Anthony de Mello Quotes
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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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The Master is not concerned with what we believe - only with what we see.
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When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself.
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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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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 would insist that the final barrier to our attaining God was the word and concept 'God.'
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One year of life is worth more than twenty years of hibernation.
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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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The best things in life cannot be willed into being.
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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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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 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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'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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The Master never ceased to attack the notions about God that people entertain.
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To those who seek to protect their ego true Peace brings only disturbance.
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Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance.
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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?'
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Thought can organize the world so well that you are no longer able to see it.
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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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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.'
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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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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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'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.'
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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.'