Posted by: awarenessarc | September 4, 2009

BOOK LAUNCH IN DUBLIN

Francis presents bk to Ronnie0396The Irish launch of THE DEWDROP IN THE OCEAN – Wisdom Stories for Turbulent Times was held at the Irish Writers’ Centre, Parnell Square, Dublin on August 27. The function was attended by over 120 friends, family and well wishers from all parts of Ireland and a few even from outside the country. Dr. Ronnie Delaney, Olympic Champion and Irish icon, was the guest of honour. In his inspiring speech, Ronnie described it as “a wonderful book and source of great practical wisdom that contains a message for everyone”.

Liz Dillon introducing the author began with the impact of Tony de Mello on Francis’ life, his work as Director of Sadhana after Tony’s death. She spoke of the quiet way in which over many years she had been bringing awareness into her own life and the transformation she had experienced as a result in her life and her work with children. She commented also on the legacy of Tony carried from Sadhana to Awareness Arc and spreading to Ireland and America.

Liz Dillon introduced the speaker beginning with the impact of Tony de Mello on Francis’ life, his work Liz Speakingas the Director of Sadhana Institute and the progress of their work together teaching awareness in Ireland, India and America. In a moving presentation Liz told the story of her own transformation through awareness and her complete commitment to bringing this work into daily living. She described the profound changes in her family as well as her work with children because of her understanding of awareness and her readiness to open herself to change.

Francis speaking0381Francis described how his relationship with Tony de Mello had turned his life upside down and initiated changes that were profound, frightening and essential. Little had he known then that this would amount to preparing him one day to succeed Tony as director of Sadhana and to carry on his legacy and continue his work in Awareness. The book, he said, is a tribute to that legacy.

The book has a contemporary relevance as people everywhere are going through turmoil and turbulence. Behind the stories is a life time of experience and quite a lot of turbulence experienced by the author and others. There is also a testimony to the power of awareness that makes it possible for a person to be happy and peaceful in the midst of life’s problems and sufferings.

Every page in this book can be a meditation evoking quiet reflection and inner change. They can help to wake the reader up. It contains awareness stories that are tools for transformation.

Fran SpeakingFran O’Reilly, CEO of Amaze, skilfully facilitated the celebration making sure an atmosphere of warmth and sacredness prevailed. His meticulous planning and hard work contributed to creating a wonderful evening that everyone present will long remember.

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Posted in A Dewdrop in the Ocean, Anthony de Mello, Awareness, Changes, Meditation, Padinjarekara, Sages, Transformation, Turbulence, Wisdom

Posted by: awarenessarc | August 25, 2009

A little dew that makes up the ocean

KuruvillaReview
Parables and stories have the power to reveal the de-epest wisdom in life and the need for awareness to transform our lives. They speak directly to our heart. They are first lived — individually and collectively – and then told and retold.

I came across a recent book, A Dewdrop in the Ocean: Wisdom Stories for Turbulent Time, by Francis J Padinjarekara. It co-ntains life-transforming wisdom capsules for contemporary men and women.
Here are some selected gems: “Suffering transforms human beings,” co-mmented the sage…“Ultimately it is not what happens to us but what happens in us that counts.” “Judgements are most inefficient,” the sage stated. “And a major waste of energy.”… Intelligence involves appropriate response to situations — like calling attention to being unduly delayed or a decision to let something be… Or you can be judgemental, get angry, create distance or start a fight.”

“Among the sage’s friends and acquaintances were celebrities, business tycoons and other wealthy people. However, his li-fe was very simple and none of the glitter has entered his home or life. When someone asked him why his lifestyle remained unaffected, a disciple spoke: “When a rose is set beside a diamond necklace, the rose doesn’t shine, but the necklace may recei-ve some of the perfume.”

