DOES DE MELLO OVERTHROW JESUS IN HIS BOOK AWARENESS?

The Jesuit Priest from India, Anthony de Mello had a background in psychotherapy.  Many feel that as his spiritual writings were coloured by it, that he is another example of a man who was trained in one of its dubious and dangerous forms.

He urges us not to judge or praise ourselves but just to observe what we do without any element of these intruding (page 46).  What about the Bible doctrine that God's spirit prompts us?  What about the conscience standing for God in you and being put there by him?
 
He says that depending on others makes you make demands on them (page 54). The result is fear and fear destroys love. He says we must be detached from them and let them be free which cures loneliness. We should fear nobody because we are content to be nobody (page 58).
 
The system of De Mello is totally incompatible with Roman Catholic doctrine which is based on the perfection and godhead of Jesus Christ.

De Mello says that Jesus could not do wrong for he had the awareness that the book tries to inspire in us. It says that because of this Jesus was free and since we can do wrong we are not free (page 142).

But De Mello’s system forbids aggression and Jesus was aggressive towards the Jews so Jesus did not practice the philosophy in this book. Jesus taught everybody to say, “I am a sinner”. But De Mello says that since you should not say you are depressed but be careful to separate the illness from your personhood by saying something like, “It is depressed”, meaning your me part is depressed not the I which would imply that you should not call yourself a sinner but say “It is a sinner” or “My me part not my I part is a sinner”. Yet the word sinner means a person or I who sins against God. Jesus also got upset therefore he did not practice De Mello’s philosophy.
 
Aggression is accepted by all right thinking people as a duty when you are trying to get some stubborn person out of a burning house etc. Christianity and Jesus say there is a Hell of endless torment. Jesus says we must be prepared at all times for meeting the bridegroom, meaning himself, and no excuse will be accepted if the opportunity comes. He devised some parables to drive home that moral. So taking all this into consideration, real Christianity demands quite a lot of aggression for the fate of Hell which is everlasting torment is worse than a million deaths. You must yell your head off at a girl who is going to sleep with her boyfriend.

De Mello cannot answer people who say they enjoy being bad and having negative feelings. It is possible that people can enjoy hating another person and get more pleasure out of this than out of letting go which is what De Mello asks them to do. Everybody and everybody’s situation is different so some people could hate strongly and be okay.

Also Jesus taught the doctrine of eternal punishment while De Mello says that we should not worry about the afterlife at all or care about it (page 42). Only the insane could not care if they go to Hell if they die. He said the central question in philosophy or the question that should be most important for us is not is there a God or is there an afterlife but how to do what is best with this life. De Mello gives lip-service to God and belief in God emphasising that the more we learn about God the less we know for God is unknowable. But in reality there is no need for God at all. De Mello said that to need God is to fail to love God for needing God means you want to control him. We don’t need God to be happy (page 134). I like the way De Mello is full of the atheist spirit though it is a pity he has tried to hide it.
 
If we should not need God, then we must deny that God holds us in existence and that we cannot exist without him making us.
 
De Mello with this God we do not need is denying that God comes first. This contradicts the first great commandment as taught by Jesus and Moses which runs, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind”, in other words do everything for God and nothing for yourself or others and to love others and yourself is simply to love God because love is doing whatever is the right thing to do. Only God is loved in the sense of being valued. This life does come first in the sense that you have it now and are most sure you are alive now than that you will be later or after death. De Mello doesn’t give this reason for it though. He says that you need to strip away the illusions and become aware and that has to be done in this life so this life comes first.

Jesus had no business teaching that Hell exists when we are not supposed to care about the afterlife. The doctrine has caused so much upset that we must conclude that Jesus was an evil man if he lived.

Catholics pray to saints and say prayers like, "Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, Hail Our Life, Our Sweetness and our Hope. O Clement, O Loving, O Sweet Virgin Mary." If you don’t need God you need the saints even less and so it would be degrading to pray to the saints and more so than it would be to pray to God.

De Mello’s system seeks to deliver from fear. But some fear is natural. For example, how can you avoid fearing pain?

The Bible says that God rewards works of righteousness. But if awareness is all we need what use will they be for we will have all we need? They cannot be rewards unless they please us. De Mello’s system forbids you to think of rewards for that is destroying your inner happiness by making yourself need something.

If it is true that success of every kind has nothing to do with self-worth then it follows that the Bible teaching that you are a failure if you commit adultery or whatever is wrong for if you succeed in keeping the commandments it is nothing to be glad about.

The Bible says that grace, a supernatural miracle of God by which he helps you to be good and pleasing to him, is what changes your life. De Mello says it is not grace but just seeing through the things that you think offer you happiness that you need so that you will be free of burdens that stop your happiness. It’s all your own work so grace and therefore prayer are a waste of time.
 
The Bible blames original sin and not stupidity for the human condition. If there is no original sin there should be no infant baptism. De Mello says you do not need God but awareness which rules out the need for God’s forgiveness and the sacrament of confession and for Jesus to die for sins. To rule out Jesus’ atonement is to abolish the Mass as well. To abolish grace implies you don’t need belief in the miracle of God making bread and wine the body and blood of Christ. The ban on judging ourselves or praising ourselves rules out the Catholic system entirely.

De Mello’s system if correct proves that the sacraments are actually evils. They give false hope of becoming a good person. They do not make you develop awareness for you need De Mello for that. All they do is waste your time and make you complacent about the evil that is in you for you think they are curing it magically and they are not. They constitute false promises.

De Mello would agree with the Catholic Church that knowing God is admitting you don't know. Making God unknowable makes God scary for De Mello states that we like what we know best for we are familiar with it. De Mello says that there are only two emotions in us, love and fear and fear is bad and has to be destroyed by his system for us to be happy. Fear is what originates human evil and it results from looking for happiness in material things, God, other people and in love for these things are a distraction from the happiness that is programmed into us which cannot be taken away or depend on any conditions. By implication then belief in God is a bad thing. And it is worse when you believe in the Bible God who would let people go to Hell for all eternity for Hell makes you afraid for yourself and for others and the fact that Jesus taught the doctrine shows that De Mello’s system proves that Jesus was a fake who should be ignored.

If fear is the problem then you can be afraid of fear too. The longer you live the more experience you have of things going wrong and the more afraid you will get of fear. So it follows that the longer you live the more evil you have inside you that you disguise as good provided you are not practicing De Mello’s philosophy.

De Mello says that belief is security. This is because people treat their beliefs like facts. But he describes faith, personal trust, as insecurity. It is taking the risk of being wrong and getting on with it. The Bible denies that faith is insecure. The faith of the Bible is full of confidence that Jesus has saved the world and is coming back and that God loves all. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul stated that Jesus had risen not that Jesus might have risen. 1 Peter 9 tells us that we are sure that our souls will be saved. Faith is a mixture of belief and acting on the belief so if belief is secure like De Mello says then it follows that for him faith is just something you do and not necessarily something that you believe in.

De Mello states that if you believe that nobody loves you there will be moments when you forget this and during these moments you are happy (page 112). The doctrine that God comes first urges you to keep God in your mind as much as possible as if he were your one true love. If you remember that God loves you that will remind you that people don't so you will lose your happiness over God. It will only be a little better if it reminds you that there are some or many who do not.

If De Mello’s philosophy is right then the Bible is not inspired by God at all for it does not teach his philosophy at all. If it ever does then it is not clear and detailed enough. We would have something like De Mello’s book at the beginning of the Bible.