Anthony de Mello Quotes
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Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self.
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The Master insisted that what he taught was nothing, what he did was nothing. His disciples gradually discovered that Wisdom comes to those who learn nothing, unlearn everything. That transformation is the consequence not of something done, but of something dropped.
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'What is the secret of your serenity? Said the Master 'Wholehearted cooperation with the inevitable.'
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The Master would frequently assert that holiness was less a matter of what one did than of what one allowed to happen.
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When I speak, you must not listen to the words, my dear. Listen to the Silence.
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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.
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The feigning sleeper can delude others - he cannot delude himself. The false mystic, unfortunately, can delude both others and himself.
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You can will an act of service but you cannot will love.
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Wisdom can be learned. But it cannot be taught.
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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?'
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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.'
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One year of life is worth more than twenty years of hibernation.
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No one is exempt from talking nonsense. The great misfortune is to do it solemnly.
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The Master would insist that the final barrier to our attaining God was the word and concept 'God.'
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A good teacher offers practice, a bad one offers theories.
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One always treads with a joyful step when one has dropped the burden called the ego.
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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.'
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Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance.
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Isn't there such a thing as social liberation?' 'Of course there is,' said the Master. 'How would you describe it?' 'Liberation from the need to belong to the herd.'
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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.'
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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.
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Ideas kill people.
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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.'
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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.'