Anthony de Mello Quotes
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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.
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Those who make no mistakes are making the biggest mistakes of all - they are attempting nothing new.
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A disciple, in his reverence for the Master, looked upon him as God incarnate. 'Tell me, O Master,' he said, 'why you have come into this world.' 'To teach fools like you to stop wasting their time worshiping Masters.'
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'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.
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The best things in life cannot be willed into being.
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'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.' 'What then is a Master for?' 'To make you see the uselessness of having one.'
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Look for competence not claims.
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Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description.
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'I wish to become a teacher of the Truth.' 'Are you prepared to be ridiculed, ignored and starving till you are forty-five?' 'I am. But tell me: What will happen after I am forty-five?' 'You will have grown accustomed to it.'
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The Master never ceased to attack the notions about God that people entertain.
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'Why is everyone here so happy except me?' 'Because they have learned to see goodness and beauty everywhere,' said the Master. 'Why don't I see goodness and beauty everywhere?' 'Because you cannot see outside of you what you fail to see inside.'
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When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself.
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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.
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To those who seek to protect their ego true Peace brings only disturbance.
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'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.'
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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.
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'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.'
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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.'
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Thought can organize the world so well that you are no longer able to see it.
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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.'
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The Master is not concerned with what we believe - only with what we see.
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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.
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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.'
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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.