The insights offered are meditational, and even transformational. No book can save us unless we allow its insights to touch us. This book enables perceptive readers to have an “expansive sense of wonder” that one experiences when life’s truths are disclosed. Each message is different from the other yet so beautifully linked because of its deep comprehension into the nature of life and reality.
Following the tradition of great spiritual masters such as Rajneesh or Anthony de Mello, the author attempts to spread transforming spiritual experiences in a non-invasive and welcoming manner. The wisdom in this book — like in a classic of any tradition — is subtle, yielding only to sustained inquiry. The relevance of topics and the utter simplicity with which profound truths are conveyed are masterly.

“The foundation and the basic test of any spirituality is not just how beautiful and uplifting it appears but how practical it is and how it enables us to live our lives and find our happiness in the world.” In this sense, the author urges the practitioners to have both inner freedom and external commitment. Freed from the compulsions of ego, a healthy spirituality reaches out to others in joy and service. In such a process, the divine is encountered and awakening happens. Awakening just is. It is not the result of persistent planning and hard work.

Perceived thus, human life can very well be understood and appreciated as a “dew drop in the ocean.” I am not the oc-ean. I do not have control over everything, including myself. Yet, in my never-ending quest for the unfolding truth, I am a puny little dew that makes up the ocean. I am aware of it and am part of it. Precisely therein lies my greatness.

Such an awareness opens me to see the ordinary things in my life in an extraordinary manner. Contemplation of such existence enables me to see the world in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour, As poet William Blake has immortalised in his “Auguries of Innocence.” Blake reminds us further: “A Robin Red breast in a Cage/ Puts all Heaven in a Rage/ A dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate/ Predicts the ruin of the State.”

Kuruvilla Pandikattu SJ The writer is professor of science and religion and director of Jnanam, Pune

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Posted in A Dewdrop in the Ocean, Anthony de Mello, Awareness, Changes, Life, Padinjarekara, Sages, Transformation

Posted by: awarenessarc | July 17, 2009

BOOK LAUNCH IN MUMBAI

Prof Francis D'Sa launches the book2A DEWDROP IN THE OCEAN – Wisdom Stories for Turbulent Times by Francis J. Padinjarekara was launched at Juhu Granth Book Shop in Mumbai on July 3, 2009. The launch was made by Prof. Dr. Francis X. D’Sa, the eminent Indologist and a close friend and former professor of the author. In a most inspiring speech, Prof D’Sa spoke about the power of parables and stories to communicate the deepest wisdom in life and the need for awareness to transform our lives.
The chief guest, Ms Suma Varughese, editor-in-chief of <a Suma Varughese speaks1 Life Positive was all in praise of the book. Life positive carries the first review of the book in its July issue.

Francis speaks at book launchFrancis spoke about his relationship with Tony de Mello and the profound impact of Tony and his teaching on his life. The book and its sequel were born out of the experience of awareness and its transformative power.

The event was organised by Yogesh Sharma of Zen Publications and was well attended by a capacity audience. The book, distributed by Zen Publications, is now available in major bookstores in India. We await the launch of the book in Dublin in August.

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Posted in Anthony de Mello, Awareness, Changes, Daily Living, Life, Sages, Transformation

Posted by: awarenessarc | July 15, 2009

A DEWDROP IN THE OCEAN

Great mystics and masters taught through stories, poems and parables because they realised that rational speech was inadequate to communicate profound truths about the sacred dimension of life like spirituality, inner quest or the divine. This is also the experience of anyone who has attempted to reflect seriously on the deepest and most important issues of life such as love, relationships, suffering, death or freedom. “Stories are the shortest distance between human beings and truth,” Tony de Mello, the great Indian spiritual teacher and author of many best-sellers, wrote.

The stories contained in this book are all linked to the over-arching theme of Awareness. They are also related to various aspects of daily living so that Awareness does not remain a mere idea but can become a part of our own experience. That is why experience and resonance are two strong points of this book.

