Posted October 18, 2003
Anthony de Mello, SJ
The Difference between Analysis and Awareness
I want to give you a taste of the difference between analysis and
awareness, or information on the one hand and insight on the
other. Information is not insight, analysis is not awareness, knowledge is
not awareness. Suppose I walked in here with a snake crawling up my arm,
and I said to you, "Do you see the snake crawling up my arm? I've just
checked in an encyclopedia before coming to this session and I found out
that this snake is known as a Russell's viper. If it bit me, I would die
inside half a minute. Would you kindly suggest ways and means by which I
could get rid of this creature that is crawling up my arm?" Who talks like
this? I have information, but I've got no awareness.
Or say I'm destroying myself with alcohol. "Kindly describe ways and means
by which I could get rid of this addiction." A person who would say that
has no awareness. He knows he's destroying himself, but he is not aware of
it. If he were aware of it, the addiction would drop that minute. If I
were aware of what the snake was, I wouldn't brush it off my arm; it would
get brusher off through me. That's what I'm talking about, that's the
change I'm talking about. You don't change yourself; it's not me changing
me. Change takes place through you, in you. That's about the most
adequate way I can express it. You see change take place in you, through
you; in your awareness, it happens. You don't do it. When you're doing
it, it's a bad sign; it won't last. And if it does last, God have mercy on
the people you're living with, because you're going to be very
rigid. People who are converted on the basis of self-hatred and
self-dissatisfaction are impossible to live with. Somebody said, "If you
want to be a martyr, marry a saint." But in awareness, you keep your
softness, your subtleness, your gentleness, your openness, your
flexibility, and you don't push, change occurs.
I remember a priest in Chicago when I was studying psychology there telling
us, "You know, I had all the information I needed; I knew that alcohol was
killing me, and, believe me, nothing changes an alcoholic -- not even the
love of his wife or his kids. He does love them but it doesn't change
him. I discovered one thing that changed me. I was lying in a gutter one
day under a slight drizzle. I opened my eyes and I saw that this was
killing me. I saw it and I never had the desire to touch a drop after
that. As a matter of fact, I've even drunk a bit since then, but never
enough to damage me. I couldn't do it and still cannot do it." That's
what I'm talking about: awareness. Not information, but awareness.
A friend of mine who was given to excessive smoking said, "You know, there
are all kinds of jokes about smoking. They tell us that tobacco kills
people, but look at the ancient Egyptians; they're all dead and none of
them smoked." Well, one day he was having trouble with his lungs, so he
went to our cancer research institute in Bombay. The doctor said, "Father,
you've got two patches on your lungs. It could be cancer, so you'll have
to come back next month." He never touched another cigarette after
that. Before, he knew it would kill him; now, he was aware it could kill
him. That's the difference.
The founder of my religious order, St. Ignatius, has a nice expression for
that. He calls it tasting and feeling the truth -- not knowing it, but
tasting and feeling it, getting a feel for it. When you get a feel for it
you change. When you know it in your head, you don't.
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