from Awareness by Anthony DeMello . . . Pleasant experiences make life delightful. Painful experiences lead to growth. Suffering points up an area in you where you have not yet grown, where you need to grow and be transformed and change. If you knew how to use that suffering, oh, how you would grow. Let’s limit ourselves, for the time being, to psychological suffering, to all those negative emotions we have. I’ve told you what you could…
from Awareness by Anthony DeMello . . . Ask yourself this: How would it be if God gave me the grace not to call anything mine? You’d be detached, wouldn’t you? You’d be dis-identified from things. That’s what it means to lose the self, to deny the self, to die to self. I’ve got different themes, but they are all about the same thing. Call it awareness, call it love, call it spirituality or freedom or awakening…
from One Minute Wisdom “I am in desperate need of help — or I’ll go crazy. We’re living in a single room, my wife, my children and my in-laws. So our nerves are on edge, we yell and scream at one another. The room is a hell.” “Do you promise to do whatever I tell you?” said the Master gravely. “I swear I shall do anything.” “Very well. How many animals do you have?” “A…
from One Minute Wisdom “How shall I get the grace of never judging my neighbor?” “Through prayer.” “Then why have I not found it yet?” “Because you haven’t prayed in the right place.” “Where is that?” “In the heart of God.” “And how do I get there?” “Understand that anyone who sins does not know what he is doing and deserves to be forgiven.”
from One Minute Wisdom “Don‘t look for God,” the Master said. “Just look — and all will be revealed.” “But how is one to look?” “Each time you look at anything, see only what is there and nothing else.” The disciples were bewildered, so the Master made it simpler: “For instance: When you look at the moon, see the moon and nothing else.” “What else could one see except the moon when one looks at…
From The Way to Love by Anthony DeMello . . . You falsely think that your fears protect you, that your beliefs have made you what you are, and that your attachments make your life exciting and secure. You fail to see that they are actually a screen between you and life’s symphony. It is quite impossible, of course, to be fully conscious of every note in life’s symphony. But if your spirit becomes unclogged and your…
From The Way to Love by Anthony DeMello . . . What is clear thinking and how does one arrive at it? The first thing you must know is that it does not call for any great learning. It is so simple as to be within the reach of a ten-year-old child. What is needed is not learning but unlearning, not talent but courage. You will understand this if you think of a little child in the…
from Wellspring by Anthony DeMello I think of myself as quite a decent person, good-hearted and respected, with minor sins and failings, until it dawns on me that the greatest sinners are the ones who sin in ignorance. I see the well intentioned damage “love” inflicts on helpless children. I see the marks of cruelty in fervently religious people. I see fair-minded Pharisees assess the evidence against Jesus and consider it their duty to do…
From The Way to Love by Anthony DeMello . . . Everywhere in the world people are in search of love, for everyone is convinced that love alone can save the world, love alone can make life meaningful and worth living. But how very few understand what love really is, and how it arises in the human heart. It is so frequently equated with good feelings toward others, with benevolence or nonviolence or service. But these things…
from Wellspring by Anthony DeMello When I try to change what I dislike in me by fighting it I merely push it underground. If I accept it, it will surface and evaporate. What I resist will stubbornly persist. I consider the example of Jesus, who sets himself the task of moving mountains and battles with exasperating foes. Yet even in his anger he is loving—he combines a keen desire for change with an acceptance of…
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