Anthony De Mello Quotes & Sayings

Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self. — Anthony De Mello

It's only when you become love - in other words, when you have dropped your illusions and attachments - that you will "know." As you identify less and less with the "me," you will be more at ease with everybody and with everything. — 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

Most people don't live aware lives. They live mechanical lives, mechanical thoughts - generally somebody else's - mechanical emotions, mechanical actions, mechanical reactions. — 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

Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description. — Anthony De Mello

"What is the secret of your serenity?" Said the master: "Wholehearted cooperation with the inevitable." — 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

Do you think you help people because you are in love with them? Well, I've got news for you. You are never in love with anyone. You're only in love with your prejudiced and hopeful idea of that person. Take a minute to think about that: You are never in love with anyone, you're in love with your prejudiced idea of that person. — Anthony De Mello

To relate is to react. To react is to understand oneself. To understand oneself is to be enlightened. Relationships are schools for enlightenment. — Anthony De Mello

Ordinarily, everything we do is in our self-interest. Everything. — Anthony De Mello

Anytime you have a negative feeling toward anyone, you're living in an illusion. There's something seriously wrong with you. You're not seeing reality. Something inside of you has to change. But what do we generally do when we have a negative feeling? "He is to blame, she is to blame. She's got to change." No! The world's all right. The one who has to change is you. — Anthony De Mello

When you get rid of your fear of failure, your tensions about succeeding ... you can be yourself. Relaxed. You'll no longer be driving with your brakes on. — Anthony De Mello

What can I do to see Reality as it is?" The master smiled and said, "I have good news and bad news for you, my friend." "What's the bad news?" "There's nothing you can do to see it is a gift." "And what's the good news?" "There's nothing you can do to see it is a gift. — Anthony De Mello

Perfect love casts out fear. Where there is love there are no demands, no expectations, no dependency. I do not demand that you make me happy; my happiness does not lie in you. If you were to leave me, I will not feel sorry for myself; I enjoy your company immensely, but I do not cling. — Anthony De Mello

Suffering is given to you that you might open your eyes to the truth. — Anthony De Mello

Are you your clothes? Are you your name? Are you your profession? Stop identifying with them. They come and go — Anthony De Mello

A prisoner lived in solitary confinement for years. He saw and spoke to no one and his meals were served through an opening in the wall. One day an ant came into his cell. The man contemplated it in fascination as it crawled around the room. He held it in the palm of his hand the better to observe it, gave it a grain or two, and kept it under his tin cup at night. One day it suddenly struck him that it had taken him ten long years of solitary confinement to open his eyes to the loveliness of an ant. — Anthony De Mello

True tolerance only arises from a keen awareness of the abysmal ignorance of everyone as far as truth is concerned. — Anthony De Mello

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

Obedience keeps the rules. Love knows when to break them. — Anthony De Mello

Think of a flabby person covered with layers of fat. That is what your mind can become - flabby, covered with layers of fat till it becomes too dull and lazy to think, to observe, to explore, to discover ... not wanting to be disturbed or questioned into wakefulness. — Anthony De Mello

Because 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 the cycle a roller coaster. When you have gone repeatedly around and around the cycle, a time finally comes when you have had enough and want to call a halt to the whole process. And if you are lucky enough not to run into something or someone else that catches your eye, you will have at least attained a fragile peace. That is the most that life can give you; and you can mistakenly equate this state with freedom and you die without ever having known what it means to be really free and to love. — Anthony De Mello

If you never condemned you would never need to forgive. — Anthony De Mello

We see people and things not as they are, but as we are. — Anthony De Mello

One day, a philosopher asked, "What is the purpose of creation?" "Lovemaking," said the Master. Later, to his disciples, he said, "Before creation, love was. After creation, love was made. When love is consummated, creation will cease to be, and love will be forever." — Anthony De Mello

People kill for money or for power. But the most ruthless murderers are those who kill for their ideas. — Anthony De Mello

One year of life is worth more than twenty years of hibernation. — Anthony De Mello

As the Arabs say, The nature of rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens. — Anthony De Mello

All conflict comes from attachment. — Anthony De Mello

The seeker says, "I do not know." That takes honesty. The master says, "I do not know." That takes a mystic's mind that knows things through non-knowing. The disciple says, "I know." That takes ignorance, in the form of borrowed knowledge. — Anthony De Mello

Because everyone is the same distance from the sun. Does it really lessen the distance if you live on top of a skyscraper? — Anthony De Mello

