Awareness
Anthony Di Mello
Summary
One of the best books I've read. It made me question everything I thought I knew about myself and reality. All of life comes down to awareness.
Rating: 5/5
Notes
Spirituality means waking up because most people are asleep
The nature of rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens
You are never in love with anyone, you’re in love with your prejudiced idea of that person
‘Every great idea starts out as blasphemy.’ - Bertrand Russell
People are crazy, they’re lunatics and the sooner you see this, the better for your spiritual and mental health
Learning spirituality is unlearning, unlearning almost everything you’ve been taught
Step one is readiness to admit you don’t want to wake up. Step 2 is readiness to understand, to listen, to challenge your whole belief system
Life is a banquet and the tragedy is most people are starving to death
You’re brainwashed if you take on an idea that isn’t yours
The one thing you need most of all is the readiness to learn something new
It’s never fear of the unknown because you cannot fear something you don’t know but loss of the known
Expect the worst because you’re dealing with selfish people. They’re as bad as you are and they’re seeking their own self interest like you
Drop your false ideas. See through people. If you see through yourself, you’ll see through everyone
When you’re ready to exchange your illusions for reality, your dreams for factors, that’s the way you find it all
The most important thing of all is self-observation which means to watch everything around you as far as possible as if it were happening to someone else
You’re not OK and you’re not not OK, you’re you
Watch yourself with no judgement and don’t try to change it
Anytime you have a negative feeling toward anyone, you’re living an illusion. The one who has to change is you.
To depend on another human being psychologically or emotionally means you depend on them for your happiness. Don’t do that.
Loneliness is cured by contact with reality
When you suddenly understand who ‘I’ is, you’ll never be the same again. No one will ever hurt you again. You will fear no one and nothing
When you’re living for nothing, you’ve got all your skills, you’ve got all your energy, you’re relaxed, you don’t care because it doesn’t matter if you win or lose
There are only two things in this world, love and fear
The person who is truly non-violent is fearless
You have to dis-identify from the idea of ‘me’ and understand I’
The unaware life is not worth living
Don’t be the rescuer
What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you
Don’t seek the truth, just drop your opinions
The main preoccupation of society is to keep it sick
You’re a success in life when you wake up
People are miserable because they identify with a label. Never identify ‘I’ with a label
‘I’ is none of these labels. ‘Me’ is. Drop the illusion of labels
Negative feelings are in you, not in reality. Never identify ‘I’ with that feeling, it has nothing to do with happiness. It is the ‘me’
When you wake up, you realize reality is not problematic, you are the problem
We see people and things not as they are, but as we are
Put this into place
- Identify the negative feelings in you
- Understand they are in you, not in the world/external reality
- Do not see them as an essential part of ‘I’, those things come and go
- Understand that when you change, everything changes
To say no to people, that’s part of waking up
Those who know do not say; those who say do not know
Pleasant experiences make life delightful, painful experiences lead to growth
Desire in the healthy sense is energy and understand it
When you hold on to anything, you cease to live. Smash the labels and then you will be free
Falling in love has nothing to do with love at all. It’s about burning desire
Concepts are frozen, reality flows
Awareness means to watch, to observe what is going on within you and around you. You will understand this thing called reality is beyond words and concepts
Don’t carry experiences from the past, even good ones
The root of sorrow is craving. It destroys and distorts perception.
You don’t need anyone’s love, you just need to get in touch with reality
Happiness is a state of dropping the illusions of life
You will never understand yourself if you seek to change yourself
As soon as you look at the world through an ideology, you are finished
Insight into reality and understanding
Awareness, insight. But then you have to deal with the villain or self-condemnation, self-hatred and self-dissatisfaction
If the mind is unobstructed, the result is wisdom. If the heart is unobstructed, the result is love.
We’re always condemning ourselves, making ourselves feel guilty
Slow down and taste and smell and hear and let your senses come alive
You don’t change yourself, change takes place through you
When you’re ready to lose your life, you’ll lie it
Life is for the gambler
Every child has a god in him. Our attempt to mold the child will turn god into the devil
The root of evil is within you. Nourish yourself and you’ll break addictions to other feelings.
