Awareness Arc

Anthony de Mello (1931-1987) blazed a new trail when he recognized Awareness as the essence of Spirituality. He proposed Awareness as the way to freedom from all that bind us – our attachments that fetter us, our conditioning that prevents us from seeing with clarity, the barriers of beliefs and ideas that obstruct our vision, and our fears that prevent us from loving.

His teaching has inspired millions of people across the world and has continued to challenge them to wake up and live in the freedom and freshness of the Now.

While the work of Tony de Mello has been our starting point, we do not see it as being of one person. Rather it is a universal message, for in it are reflected the teachings of the mystics of diverse times and places. We find there, in his own words, “a Hindu Guru, a Zen Roshi, a Taoist Sage, a Jewish Rabbi, a Christian Monk, a Sufi Mystic. He is a Lao-Tzu and Socrates. Buddha and Jesus, Zarathustra and Mohammed. His teaching is found in the seventh century B.C. and the twentieth century A.D. His wisdom belongs to East and West alike.”

Tony founded Sadhana Institute in India in 1973 which offered people a place for a direct and personal experience of this work and its experiential integration into their own lives. He lived there until his death in 1987. When Francis continued his work, he endeavoured to maintain Tony’s vision for Sadhana and to help bring his teaching on Awareness into the lives of ordinary people everywhere.

These efforts bore fruit when Liz Dillon and he began to offer Awareness (Chetana) Retreats in Ireland and India starting in 2002. Subsequently, these retreats and workshops have been offered in USA and New Zealand. Awareness Arc is a further development of this mission.

Tony’s work was marked by an ordinariness and power that could in fact bring about deep transformation in the lives of people.

This possibility of transformation is what we are offering to participants at our Awareness workshops and retreats. We do this not by repeating what Tony taught but taking it beyond where he had left off twenty one years ago.

Tony wrote that the desired outcome of this work is this: to be Awakened – and transformed. “This is what wisdom means: To be awakened without the slightest effort on your part, to be transformed, believe it or not, merely by waking to the reality that is not words, that lies beyond the reach of words.

“If you are fortunate enough to be Awakened thus, you will know why the finest language is the one that is not spoken, the finest action is the one that is not done and the finest change is the one that is not willed.”