from Awareness by Anthony DeMello . . . The reason you suffer from your depression and your anxieties is that you identify with them. You say, “I’m depressed.” But that is false. You are not your depression. If you want to be accurate, you might say, “I am experiencing a depression right now.” But you can hardly say, “I am depressed.” That is but a strange kind of trick of the mind, a strange kind…
from Awareness by Anthony DeMello . . . Come home to yourself. Observe yourself. Self-observation is such a delightful and extraordinary thing. After a while you don’t have to make any effort, because, as illusions begin to crumble, you begin to know things that cannot be described. It’s called happiness. There’s the story of the disciple who went to the master and said, “Could you give me a word of wisdom? Could you tell me…
from Awareness by Anthony DeMello . . . Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture. To acquire happiness you don’t have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don’t you…
from Awareness by Anthony DeMello . . . The first thing you need to do is get in touch with negative feelings that you’re not even aware of. Lots of people are depressed and they’re not aware they are depressed. It’s only when they make contact with joy that they understand how depressed they were. So, the first thing you need is awareness of your negative feelings. What negative feelings? Gloominess, for instance. You’re feeling…
from The Way to Love by Anthony DeMello . . . Recall the kind of feeling you have when someone praises you, when you are approved, accepted, applauded. Now contrast that with the kind of feeling that arises within you when you look at the sunset or the sunrise or Nature in general, or when you read a book or watch a movie that you thoroughly enjoy. Get the sense of this feeling and contrast…
from Awareness by Anthony DeMello . . . The great masters tell us that the most important question in the world is: “Who am I?” Or rather: “What is ‘I’?” What is this thing I call “I”? What is this thing I call self? So, let’s try to get at it. Write down on a piece of paper any number of brief ways you would describe yourself—for example, businessman, doctor, parent, spouse, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Black,…
The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, “If you would learn to be subservient to the king, you would not have to live on lentils.” Said Diogenes, “Learn to live on lentils, and you will not have to cultivate the king.”
A rich industrialist from the North was horrified to find the Southern fisherman lying lazily beside his boat, smoking a pipe. “Why aren’t you out fishing?” said the industrialist. “Because I have caught enough fish for the day,” said the fisherman. “Why don’t you catch some more?” “What would I do with it?” “You could earn more money,” was the reply. “With that, you could have a motor fixed to your boat and go into…
It is a sobering thought that the finest act of love you can perform is not an act of service but an act of contemplation, of seeing. When you serve people, you help, support, comfort, and alleviate pain. When you see them in their inner beauty and goodness, you transform and create. Think of some of the people you like and who are drawn to you. Now attempt to look at each of them as…
Love, like sensitivity, either is in all its fullness or it simply is not. You either have it whole or you have it not. So, it is only when attachments disappear that one enters the boundless realm of spiritual freedom called “love.” You can hardly be said to love what you do not even notice. And, if you notice only a few beings to the exclusion of others, that is not love at all. For…
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