from Awareness by Anthony DeMello . . . There is that marvelous sentence in the gospel about losing oneself in order to find oneself. One finds it in most religious literature and in all religious and spiritual and mystical literature. How does one lose oneself? Did you ever try to lose something? That’s right, the harder you try, the harder it gets. It’s when you’re not trying that you lose things. You lose something when you’re not…
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 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 . . . 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 . . . In order to be genuinely happy there is one and only one thing you need to do. Get rid of attachments. What is an attachment? An attachment is an emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy. Let’s do a simple exercise to identify your attachments. Write down on a piece of paper the phrase…
From The Way to Love by Anthony DeMello . . . 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 you 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…
from The Way to Love by Anthony De Mello . . . Observe the wisdom that operates in doves and in flowers and in bees and trees — that is there everywhere in the whole of Nature. This kind of Nature-wisdom was once in us, which we are only now beginning to rediscover in so- called primitive peoples who, like the dove, are so simple and wise and balanced, moving through life with trust and…
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