments happen when your mind is clear and your full attention is on the person in front of you.
That’s how you connect deeply with those you love. By giving them your full presence and attention, you’ll avoid taking them for granted. Instead, you can enjoy every moment with them as if it’s the first time you’ve seen them.
“Now think of some recent event that caused you pain, that produced negative feelings in you. Whoever or whatever caused those feelings was your teacher, because they revealed so much to you about yourself that you probably did not know. And they offered you an invitation and a challenge to self-understanding, self-discovery, and therefore to growth and life and freedom.”
Pain is not a problem - it’s a signal. Pain is there to let you know that something is wrong in your mind or body.
When someone causes you pain, it’s easy to blame them and hold it against them. The better path is realizing they’re doing you a favor by pointing out a flaw in your perception. With this mindset, you can thank them for helping you see yourself more clearly.
“The orchestra is within you and you carry it with you wherever you go. The things and people outside you merely determine what particular melody the orchestra will play. And when there is no one or nothing that has your attention the orchestra will play a music of its own; it needs no outside stimulation. You now carry in your heart a happiness that nothing outside of you can put there, and nothing can take away.”
By finding your way to love, you’ll experience clarity of mind and authenticity of expression. Your mental constructs will be burned away and you’ll see yourself, others, and reality as they truly are. That’s when we’ll wake up from the trance and learn to love deeply and authentically.
There’s a reason I’ve read this book repeatedly, and that I’m currently reading it again. It’s a pocket-sized book containing tremendous insights and powerful wisdom that can transform the way you see the world.
If you enjoyed this article, I highly recommend reading The Way to Love for yourself. Feel free to subscribe below for weekly Christian book summaries like this one.