Readings for the Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sirach 27:4-7| 1 1 Corinthians 15:54-58| Luke 6:39-45
What life-giving teaching Jesus presents to us! “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?” Jesus calls us to awareness, which is the awakened state or unity with God. Awareness is when the mind, unvarnished, has contact with Reality. Of course, God is Reality. Awareness means non-thinking and non-conceptual consciousness, a vast field of intelligence deeper than the content or activities of the mind.
But we are not aware. We do not see. We do not see things and people as they are. We see them as we are. This is what Jesus means by the wooden beam in our eye. We cannot see because we are blinded by our thinking and emotion. The contents of the mind prevent us from seeing reality as it is, from being aware and happy.
Anthony De Mello, a master of the way of awareness taught by Jesus, writes, “Look into yourself and examine your reactions to persons and situations, and you will be appalled to discover the prejudiced thinking behind your reactions. It is almost never the concrete reality of this person or thing that you are responding to. You are responding to principles, ideologies, belief systems, economic, political, religious, psychological belief systems; to preconceived ideas and prejudices, whether positive or negative. Take them one at a time, each person and thing and situation and search for your bias separating the reality here before you from your programmed perceptions and your projections. And this exercise will afford you a revelation as divine as any that the Scriptures could provide you with. Prejudices and beliefs are not the only enemies…There is another pair of enemies called desire and fear.”
De Mello points out that awareness “uncontaminated by emotion, namely by desire and fear, and self-interest, calls for an asceticism that is terrifying.” Jesus describes it: “Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.” To remove all additions to consciousness, we only need to see, to be aware. Awareness is, first, PURE AWARENESS that is clear and non-conceptual. This grounded silent awareness allows us to see our conditioning. In AWARENESS, we drop our attachments, false beliefs, our conditioning.
Then, we need to watch ourselves. We can start by observing ourselves and what makes us offended, angry, or upset. We can watch ourselves when we feel upset. To see the emotion or the trigger without judgment or complaint creates space and makes room for the Spirit to free us. In this spiritual light, we can change, because we understand. What we do not understand and are not aware of, we repress and then remain stuck.
De Mello writes, “What you are unaware of controls you. You are always a slave to what you’re not aware of. When you’re aware of it, you’re free from it. It’s there, but you’re not affected by it. You’re not controlled by it; you’re not enslaved by it. That’s the difference. When awareness is turned on, there’s never any distraction, because you’re always aware of whatever happens to be. No one can show you how to do it because he would be giving you a technique, he would be programming you.”
De Mello tells us a story: “What does it mean to be Enlightened?” “To see.” “What?” “The hollowness of success, the emptiness of achievements, the nothingness of human striving,” said the Master. The disciple was appalled. “But isn't that pessimism and despair?” “No. That's the excitement and freedom of the eagle gliding over a bottomless ravine.” In awareness, we will find ourselves traveling unencumbered and free as a bird in the sky, always living in the Eternal Now. When we are aware, we are free.