The book is made up of a large number of stories thematically organised under various topics of daily living such as relationships, emotions, judgments, helping, suffering, leadership, stillness, and so on. The diversity of stories under each theme covers different aspects and offers and numerous perspectives to interest and benefit a large variety of readers.

The stories centre around the sage who is not a single individual but someone who gives expression to the collective wisdom of humanity. So he is a Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Sufi, Taoist and so on. His voice carries the teachings of the Buddha and Jesus, Ramesh Balsekar, J Krishnamurti, Tony de Mello and a host of others.

Though these stories carry perennial wisdom, it takes a considerable depth of understanding and creativity to make the sage speak to the experience of people in our time. That is why the stories indeed have a great resonance for readers and are capable of evoking experience of quiet reflections and transformations.

There are many gems here for daily living. Here is a story about relationships.

A woman told the sage that she had had a series of relationships that had ended in hurt and pain. Some of her partners had been possessive, some uncaring, some harsh.
“It is only now I realise that none of that was love,” she sobbed.
“Discovering what love is not, is a good introduction to what it is,” the sage said. (page 147)

A book of this kind can be a great source of inspiration and a powerful tool for personal transformation.

Publisher: Awareness Arc (www.Awarenessarc.org)
Distributor (S.Asia): Zen Publications (www.Zenpublications.com)
Pages: 306

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Posted in Anthony de Mello, Awareness, Life, Reality, Sages, Transformation, Understanding

Posted by: awarenessarc | June 13, 2009

THE WORLD OF AWARENESS AND THE AWARENESS OF THE WORLD

Awareness ArcWe are facing an unprecedented crisis that is affecting all areas of life – business, politics, religion, work, finances, society, family and relationships. The depression, loss of confidence, fear and confusion that have set in are affecting people all over the world.

While there is an insistent clamour for change, there is also a growing realization that the very people who have presided over the financial or political disasters are not likely to be the ones who will get us out of the mess. Their inability to be positive forces of change is not based necessarily on their lack of earnestness. It is based on a basic principle of life. The chaos and troubles we are facing in the outer world are reflections of the problems and conflicts we are experiencing in our inner world.

The familiar ways of dealing with problems is only to look outside for solutions. We will find lasting resolution only by looking within. We tend to look outside for clues, but we now have look inside for answers. We look outside for the means to achieve our goals, but have to we look inside for resources.

Of the many possible approaches to the difficulties we face in the outer world, the primary and essential is the inner world. How we deal with the global crisis depends on our ability to match the outer world to the inner world. What is within is necessarily reflected without. That is why finding peace in our world is not possible without discovering stillness within.

The dominant icons of our world have all along been mostly the ones who made it out in the world through the acquisition of money, fame or power. We admire them and hope to replicate their success in our own lives. The heroes of the emerging world of a deeper consciousness will be the ones who have discovered the secrets of the inner world.

The exploration of the outer world was accomplished through travels that took people across the globe and to the outer space. The exploration of the inner space is a journey without distance through awareness and self-understanding. While the conquest of the world has been achieved through the rattle of sabres, the blasts of bombs and the subjugation of peoples and nature, the mastery of the inner world is accompanied only in stillness and peace.

In the world of business and politics it is the rare exceptions like Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela who have worked from the inside out. Perhaps the time has come for humanity to make that essential shift towards this way of living. This is vital for our survival and happiness but may be too difficult to happen without a shift in our very consciousness. Awareness is what makes it possible.

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Posted in Anthony de Mello, Awareness, Life, Silence, Transformation, Understanding | Tags: , , , ,

Posted by: awarenessarc | March 26, 2009

LONGEVITY OF MANUFACTURED MYTHS

nullarbor-nymph-dora037b1On Boxing Day, 1971 a group of Australian Kangaroo hunters claimed to have seen a beautiful young half-naked blonde woman among kangaroos on the semi-arid plains of Nullarbor, South Australia. The claim was supported by a film footage of a woman holding a kangaroo by the tail. A huge round of publicity saw many visitors descending upon the town of Eucla with a population of 8 people at that time.

