Anthony de Mello

I wish to become a teacher of the Truth." "You will have grown accustomed to it.

— Anthony de Mello

The genius of a composer is found in the notes of his music; but analyzing the notes will not reveal his genius. The poet's greatness is contained in his words; yet the study of his words will not disclose his inspiration. God reveals himself in creation; but scrutinize creation as minutely as you wish, you will not find God, any more than you will find the soul through careful examination of your body.

— Anthony de Mello

What, concretely, is Enlightenment?" "The difference between thinking you are drowning in a stormy sea and knowing you cannot drown because there isn't any water in sight for miles around.

— Anthony de Mello

This is what Wisdom means: To be changed without the slightest effort on your part, to be transformed, believe it or not, merely by waking to the reality that is not words, that lies beyond the reach of words. If you are fortunate enough to be Awakened thus, you will know why the finest language is the one that is not spoken, the finest action is the one that is not done and the finest change is the one that is not willed.

— Anthony de Mello

To a disciple who was forever complaining about others the Master said, "If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth."

— Anthony de Mello

To a visitor who asked to become his disciple the Master said, "You may live with me, but don't become my follower." "No one. The day you follow someone you cease to follow Truth."

— Anthony de Mello

Why is everyone here so happy except me?" "Because you cannot see outside of you what you fail to see inside.

— Anthony de Mello

There were rules in the monastery, but the Master always warned against the tyranny of the law. "Obedience keeps the rules," he would say. "Love knows when to break them."

— Anthony de Mello

You are only a disciple because your eyes are closed. The day you open them you will see there is nothing you can learn from me or anyone." "To make you see the uselessness of having one.

— Anthony de Mello

The sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and his song — not one. Not two.

— Anthony de Mello

Help us to find God." "For the same reason that no one can help the fish to find the ocean.

— Anthony de Mello

To a visitor who described himself as a seeker after Truth the Master said, "If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else." "No. An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong."

— Anthony de Mello

When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself.

— Anthony de Mello

Is there life before death? — that is the question!

— Anthony de Mello

Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance.

— Anthony de Mello

When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.

— Anthony de Mello

Whatever is truly alive must die. Look at the flowers; only plastic flowers never die.

— Anthony de Mello

The Master was exceedingly gracious to university dons who visited him, but he would never reply to their questions or be drawn into their theological speculations. To his disciples, who marveled at this, he said, "Can one talk about the ocean to a frog in a well or about the divine to people who are restricted by their concepts?"

— Anthony de Mello

People who want a cure, provided they can have it without pain, are like those who favour progress, provided they can have it without change.

— Anthony de Mello

A disciple said to him, "I am ready, in the quest for God, to give up anything: wealth, friends, family, country, life itself. What else can a person give up?" The Master calmly replied, "One's beliefs about God."

— Anthony de Mello

Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description.

— Anthony de Mello

The disciples were absorbed in a discussion of Lao-tzu's dictum: Those who know do not say; Those who say do not know. All of them were silent.

— Anthony de Mello

When I speak, you must not listen to the words, my dear. Listen to the Silence.

— Anthony de Mello

Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self.

— Anthony de Mello

The Master is not concerned with what we believe — only with what we see.

— Anthony de Mello

The Master would frequently assert that holiness was less a matter of what one did than of what one allowed to happen.

— Anthony de Mello

Thought can organize the world so well that you are no longer able to see it.

— Anthony de Mello

A thought is a screen, not a mirror; that is why you live in a thought envelope, untouched by Reality.

— Anthony de Mello

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.

— Anthony de Mello

The Master would insist that the final barrier to our attaining God was the word and concept "God."

— Anthony de Mello

A disciple was one day recalling how Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed were branded as rebels and heretics by their contemporaries. Said the Master, Nobody can be said to have attained the pinnacle of Truth until a thousand sincere people have denounced him for blasphemy.

— Anthony de Mello

The Master never ceased to attack the notions about God that people entertain.

— Anthony de Mello

A good teacher offers practice, a bad one offers theories.

— Anthony de Mello

The feigning sleeper can delude others — he cannot delude himself. The false mystic, unfortunately, can delude both others and himself.

— Anthony de Mello

If you never condemned you would never need to forgive.

