If you think that compassion implies softness, there’s no way I can describe compassion to you, absolutely no way, because compassion can be very hard. Compassion can be very rude, compassion can jolt you, compassion can roll up its sleeves and operate on you. Compassion is all kinds of things. Compassion can be very soft, but there’s no way of knowing that. It’s only when you become love—in other words, when you have dropped your…
Some say that there are only two things in the world: love and fear are the only two things. There’s only one evil in the world, fear. There’s only one good in the world, love. It’s sometimes called by other names. It’s sometimes called happiness or freedom or peace or joy or God or whatever. But the label doesn’t really matter. And there’s not a single evil in the world that you cannot trace to…
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? You mean you understood everything else in the world and you didn’t understand this? You mean you understood astronomy and black holes and quasars and you picked up computer science, and you don’t know who you are? My, you…
The 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…
This website is intended for busy people, active people, and energetic people. I’m not inculcating any mystical withdrawal from life; far from it. Christianity teaches that God and spirituality is to be found in life, not by withdrawing from it. There are two simple attitudes that help maintain spiritual awareness in everyday life when some difficulty arises, as it always does. The first attitude I call acceptance. It’s contained in a prayer most of us…
Compare the serene and simple splendor of a rose in bloom with the tensions and restlessness of your life. The rose has a gift that we tend to lack: It is perfectly content to be itself. It has not been programmed from birth, as you have been, to be dissatisfied with itself, so it has not the slightest urge to be anything other than it is. That is why it possesses the artless grace and…
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.”
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