Top 228 Quotes & Sayings by Anthony de Mello - Page 4

Charity is never so lovely as when one has lost consciousness that one is practicing charity. 'You mean I helped you? I was enjoying myself. I was just doing my dance. It helped you, that's wonderful. Congratulations to you. No credit to me.

When the sage points at the moon, all that the idiot sees is the finger.

You are so proud of your intelligence," said the master. "You are like a like a condemned man, proud of the vastness of his prison cell.

A thought is a screen, not a mirror; that is why you live in a thought envelope, untouched by Reality.

Tell me," said the atheist , "Is there a God really?" Said the master, "If you want me to be perfectly honest with you, I will not answer." Later the disciples demanded to know why he had not answered. "Because the question is unanswerable," said the Master. "So you are an atheist?" "Certainly not. The atheist makes the mistake of denying that of which nothing may be said... and the theist makes the mistake of affirming it.

The feigning sleeper can delude others he cannot delude himself. The false mystic, unfortunately, can delude both others and himself.

You can will an act of service but you cannot will love.

No. An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong.

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.

The only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your ideas.

What is the work of a Master?" said a solemn-faced visitor. "To teach people to laugh ," said the Master gravely.

This truth I firmly hold, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding; my life has been a gift, a blessing to the world.

A lost coin is found by means of a candle; the deepest truth is found by means of a simple story.

The Master persistently warned against the attempt to encompass Reality in a concept or a name. A scholar in mysticism once asked, "When you speak of BEING, sir, is it eternal, transcendent being you speak of, or transient, contingent being?" The Master closed his eyes in thought. Then he opened them, put on his most disarming expression, and said, "Yes!"

My commitment is not to consistency but to the Truth.

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.

And increasingly - you know this and so do I we're losing the youth everywhere. They hate us; they are not interested in having more fears and guilt laid on them. They're not interested in more sermons and exhortations. But they are interested in learning about love. How can I be happy? How can I live? How can I taste the marvelous things that the mystics speak of?

"That of the person who sees other human beings as sinners," said the Master.

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.'

People who want to rise above a well-cooked meal and a well-tailored garment, are out of their spiritual minds.

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.

In many ways we were drugged when we were young. We were brought up to need people. For what? For acceptance, approval, appreciation, applause.

The words of the scholar are to be understood. The words of the master are not to be understood. They are to be listened to as one listens to the wind in the trees and the sound of the river and the song of the bird. They will awaken something within the heart that is beyond all knowledge.

I wish to become a teacher of the Truth.

The important thing is not to know who "I" is or what "I" is. You'll never succeed. There are no words for it. The important thing is to drop the labels.

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 .

Doesn't everyone see Reality as it is?

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.

Look for competence not claims.

Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed; after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed.

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.

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.

There's nothing you can do to see — it is a gift.

All I did was sit on the riverbank handing out river water. After I'm gone, I trust you will notice the river.

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.'

Has it ever occurred to you that you can only love when you are alone?

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?

Said the master: "Where does your question come from?"

Sinners often speak the truth. And saints have led people astray. Examine what is said, not the one who says it.

We're crazy, We're living on crazy ideas about love, about relationships, about happiness, about joy, about everything.

The human mind makes foolish divisions in what love sees as one.

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.

The world is right because I feel good. p. 83, Awareness, copyright 1990

When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself.

The best things in life cannot be willed into being.

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

You can read books without ever stepping into a library; and practice spirituality without ever going to a temple.

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.