From The Way to Love by Anthony DeMello . . . Has it ever struck you that you have been programmed by society to be unhappy and so, no matter what you do to become happy, you are bound to fail? If you wish to be happy the first thing you need is not effort or even goodwill or good desires but a clear understanding of how exactly you have been programmed. This is what happened to…
from Wellspring by Anthony DeMello God says, “Give me your heart.” And then, in answer to my puzzlement, I hear him say, “Your heart is where your treasure is.” My treasures—here they are: persons … places … occupations … things … experiences of the past … the future’s hopes and dreams. I pick each treasure up, say something to it, and place it in the presence of the Lord. How shall I “give” these treasures to…
From The Way to Love by Anthony DeMello . . . If you take a look at the way you have been put together and the way you function you will find that inside your head there is a whole program stamped into you, a set of demands about how the world should be, how you should be and what you should want. Who is responsible for the programming? Not you. It isn’t really you who decided…
from Wellspring by Anthony DeMello Jesus says, “The Kingdom is like a mustard seed which a man sowed in his field. Mustard is smaller than any other seed but let it grow and it becomes bigger than any garden plant; it is like a tree, big enough for the birds to come and nest among its branches.” I hold this tiniest of seeds … then I see the full-grown tree it has become, strong enough…
from Rediscovering Life by Anthony DeMello . . . The world is full of sorrow? Agreed. The root of sorrow is desire. Well— all right. Now, what are you going to conclude, that the uprooting of sorrow is desirelessness? So you are going to be a vegetable? I mean, how do you live without desires? Let me give you a better translation. I don’t think Buddha would be so foolish and stupid as to say that we ought…
From The Way to Love by Anthony DeMello . . . Left to its own devices life would never produce love, it would only lead you to attraction, from attraction to pleasure, then to attachment, to satisfaction, which finally leads to wearisomeness and boredom. Then comes a plateau. Then once again the weary cycle: attraction, pleasure, attachment, fulfillment, satisfaction, boredom. All of this mixed with the anxieties, the jealousies, the possessiveness, the sorrow, the pain, that make…
From Awareness by Anthony DeMello . . . Let’s talk about effortlessness in change. I thought of a nice image for that, a sailboat. When a sailboat has a mighty wind in its sail, it glides along so effortlessly that the boatman has nothing to do but steer. He makes no effort; he doesn’t push the boat. That’s an image of what happens when change comes about through awareness, through understanding. I was going through some of…
From Awareness by Anthony DeMello . . . Selfishness seems to come out of an instinct for self-preservation, which is our deepest and first instinct. How can we opt for selflessness? It would be almost like opting for non-being. So, stop feeling bad about being selfish; we’re all the same. Someone once had a terribly beautiful thing to say about Jesus. This person wasn’t even Christian. He said, “The lovely thing about Jesus was that he was…
from Awareness by Anthony DeMello . . . We all depend on one another for all kinds of things, don’t we? We depend on the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. We set up society this way and we allot different functions to different people for the welfare of everyone, so that we will function better and live more effectively — at least we hope so. That’s interdependence and it’s fine! But to depend on…
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