Anthony De Mello And God

Reading further into Anthony De Mello’s book Awareness, there is a passage about God that resonates and speaks to not only the theological world, but the world at large.

“The fact is that you are surrounded by God and you don’t see God, because you “know” about God. The final barrier to the vision of God is your concept. You miss God because you think you know. That’s the terrible thing about religion. That’s what the gospels were saying, that religious people “knew,” so they got rid of Jesus. The highest knowledge of God is to know God is unknowable.

There is far too much God talk; the world is sick of it. There is too little awareness, too little love, too little happiness, but let's not use those words either. There’s too little dropping of illusions, dropping of errors, dropping of attachments and cruelty, too little awareness. That’s what the whole world is suffering from, not from a lack of religion. Religion is supposed to be about a lack of awareness.

The one who knows, does not say; the one who says, does not know. All revelations, however divine, are never any more than a finger pointing at the moon. When the sage points to the moon, all the idiots see is the finger.”

I agree with most of this passage and applaud the boldness of the author, however I don’t think God is unknowable. I understand what he means, but God IS and to me that is a form of knowingness. If I didn’t know God, I wouldn’t know life.

Just because we read something in print, see it on television or hear someone say it doesn’t mean it is true. I think we have to find our own truth and it speaks to us in tones that we understand.

What do you think? Does anything in this passage standout for you; rub you the right way or wrong way?

Speak to me.