Later the hunters confessed that they had cooked up the story over a few drinks and had a local woman dressed up in kangaroo skins for the pictures just to get some publicity and tourists into their obscure town. One of the hoaxers said, “It amazed us how it kept going and we got bloody sick of it in the end.”

The Nullarbor Nymph may never have existed but that did not stop a sculpture of her being created and poems being written.

Amazing indeed how some stories and beliefs keep going on and on in spite of it not having a basis in reality. This is true in different areas of life where accepted beliefs become self-evident and gets a canonical status which puts it beyond questioning. This is not only true of religious beliefs and traditions but also of science where many myths are busted and new ones created. It takes awareness to turn the light on oneself to question the value and truth of one’s own beliefs and practices or even to trace their reasons and origins.

Tony de Mello’s story of the Guru’s Cat is relevant here.

Each time the guru sat for worship with his students the ashram cat would come in to distract them, so he ordered them to tie it when the ashram was at prayer.

After the guru died the cat continued to be tied at worship time. And when the cat expired, another cat was brought into the ashram to make sure that the guru’s orders were faithfully observed at worship time.

Centuries passed and learned treatises were written by the guru’s scholarly disciples on the liturgical significance of tying up a cat while worship is performed. (Anthony de Mello: Song of the Bird)

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Posted by: awarenessarc | January 21, 2009

LOSE YOUR MIND AND COME TO YOUR SENSES!

flowers1-large-size
A parable from the Buddha: A man travelling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

Proximity to death has a way of instilling wisdom and providing a clarity of perspective that the rest of life often does not provide. There is also an intensification of life that comes with the awareness of one’s approaching end. We may know people who have reported or appeared being the happiest during the interval between being told that they would have only a limited time to live and their death. They use the time to take a look at their bucket list.

What is the process that makes this possible in such a critical time as the spectre of one’s impending death? Perhaps the more appropriate question is: Why do we not live the entire lifetime that precedes the nearness of death with awareness and intensity? The answer could be summed up briefly – the mind. The mind that is so powerful and so necessary in daily life becomes an obstacle when it moves from its function of helping us live efficiently and intelligently into the past and future and takes up residence there. Without the present moment experience, and without the power of our senses available to us, life is dull, boring and wearisome. Imagine the vast difference between tasting a fruit and thinking or talking about it. Think of the difference between enjoying today’s beautiful sunset without thinking of the magnificent one of yesterday.

Closely related to this is also the psychological fact of desires, longings and fears that prevent us from experiencing the present moment. Our senses work only in the moment, our minds take flight in time. For us to experience aliveness, our senses have to be awake and present. There is great relevance to the call to lose your mind and come to your senses! For once we get caught in mental games, we do not enjoy what is present. It is no wonder having much comes with no assurance of great happiness. It is not necessarily those who have all they want who enjoy all they experience. Mark Nepo offers this brilliant line: The greedy one gathered all the cherries, while the simple one tasted all the cherries in one.

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Posted in Anthony de Mello, Awareness, Reality

Posted by: awarenessarc | December 22, 2008

AN AGE OF FEAR

Pestilence was on its way to Damascus and sped by a chief’s caravan in the desert.

“Where are you are you speeding to?” asked the chief.

“To Damascus. I mean to take a thousand lives.”

On its way back from Damascus, Pestilence passed by the caravan again. The chief said, “It was 50,000 lives you took, not a 1000.”

“No,” said the Pestilence. “I took a thousand. It was Fear that took the rest.”

(Anthony de Mello: Prayer of the Frog, Vol 2)

In the ongoing crisis in world financial markets, there is much that defies understanding and prognosis even of experts. But there is something that is obvious even to the most casual observer and that is the role of fear in the onset and continuation of the crisis.

This is no big secret. We have known all along that a reasonably healthy bank can hardly be ruined by robbers, regulators, natural calamities or even wars. But start a rumour, create fear among its customers, and the mightiest of banks built up over many years can be destroyed in a very short time.

