“Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description.”
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Comprehension
Source: One Minute Wisdom (1989)
“Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description.”
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Comprehension
Source: One Minute Wisdom (1989)
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Healing
One Minute Wisdom (1989)
Source: Awareness: A de Mello Spirituality Conference in His Own Words
“Don't ask the world to change — you change first.”
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
"The Death of Me", p. 151
Awareness (1992)
Source: Awareness: Conversations with the Masters
Context: Don't ask the world to change — you change first. Then you'll get a good enough look at the world so that you'll be able to change whatever you think ought to be changed. Take the obstruction out of your own eye. If you don't you have lost the right to change anyone or anything. Till you are aware of yourself, you have no right to interfere with anyone else or with the world.
“Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance.”
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Wisdom
Source: One Minute Wisdom (1989)
“When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself.”
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Violence
Source: One Minute Wisdom (1989)
“You see persons and things not as they are but as you are.”
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Humanity
One Minute Wisdom (1989)
Context: Much advance publicity was made for the address the Master would deliver on The Destruction of the World and a large crowd gathered at the monastery grounds to hear him.
The address was over in less than a minute. All he said was:
"These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness and worship without awareness."
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
The Way to Love (1995)
Context: If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future. So they are spared the guilt and anxiety that so torment human beings and they are full of the sheer joy of living, taking delight not so much in persons or things as in life itself. As long as your happiness is caused or sustained by something or someone outside of you, you are still in the land of the dead. The day you are happy for no reason whatsoever, the day you find yourself taking delight in everything and in nothing, you will know that you have found the land of unending joy called the kingdom.
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
As quoted in Approaching God : How to Pray (1995) by Steve Brown, p. 94
Context: Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. You know — all mystics — Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion — are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare.
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
"Obstacles to Happiness", p. 78
Awareness (1992)
Context: 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 experience it? Because you've got to drop something. You've got to drop illusions. You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It's only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings. Do you know where these things come from? From having identified with all kinds of labels!
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
"The Death of Me", p. 150
Awareness (1992)
Context: One of your American authors put it so well. He said awakening is the death of your belief in injustice and tragedy. The end of the world for a caterpillar is a butterfly for the master. Death is resurrection. We're talking not about some resurrection that will happen but about one that is happening right now. If you would die to the past, if you would die to every minute, you would be the person who is fully alive, because a fully alive person is one who is full of death. We're always dying to things. We're always shedding everything in order to be fully alive and resurrected at every moment. The mystics, saints, and others make great efforts to wake people up. If they don't wake up, they're always going to have these other minor ills like hunger, wars, and violence. The greatest evil is sleeping people, ignorant people.
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
"The Death of Me", p. 150
Awareness (1992)
Context: Can one be fully human without experiencing tragedy? The only tragedy there is in the world is ignorance; all evil comes from that. The only tragedy there is in the world is unwakefulness and unawareness. From them comes fear, and from fear comes comes everything else, but death is not a tragedy at all. Dying is wonderful; it's only horrible to people who have never understood life. It's only when you're afraid of life that you fear death. It's only dead people who fear death.
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 134
Context: A religious belief… is not a statement about Reality, but a hint, a clue about something that is a mystery, beyond the grasp of human thought. In short, a religious belief is only a finger pointing to the moon. Some religious people never get beyond the study of the finger. Others are engaged in sucking it. Others yet use the finger to gouge their eyes out. These are the bigots whom religion has made blind. Rare indeed is the religionist who is sufficiently detached from the finger to see what it is indicating — these are those who, having gone beyond belief, are taken for blasphemers.
“I am dying and this person too is dying”
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Revelation
One Minute Wisdom (1989)
Context: Any time you are with anyone or think of anyone you must say to yourself: I am dying and this person too is dying, attempting the while to experience the truth of the words you are saying. If every one of you agrees to practise this, bitterness will die out, harmony will arise.
“The master enjoined not austerity, but moderation.”
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 111
Context: The master enjoined not austerity, but moderation. If we truly enjoyed things, he claimed, we would be spontaneously moderate. Asked why he was so opposed to ascetical practices, he replied, "Because they produce pleasure-haters who always become people-haters — rigid and cruel."