— Anthony de Mello

A zealous disciple expressed a desire to teach others the Truth and asked the Master what he thought about this. The Master said, "Wait." Said the Master, "When your excessive eagerness to teach has left you."

— Anthony de Mello

"What is love?" "Love," said the Master.

— Anthony de Mello

The Master insisted that what he taught was nothing, what he did was nothing. That transformation is the consequence not of something done, but of something dropped.

— Anthony de Mello

A writer arrived at the monastery to write a book about the Master. "The butterfly in a caterpillar: the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human being."

— Anthony de Mello

If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else.” “I know. An overwhelming passion for it.” “No. An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong.

— Anthony de Mello

Charity is really self-interest masquerading under the form of altruism.

— Anthony de Mello

I'm going to write a book someday and the title will be I'm an Ass, You're an Ass. That's the most liberating, wonderful thing in the world, when you openly admit you're an ass. It's wonderful. When people tell me, "You're wrong" I say, "What can you expect of an ass?"

— Anthony de Mello

My experience is that it's precisely the ones who don't know what to do with this life who are all hot and bothered about what they are going to do with another life. One sign that you're awakened is that you don't give a damn about what's going to happen in the next life. You're not bothered about it; you don't care. You are not interested, period.

— Anthony de Mello

Is it possible for the rose to say, "I will give my fragrance to the good people who smell me, but I will withhold it from the bad?" Or is it possible for the lamp to say, "I will give my light to the good people in this room, but I will withhold it from the evil people"? Or can a tree say, "I'll give my shade to the good people who rest under me, but I will withhold it from the bad"? These are images of what love is about.

— Anthony de Mello

The important thing is not to know who "I" is or what "I" is. You'll never succeed. There are no words for it. The important thing is to drop the labels.

— Anthony de Mello

Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed; after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed. You don't make a goal out of relaxation and sensitivity. Have you ever heard of people who get tense trying to relax? If one is tense, one simply observes one's tension. You will never understand yourself if you seek to change yourself. The harder you try to change yourself the worse it gets. You are called upon to be aware.

— Anthony de Mello

Step by step, let whatever happens happen. Real change will come when it is brought about, not by your ego, but by reality. Awareness releases reality to change you.

— Anthony de Mello

There is no salvation till they have seen their basic prejudice.

— Anthony de Mello

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

A Jesuit once wrote a note to Father Arrupe, his superior general, asking him about the relative value of communism, socialism and capitalism. Father Arrupe gave him a lovely reply. He said, "A system is about as good or as bad as the people who use it." People with golden hearts would make capitalism or communism or socialism work beautifully.

— Anthony de Mello

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.

— Anthony de Mello

Understand the obstructions you are putting in the way of love, freedom, and happiness and they will drop. Turn on the light of awareness and the darkness will disappear. Happiness is not something you acquire; love is not something you produce; love is not something you have; love is something that has you.

— Anthony de Mello

No one is exempt from talking nonsense. The great misfortune is to do it solemnly.

— Anthony de Mello

The Master was allergic to ideologies. "In a war of ideas," he said, "it is people who are the casualties." Later he elaborated: "People kill for money or for power. But the most ruthless murderers are those who kill for their ideas."

— Anthony de Mello

You will seek for God in vain till you understand that God can't be seen as a "thing"; he needs a special way of looking — similar to that of little children whose sight is undistorted by prefabricated doctrines and beliefs.

— Anthony de Mello

Those who make no mistakes are making the biggest mistakes of all — they are attempting nothing new.

— Anthony de Mello

What is the secret of your serenity? Said the Master "Wholehearted cooperation with the inevitable.

— Anthony de Mello

My commitment is not to consistency but to the Truth.

— Anthony de Mello

To those who seek to protect their ego true Peace brings only disturbance.

— Anthony de Mello

A disciple asked, "Who is a Master?" The Master replied, "Anyone to whom it is given to let go of the ego. Such a person's life is then a masterpiece."

— Anthony de Mello

Wisdom can be learned. But it cannot be taught.