While this applies to all aspects of life, the impact of fear on global trade and economy is there for all to see. There indeed are many other factors at work, but fear the affairs of human beings is pervasive. We saw its impact in the depression in America starting in 1929. We saw its effects in subsequent financial downturns.

While fear has such catastrophic impact, what actions do people take to reverse the situation or improve it? What are the steps taken to raise confidence levels? Initial actions frequently tend to be no more than reactions to a scary situation. We do something that may have worked in the past assuming that it should work is equivalent to flying a plane with last year’s weather chart. We forget that the situation here may be quite different and calls for other responses.

Actions taken in times of fear and under the impact of this powerful emotion tend to be blind and lead us into greater trouble. Panic reactions are not intelligent responses that are designed to yield positive outcome. They can only add more fuel to the fire. What people say and do from fear state obviously does not raise anyone’s confidence. Actions done in fear can only be reactions, never proactive steps that in fact address a situation appropriately.

To meet any situation adequately, we need clarity of perception. We need to see what is really going on. What prevents us from seeing with clarity? Obviously an emotional state like fear would be high on the list, followed closely by another called greed.

Problems are created and experienced at a certain level of consciousness. It is futile to look for solutions at the same level. One has to step aside, move beyond that state, to find positive and practical steps. That is why people with some level of clarity have stepped aside to find the stillness and awareness necessary for understanding a situation and doing what is appropriate. For some that moving away, however temporary, is absolutely necessary, so that can not only see but see through situation. It is such people who can give leadership in situation where others run in fear or act in fear and end up creating panic.

When in the midst of a difficult situation, someone who is fearless, can step aside and speak or act with clarity become leaders. People flock to them or wait for their guidance. This is what we look for in times of crises and when do not know what the right course of action would be.

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Posted in Anthony de Mello, Awareness, Changes, Life

Posted by: awarenessarc | October 23, 2008

IT'S AN INSIDE JOB

We were all quite happily talking about global warming until recently and were hardly thinking of an impending global financial meltdown. But here it is, and we seem to be rather clueless about the dimensions of the problems as well as a way out of this.

Our first impulse in difficult situations is to look outside for answers. When our car gives us trouble, we would obviously take it to a mechanic. When we have an electrical problem or some serious maintenance problems at home, we call in those who can fix them. That is just as well because only a few of us may have the expertise for such jobs. For the rest of us, God help those who try to help themselves.

Quite predictably, in the financial crisis too we look for answers from experts. We turn on the television sets, read newspapers, we listen to consultants and commentators. This time there seems to be less certainty in their opinions. It seems they too are rather unsure of the dimensions of the problem, and quite clueless about the way out of the crisis. They haven’t been quite able to disguise all this. Anyway, they are doing something, and that should restore ‘confidence’ and ‘sentiments’. We hear comments of some observers about the experts who are offering their solutions but who are also part of the problem, and some of them directly or indirectly players in the game that created the mess. In any case in critical times, we need to, though we may not, question the wisdom of experts and approach the situation with a Zen mind . Our time tested approaches and answers may in fact lead us to fail in this one. J. Paul Getty put it aptly: “In times of rapid change, experience may be your worst enemy.”

Even as we search for answers and solutions to the problem we are facing, there is another urgent question, and one that we may not easily ask. It may take a while for the situation to be clear and the economies of nations to be back on track. What about the fear and anxiety, the depression and anger and the insecurity that people are facing? What do we do and where do we go with that? In other words, as we find solution to the financial problem, what do we do with our suffering?

Predictably, we look outside for solutions for what is happening within us. We have always done it that way. The first line of defence may be trying to forget it through intoxication of various types. Even our Stone Age ancestors did that, so much so that that stone age was not only about implements but also the supplements; they were in fact stoned too.  They didn’t have television for entertainment, but we surely are not the original inventors of distractions. Besides we have from time immemorial turned to experts like the priest, the shaman, the therapist, who know the answers and we have searched the scriptures. We have done everything that can shift the focus off our pain.