Love springs from awareness. — Anthony De Mello

A newly married couple said, "What shall we do to make our love endure?" Said the Master, "Love other things together" ... — 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. — 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

Negative feelings are in you, not in reality. Stop trying to change reality. That's crazy! Stop trying to change the other person. We spend all our time and energy trying to change external circumstances, trying to change our spouses, our bosses, our friends, our enemies, and everybody else. We don't have to change anything. Negative feelings are in you. — Anthony De Mello

What, concretely, is Enlightenment ?" "Seeing Reality as it is," said the Master. "Doesn't everyone see Reality as it is?" "Oh, no! Most people see it as they think it is." "What's the difference?" "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

Look for competence not claims. — 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

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

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

If the heart is unobstructed, the result is love. — Anthony De Mello

You must cultivate activities that you love. You must discover work that you do, not for its utility, but for itself, whether it succeeds or not, whether you are praised for it or not, whether you are loved and rewarded for it or not, whether people know about it and are grateful to you for it or not. How many activities can you count in your life that you engage in simply because they delight you and grip your soul? Find them out, cultivate them, for they are your passport to freedom and to love. — Anthony De Mello

What I really enjoy is not you; it's something that's greater than both you and me. It is something that I discovered, a kind of symphony, a kind of orchestra that plays one melody in your presence, but when you depart, the orchestra doesn't stop. When I meet someone else, it plays another melody, which is also very delightful. And when I'm alone, it continues to play. — Anthony De Mello

As the Japanese Zen masters say, "Don't seek the truth; just drop your opinions". Drop your theories; don't seek the truth. — 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

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

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

If you make me your authority, you harm yourself because you will not see things for yourself, and you harm me too because you refuse to see me as I am. — Anthony De Mello

Do you want a sign that you're asleep? Here it is: you're suffering. Suffering is a sign that you're out of touch with the truth. Suffering is given to you that you might open your eyes to the truth, that you might understand that there's falsehood somewhere, just as physical pain is given to you so you will understand that there is disease or illness somewhere. Suffering occurs when you clash with reality. When your illusions clash with reality, when your falsehoods clash with truth, then you have suffering. Otherwise there is no suffering. — Anthony De Mello

The world is right because I feel good.
p. 83, Awareness, copyright 1990 — Anthony De Mello

The only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your ideas. If you're ready to listen and if you're ready to be challenged, there's one thing that you can do, but no one can help you. What is this most important thing of all? It's called self-observation. — Anthony De Mello

Is there life before death? - that is the question! — Anthony De Mello

We were brought up to need people. For what? For acceptance, approval, appreciation, applause - for what they call success. Those are words that do not correspond to reality. They are conventions, things that are invented, but we don't realize that they don't correspond to reality. What is success? It is what one group decided is a good thing. Another group will decide the same thing is bad. — Anthony De Mello

There are three stages in one's spiritual development," said the Master. "The carnal, the spiritual and the divine." "What is the carnal stage?" asked the eager disciples. "That's the stage when trees are seen as trees and mountains as mountains." "And the spiritual?" "That's when one looks more deeply into things - then trees are no longer trees and mountains no longer mountains." "And the divine?" "Ah, that's Enlightenment," said the Master with a chuckle, "when trees become trees again and mountains, mountains. — Anthony De Mello

Pleasant experiences make life delightful. Painful experiences lead to growth. — Anthony De Mello

Take the leap! You cannot cross a chasm in little jumps. — Anthony De Mello

You're so ashamed of your past; drop it! You're so proud of your past; drop it! — Anthony De Mello

You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something. — Anthony De Mello

To be properly wicked, you do not have to break the Law. Just observe it to the letter. — Anthony De Mello

Drop your false ideas. See through people. If you see through yourself, you will see through everyone. Then you will love them. Otherwise you spend the whole time grappling with your wrong notions of them, with your illusions that are constantly crashing against reality. — Anthony De Mello

"I seek the meaning of existence," said the stranger. "You are of course assuming," said the Master, "that existence has a meaning." "Doesn't it?" "When you experience existence as it is - not as you think it is you will discover that your question has no meaning," said the Master. — 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

