of the most beloved stories from Anthony de Mello. Here, more than ever before in his bestselling writing, he grapples with the ultimate question of love. In thirty-one meditations, he implores his readers with his usual pithiness to break through illusion, the great obstacle to love. "Love springs from awareness," de Mello insists, saying that it is only when we see the other as he or she really is that we begin to love.

The second act of love, he says, is seeing ourselves without illusion--without the coercive nature of our needs, desires, memories, prejudices, and projections. If these steps are taken, then love will steal upon a person or into a relationship. But the task is not easy. "The most painful act the human can perform," de Mello says, "is the act of seeing. It is in that act of seeing that love is born."