Anthony de Mello Quotes

What's the earthly use of putting a man on the moon when we cannot live on the earth?

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

The important religious distinction is not between those who worship and those who do not worship but between those who love and those who don’t.

So you must “receive” your demons, because when you fight them, you empower them.

Have you ever attempted to organize something like peace? The moment you do, you have power conflicts and group wars within the organization. The only way to have peace is to let it grow wild.

What’s the earthly use of putting a man on the moon when we cannot live on the earth?

If you ever allow yourself to see it will be the death of you. And that is why love is so terrifying, for to love is to see and to see is to die. But it is the most delightful exhilarating experience in the whole world. For in the death of the ego is freedom, peace, serenity, joy.

Now keep looking at this unpleasant situation or person until you realize that it isn't they that are causing the negative emotions. They are just going their way, being themselves, doing their thing whether right or wrong, good or bad. It is your computer that, thanks to your programming, insists on your reacting with negative emotions. You will see this better if you realize that someone with a different programming when faced with this same situation or person or event would react quite calmly, even happily. Don't stop till you have grasped this truth: The only reason why you too are not reacting calmly and happily is your computer that is stubbornly insisting that reality be reshaped to conform to its programming. Observe all of this from the outside so to speak and see the marvelous change that comes about in you. Once you have understood this truth and thereby stopped your computer from generating negative emotions you may take any action you deem fit. You may avoid the situation or the person; or you may try to change them; or you may insist on your rights or the rights of others being respected; you may even resort to the use of force. But only after you have got rid of your emotional upsets, for then your action will spring from peace and love, not from the neurotic desire to appease your computer or to conform to its programming or to get rid of the negative emotions it generates. Then you will understand how profound is the wisdom of the words: "If a man wants to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well. If a man in authority makes you go one mile, go with him two." For it will have become evident to you that real oppression comes, not from people who fight you in court or from authority that subjects you to slave labor, but from your computer whose programming destroys your peace of mind the moment outside circumstances fail to conform to its demands. People have been known to be happy even in the oppressive atmosphere of a concentration ca

When your mother got angry with you, she didn't say there was something wrong with her, she said there was something wrong with you; otherwise she wouldn't have been angry. Well, I made the great discovery that if you are angry, Mother, there's something wrong with you. So you'd better cope with your anger. Stay with it and cope with it. It's not mine. Whether there's something wrong with me or not, I'll examine that independently of your anger. I'm not going to be influenced by your anger.

So, we were born happy. We lost it. We were born with the gift of life. We lost it. We've got to rediscover it. Why did we lose it? Because we were working actively. They taught us to work actively, to make ourselves miserable. How did they do that? By teaching us to become attached. By teaching us to have desires so intense that we would refuse to be happy unless they were fulfilled.

EAT YOUR OWN FRUIT A disciple once complained, “You tell us stories, but you never reveal their meaning to us.” Said the master, “How would you like it if someone offered you fruit and masticated it before giving it to you?” No one can find your meaning for you. Not even the master.

So, we were born happy. We lost it. We were born with the gift of life. We lost it. We’ve got to rediscover it. Why did we lose it? Because we were working actively. They taught us to work actively, to make ourselves miserable. How did they do that? By teaching us to become attached. By teaching us to have desires so intense that we would refuse to be happy unless they were fulfilled.

When your mother got angry with you, she didn’t say there was something wrong with her, she said there was something wrong with you; otherwise she wouldn’t have been angry. Well, I made the great discovery that if you are angry, Mother, there’s something wrong with you. So you’d better cope with your anger. Stay with it and cope with it. It’s not mine. Whether there’s something wrong with me or not, I’ll examine that independently of your anger. I’m not going to be influenced by your anger.

You want to hope for something better than what you have right now, don't you? Otherwise you wouldn't be hoping. But then, you forget that you have it all right now anyway, and you don't know it. Why not concentrate on the now instead of hoping for better times in the future? Why not understand the now instead of forgetting it and hoping for the future? Isn't the future just another trap?

The consequence of all this is terrifying and inescapable: You have become incapable of loving anyone or anything. If you wish to love you must learn to see again. And if you wish to see you must give up your drug. You must tear away from your being the roots of society that have penetrated to the marrow. You must drop out. Externally everything will go on as before, you will continue to be in the world, but no longer of it. And in your heart you will now be free at last and utterly alone. It is only in this aloneness, this utter solitude, that dependence and desire will die, and the capacity to love is born. For one no longer sees others as means to satisfy one's addiction.