As you identify less and less with the "me", you will be more at ease with everybody and with everything. Do you know why? Because you are no longer afraid of being hurt or not liked. You no longer desire to impress anyone. Can you imagine the relief when you don't have to impress anybody anymore? Oh, what a relief. Happiness at last! — Anthony De Mello

of yourself and of other people. If you wish to attain to lasting happiness you must be ready to hate father, mother, even your own life and to take leave of all your possessions. How? Not by renouncing them or giving them up because what you give up violently you are forever bound to. But rather by seeing them for the nightmare they are; and then, whether you keep them or not, they will have lost their grip over you, their power to hurt you, and you will be out of your dream at last, out of your darkness, your fear, your unhappiness. So spend some time seeing each of the things you cling to for what it really is, a nightmare that causes you excitement and pleasure on the one hand but also worry, insecurity, tension, anxiety, fear, unhappiness on the other. — Anthony De Mello

No person on earth has the power to make you unhappy. There is no event on earth that has the power to disturb you or hurt you. No event, condition, situation, or person. Nobody told you this; they told you the opposite. That's why you're in the mess you're in right now. That is why you're asleep. They never told you this. But it's self-evident. — Anthony De Mello

The greatest learning of the ages lies in accepting life exactly as it comes to us. — Anthony De Mello

You only change what you understand. What you do not understand and are not aware of, you repress. You dont change. But when you understand it, it changes. — Anthony De Mello

To fight evil with activity is like fighting darkness with one's hands. So what you need is light, not fit. — Anthony De Mello

You are never in love with anyone. You're only in love with your prejudiced and hopeful idea of that person. — Anthony De Mello

When the eye is unobstructed, the result is sight. When the ear is unobstructed, the result is hearing. When the mind is unobstructed the result is truth. When the heart is unobstructed, the result is joy and love. — Anthony De Mello

The three most difficult things for a human being are not physical feats or intellectual achievements. They are, first, returning love for hate; second, including the excluded; third, admitting that you are wrong. — Anthony De Mello

If you look carefully you will see that there is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness. The name of that thing is attachment. What is an attachment? An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy. — Anthony De Mello

The Rose does not preen herself to catch my eye. She blooms because she blooms. A saint is a saint until he knows he is one. — Anthony De Mello

What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you. — Anthony De Mello

I leave you free to be yourself: to think your thoughts, indulge your tastes, follow your inclinations, behave in ways that you decide are to your liking. — Anthony De Mello

There is another more subtle way in which the innocence of childhood is lost: when the child is infected with the desire to become somebody. Contemplate the crowds of people who are striving might and main to become, not what Nature intended them to be- musicians, cooks, mechanics, carpenters, gardeners, inventors- but "somebody": to become successful, famous, powerful; to become something that will bring not quiet and self-fulfillment, but self-glorification and self-expansion — Anthony De Mello

You see persons and things not as they are but as you are. — Anthony De Mello

I was neurotic for years. I was anxious and depressed and selfish. Everyone kept telling me to change. I resented them and I agreed with them, and I wanted to change, but simply couldn't, no matter how hard I tried. Then one day someone said to me, Don't change. I love you just as you are. Those words were music to my ears: Don't change, Don't change. Don't change ... I love you as you are. I relaxed. I came alive. And suddenly I changed! — Anthony De Mello

You're not living until it doesn't matter a tinker's damn to you whether you live or die. At that point you live. When you're ready to lose your life, you live it. — Anthony De Mello

Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed; after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed. — Anthony De Mello

The only way that someone can be of help to you is by challenging your ideas. — Anthony De Mello

How sad if we pass through life and never see it with the eyes of a child. — 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." When the master entered, they asked him what the words meant. Said the master, "Which of you knows the fragrance of a rose?" All of them indicated that they knew. Then he said, "Put it into words." All of them were silent. — Anthony De Mello

The Master would insist that the final barrier to our attaining God was the word and concept God. — Anthony De Mello

The spiritual quest is a journey without distance. You travel from where you are right now To where you have always been. From ignorance to recognition ... — Anthony De Mello

You sanctify whatever you are grateful for. — Anthony De Mello

The human mind makes foolish divisions in what love sees as one. — Anthony De Mello

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. — Anthony De Mello

What is my identity ?" "Nothing," said the Master. "You mean that I am an emptiness and a void?" said the incredulous disciple. "Nothing that can be labeled." said the Master. — Anthony De Mello

People who deliberate fully before they take a step will spend their lives on one leg — Anthony De Mello

All suffering comes from a person's inability to sit still and be alone. — Anthony De Mello

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

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

Live your life as you see fit. That's not selfish. Selfish is to demand that others live their lives as you see fit. — 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. — Anthony De Mello

To those who seek to protect their ego true Peace brings only disturbance. — Anthony De Mello

The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, 'If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.'

Said [author:Diogenes|3213618, 'Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king". — Anthony De Mello