HE WENT AWAY SAD (Part I), by Anthony De Mello

AND THE YOUNG MAN WENT AWAY SORROWFUL, FOR HE HAD GREAT POSSESSIONS. —

MARK 10:22

Has it ever struck you that you have been programmed to be unhappy and so no matter what you do to

become happy, you are bound to fail? It is as if you fed mathematical equations into a computer and then

failed each time you pushed it to turn out lines from Shakespeare.

If you wish to be happy the first thing you need is not effort or even goodwill or good desires but a clear

understanding of how exactly you have been programmed. This is what happened: First your society and your

culture taught you to believe that you would not be happy without certain persons and certain things. Just take

a look around you: Everywhere people have actually built their lives on the unquestioned belief that without

certain things—money, power, success, approval, a good reputation, love, friendship, spirituality, God—they

cannot be happy. What is your particular combination?

Once you swallowed your belief you naturally developed an attachment to this person or thing you were

convinced you could not be happy without. Then came the efforts to acquire your precious thing or person, to

cling to it once it was acquired, and to fight off every possibility of losing it. This finally led you to abject

emotional dependence so that the object of your attachment had the power to thrill you when you attained it,

to make you anxious lest you be deprived of it and miserable when you lost it.

Stop for a moment now and contemplate in horror the endless list of attachments that you have become a

prisoner to. Think of concrete things and persons, not abstractions . . . Once your attachment had you in its

grip you began to strive might and main, every waking minute of your life, to rearrange the world around you

so that you could attain and maintain the objects of your attachment. This is an exhausting task that leaves

you little energy for the business of living and enjoying life fully. It is also an impossible task in an ever-

changing world that you simply are not able to control.

So instead of a life of serenity and fulfillment you are doomed to a life of frustration, anxiety, worry,

insecurity, suspense, tension. For a few fleeting moments the world does, indeed, yield to your efforts and

rearranges itself to suit your desires. Then you become briefly happy. Or rather, you experience a flash of

pleasure which isn't happiness at all for it is accompanied by the underlying fear that at any moment this

world of things and people that you have so painstakingly put in place will slip out of your control and let you

down—which it never fails to do sooner or later.

And here is something else to ponder on: Each time you are anxious and afraid, it is because you may lose or

fail to get the object of your attachment, isn't it? And each time you feel jealous, isn't it because someone may

make off with what you are attached to? And almost all your anger comes from someone standing in the way

of your attachment, doesn't it? And see how paranoid you become when your attachment is threatened—you

cannot think objectively; your whole vision becomes distorted, doesn't it?

Adapted from Anthony De Mello, The Way to Love: The Last Meditations of Anthony De Mello

SAINT SOPHIA GREEK ORTHODOX CATHEDRAL, WASHINGTON D.C. Thursday, July 21, 2011