from The Way to Love by Anthony De Mello . . . Look at the stress, at the anxiety and depression, at the conflict in the hearts of people, inner conflict, outer conflict. Suppose somebody gave you a way of getting rid of all of that? Suppose somebody gave you a way to stop that tremendous drainage of energy, of health, of emotion that comes from these conflicts and confusion. Who wouldn’t want that? There…
from Awareness by Anthony De Mello . . . Most people are worried about what’s going to happen to their career, like a middle age businessman coming home from his 30-year reunion with business college classmates thinking: “Look at my classmates; they’ve really made it. One is president of a corporation; the other has become the Chief Justice; somebody else is a bestselling writer and a hot consultant. They make more money than me and…
from Awareness by Anthony De Mello . . . What can one do to attain happiness? There is nothing you or anyone else can do. Why? For the simple reason that you are already happy right now. So how can you acquire what you already have? If that is so, why do you not experience this happiness which is already yours? Because your mind is creating unhappiness all the time. Drop this unhappiness of your…
from Awareness by Anthony De Mello . . . Notice, you’ve got “I” observing “me.” This is an interesting phenomenon that has never ceased to cause wonder to philosophers, mystics, scientists, psychologists, that the “I” can observe “me.” When you’re caught up in labels, you’re caught up with “me” not “I”. Consider, what value do these labels have, as far as the “I” is concerned? “I” is none of these things. “Me” is all of…
from Awareness by Anthony De Mello . . . Confucius said, “The one who would be constant in happiness must frequently change.” If you want to live in happiness, you have to flow with life, because life is constantly flowing, life is always changing. Of course, we go through life with preferences, but when we don’t let our happiness depend on any one of them, then we’re awake. We’re moving toward wakefulness. Wakefulness, happiness, flow…
from Awareness by Anthony DeMello . . . I am sometimes asked, “Is this growing in awareness, this enlightenment a gradual thing, or is it a ‘wham-mo’ type of thing?” There are some lucky people who see this in a flash. They just become aware. There are others who keep growing into it, slowly, gradually, increasingly. They begin to see things. Illusions drop away, fantasies are peeled away, and they start to get in touch…
from The Way to Love by Anthony DeMello . . . To find the kingdom of joy is the easiest thing in the world but also the most difficult. Easy because it is all around you and within you, and all you have to do is reach out and take possession of it. Difficult because if you wish to possess the kingdom you may possess nothing else. That is, you must drop all inward leaning…
from Awareness by Anthony DeMello . . I’ve often said to people that the way to really live is to die. The passport to living is to imagine yourself in your grave. Imagine that you’re lying flat in your coffin and you’re dead. See the body decomposing, then the bones, then it all turning to dust. Now look at your problems from that viewpoint. Changes everything, doesn’t it? Do this for a minute or so every day…
from Awareness by Anthony DeMello Self- observation—watching yourself—is the most important thing of all. What is that? It is not the same as self-absorption. Self- absorption is self-preoccupation, where you’re concerned about yourself, worried about yourself. Self- observation means to watch everything in you and around you as far as possible and watch it as if it were happening to someone else. What does that last sentence mean? It means that you do not personalize what is…
from Awareness by Anthony DeMello . . . Are you listening, as most people do, in order to confirm what you already think? Or are you listening in order to discover something new? That is important. It really doesn’t matter whether you agree with what I’m saying or you don’t. Agreement and disagreement have to do with words and concepts and theories. They don’t have anything to do with truth. Truth is never expressed in…
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