***
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How the World Works
Noam Chomsky
Summary
A combination of books Chomsky wrote in the 80s and 90s about America and it's role in the world. Fascinating read and insight into one of the great thinkers of the 21st century
Rating: 5/5
Notes
The US invaded Greece in 1947 and supported a horrendous war which led to 160k Greek deaths. This was the model for Vietnam and allowed American business to gain and thrive
US policies in the 3rd world consistently opposed democracies if they couldn’t be controlled as real democracies believe government should respond to the needs of their own population rather than those of US investors
US-run contra forces in the 3rd world isn’t ordering killing - it’s brutal sadistic torture (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala)
From the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 till the collapse of the communist governments in eastern europe in the 80s, it was possible to justify every US attack as defense against the Soviets
If you want a global system that’s subordinated to the needs of US investors, you can’t let pieces of it wander off. It’s clearly stated in the documents of record
The US wants ‘stability’ meaning security for the upper classes and large foreign businesses
Solid case for impeaching every American president since World War 2 either outright as war criminals or involved in serious war crimes
El Salvador and Nicaragua were not covered by the US media in the 70s when US-supported brutal torture and murder were taking place
In the early 80s, America’s friends slaughtered 10s of thousands of Guatemalans with countless others tortured and raped
After Vietnam, the major US policy goal has been to maximize repression and suffering of countries demonstrated by their violence - blocked other countries from seeking aid
The US regularly carries out or supports aggression
For most of the 20th century, the US was the dominant economic power and used economic warfare as a weapon ranging from illegal embargoes to enforcement of weak IMF rules with their military becoming pre-eminent
The US tries to avoid negotiations with countries as the US fears it will lose and other countries will be better off
When a state has huge debts, it must divert the population from what’s happening and they do this by inspiring fear of our enemies (Russia in Europe)
The real enemy of the US has always been ‘the poor who seek to plunder the rich’. In America, it’s the opposite and has been for generations
‘The war on drugs’ was a manufactured media blitz by the US leadership to distract the population, increase repression in inner cities and build support for attack on civil liberties
The US government blocks international effort to seek peace (Russia and Ukraine)
Major media are large companies owned and interlinked with even larger conglomerates. The market is the advertisers and the product is audiences
The power in the US lies in the hands of people who determine investment decisions as they determine production, distribution and staff the government. They want a passive, quiescent population
The struggle of freedom is never over and requires active and sustained efforts
One important consequence of globalization is it extends the third world model to industrial nations where the average person has their jobs shipped away while the rich and elite continue to amass massive amounts of wealth
We’ve moved to an international state with the IMF, World Bank, G7 & EU, WEF where the general population doesn’t know what’s happening and it doesn’t know it doesn’t know
If the borrowing the US has done was used for constructive purposes like investment or infrastructure, the US would be better off, but it was used to enrich the rich - for consumption, financial manipulation and speculation which are all harmful
The class warfare of the last few decades has successfully weakened popular organizations leaving people to feel isolated
The US is so deeply in debt to the international financial community because of debt that they have a lock on US policy
Many of the large number of security council resolutions vetoed by the US have to do with Israeli aggression or atrocities
Invaders typically use local collaborators to run things for them by playing upon existing rivalries to get onne group to work for them against another
European wars were wars of extermination. If we were to be honest about history, we would simply describe it as barbarian invasion
There has always been racism but it developed as a leading principle of thought in the context of colonialism.
A standard technique of belief formation goes along with oppression
In the US, you’re not allowed to talk about the class differences, which is the real issue
When the US establishment talks about jobs, it means profits for its corporations
The elite are masters and they follow what Adam Smith said about ‘the vile maxim’ - all for ourselves and nothing for anyone else
People who aren’t owners and investors have nothing much to say in the US
Jefferson warned against banking institutions and corporations and said if they grow, aristocrats would’ve won and the revolution would’ve been lost
The ‘Free market’ is for the poor. We have a dual system - protection for the rich and market discipline for everyone else
There’s been a considerable increase in inequality and has the American society moving towards a third world model, thereby seeing increased crime and signs of social disintegration
A huge area of the media is dedicated to diverting people and making them more stupid and passive
There’s nothing individualistic about corporations who are totalitarian in nature
Free trade agreements result in reduced wages for local employees while predominantly benefiting the rich consumer while also destroying unions
Operation Paper Clip imported large number of known Nazi criminals
The American army’s counter-insurgency literature begins with an analysis of the German experience in Europe written with the co-operation of Naxi officials (instruments of statecraft - book)
US involvement in Chile with the coup in 1973 to reduce social democracy
The threat of a good empire is what the US worried about with reforms on uncontrolled capitalism
The US killed a few million people and destoryed 3 countries during the Vietnam war
A huge amount of business propaganda is to create wants
The answers to solve all these issues is to organize. Being alone you can’t do anything but if you join with other people, you can make changes
Under capitalism, investment is supposed to be as risk free as possible. No competition wants free markets - what they want is power
The government subsidizes corporations’ costs, protects them from market risks and lets them keep the profits
There’s never been much difference between the 2 business parties and the differences are disappearing
The CIA has been involved in drug running for generations (the politics of heroin book)
You need something to frighten people with, to prevent them from paying attention to what’s really happening to them. You have to engender fear and hatred
The first world lives in a highly indoctrinated society
Neoliberalism is nothing more than the imperial formula: free markets for you and plenty of protection for me. The rich would never accept it but they’re happy to impose it on the poor
The UN does mostly what US business wants
‘Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business’ - John Devery
If people dedicate themselves to organizing and activism, we’ll gain access to broader audiences
If you extrapolate to the future, it’s very ugly but the point is it’s not inevitable. It can be changed but we can’t change things till we understand them.
***
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