— Anthony de Mello

The law is an expression of God's holy will and as such must be honored and loved," said the preacher piously. "Rubbish," said the Master. "The law is a necessary evil and as such must be cut down to the barest minimum. Show me a lover of the law and I will show you a muttonheaded tyrant.

— Anthony de Mello

Some people write to make a living; others to share their insights or raise questions that will haunt their readers; others yet to understand their very souls. None of these will last. That distinction belongs to those who write only because if they did not write they would burst... These writers give expression to the divine — no matter what they write about.

— Anthony de Mello

One year of life is worth more than twenty years of hibernation.

— Anthony de Mello

Name one practical, down-to-earth effect of spirituality," said the skeptic who was ready for an argument. "Here's one," said the Master. "When someone offends you, you can raise your spirits to heights where offenses cannot reach.

— Anthony de Mello

Look for competence not claims.

— Anthony de Mello

"What is the work of a Master?" said a solemn-faced visitor. "To teach people to laugh," said the Master gravely.

— Anthony de Mello

Before creation Love was. After creation love is made. When love is consummated, creation will cease to be, and Love will be forever.

— Anthony de Mello

The master never let a statement about God go unchallenged. All God statements were poetic or symbolic expressions of the Unknowable; people, however, foolishly took them as literal descriptions of the divine.

— Anthony de Mello

The Master once referred to the Hindu notion that all creation is "leela" — God's play — and the universe is his playground. The aim of spirituality, he claimed, is to make all life play. "Of course there is. But work becomes spiritual only when it is transformed into play."

— Anthony de Mello

"What is my identity?" "Nothing that can be labeled." said the Master.

— Anthony de Mello

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."

— Anthony de Mello

When God means you to be a healer he sends you patients; when he makes you a teacher he sends you pupils; when he destines you to be a Master he sends you stories.

— Anthony de Mello

The best things in life cannot be willed into being.

— Anthony de Mello

A disciple, in his reverence for the Master, looked upon him as God incarnate. "To teach fools like you to stop wasting their time worshiping Masters."

— Anthony de Mello

The Master persistently warned against the attempt to encompass Reality in a concept or a name. A scholar in mysticism once asked, "When you speak of BEING, sir, is it eternal, transcendent being you speak of, or transient, contingent being?" The Master closed his eyes in thought. Then he opened them, put on his most disarming expression, and said, "Yes!"

— Anthony de Mello

The master made it his task to systematically destroy every doctrine, every belief, every concept of the divine, for these things, which were originally intended as pointers, were now taken as descriptions. He loved to quote the Eastern saying: "When the sage points at the moon, all that the idiot sees is the finger."

— Anthony de Mello

Said the self-righteous preacher, "What, in your judgment, is the greatest sin in the world?" "That of the person who sees other human beings as sinners," said the Master.

— Anthony de Mello

What can I do to see Reality as it is?" "There's nothing you can do to see — it is a gift.

— Anthony de Mello

People who want to rise above a well-cooked meal and a well-tailored garment, are out of their spiritual minds.

— Anthony de Mello

I seek the meaning of existence." said the stranger. "When you experience existence as it is — not as you think it is — you will discover that your question has no meaning.

— Anthony de Mello

One always treads with a joyful step when one has dropped the burden called the ego.

— Anthony de Mello

Ideas kill people.

— Anthony de Mello

If you search within your heart, you will find something there that will make it possible for you to understand: a spark of disenchantment and discontent, which if fanned into flame will become a raging forest fire that will burn up the whole of the illusory world you are living in, thereby unveiling to your wondering eyes the kingdom that you have always lived in unsuspectingly.

— Anthony de Mello

A master was once unmoved by the complaints of his disciples that, though they listened with pleasure to his parables and stories, they were also frustrated for they longed for something deeper. To all their objections he would simply reply: "You have yet to understand, my friends, that the shortest distance between a human being and truth is a story."

— Anthony de Mello

The master was never impressed by diplomas or degrees. He scrutinized the person, not the certificate. He was once heard to say, 'When you have ears to hear a bird in song, you don't need to look at its credentials."

— Anthony de Mello

All I did was sit on the riverbank handing out river water. After I'm gone, I trust you will notice the river.

— Anthony de Mello

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

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 practice this, bitterness will die out, harmony will arise.

— Anthony de Mello