A major cause of disillusionment, and one that in fact is a point of grace, is the realization that when it comes to solutions to life’s most important problems others may give us hints, they can point their fingers in a given direction, but it is ours to look and it is ours to find. If we have learned one thing along the way, it may be this, nobody can take away our troubles and make us happy or give us peace. As long as we are looking outside for answers, we are only postponing the inward journey where alone we find what we are looking for.

Interestingly, we do not spontaneously seem to make this inward journey; we do that when we are hit hard by crises and when our experts also fail us. Then we are forced to look where we are least likely to look – inside ourselves. If the present crisis and the consequent difficulties have helped to bring us home to ourselves, they will have done us a major service. That way we may begin to live from the inside and discover that happiness is always an inside job.

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Posted by: awarenessarc | October 23, 2008

IT’S AN INSIDE JOB

We were all quite happily talking about global warming until recently and were hardly thinking of an impending global financial meltdown. But here it is, and we seem to be rather clueless about the dimensions of the problems as well as a way out of this.

Our first impulse in difficult situations is to look outside for answers. When our car gives us trouble, we would obviously take it to a mechanic. When we have an electrical problem or some serious maintenance problems at home, we call in those who can fix them. That is just as well because only a few of us may have the expertise for such jobs. For the rest of us, God help those who try to help themselves.

Quite predictably, in the financial crisis too we look for answers from experts. We turn on the television sets, read newspapers, we listen to consultants and commentators. This time there seems to be less certainty in their opinions. It seems they too are rather unsure of the dimensions of the problem, and quite clueless about the way out of the crisis. They haven’t been quite able to disguise all this. Anyway, they are doing something, and that should restore ‘confidence’ and ‘sentiments’. We hear comments of some observers about the experts who are offering their solutions but who are also part of the problem, and some of them directly or indirectly players in the game that created the mess. In any case in critical times, we need to, though we may not, question the wisdom of experts and approach the situation with a Zen mind . Our time tested approaches and answers may in fact lead us to fail in this one. J. Paul Getty put it aptly: “In times of rapid change, experience may be your worst enemy.”

Even as we search for answers and solutions to the problem we are facing, there is another urgent question, and one that we may not easily ask. It may take a while for the situation to be clear and the economies of nations to be back on track. What about the fear and anxiety, the depression and anger and the insecurity that people are facing? What do we do and where do we go with that? In other words, as we find solution to the financial problem, what do we do with our suffering?

Predictably, we look outside for solutions for what is happening within us. We have always done it that way. The first line of defence may be trying to forget it through intoxication of various types. Even our Stone Age ancestors did that, so much so that that stone age was not only about implements but also the supplements; they were in fact stoned too.  They didn’t have television for entertainment, but we surely are not the original inventors of distractions. Besides we have from time immemorial turned to experts like the priest, the shaman, the therapist, who know the answers and we have searched the scriptures. We have done everything that can shift the focus off our pain.

A major cause of disillusionment, and one that in fact is a point of grace, is the realization that when it comes to solutions to life’s most important problems others may give us hints, they can point their fingers in a given direction, but it is ours to look and it is ours to find. If we have learned one thing along the way, it may be this, nobody can take away our troubles and make us happy or give us peace. As long as we are looking outside for answers, we are only postponing the inward journey where alone we find what we are looking for.

Interestingly, we do not spontaneously seem to make this inward journey; we do that when we are hit hard by crises and when our experts also fail us. Then we are forced to look where we are least likely to look – inside ourselves. If the present crisis and the consequent difficulties have helped to bring us home to ourselves, they will have done us a major service. That way we may begin to live from the inside and discover that happiness is always an inside job.

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Posted in Awareness, Changes | Tags: , ,

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