Anthony de Mello - Awareness

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You only change what you understand. What you do not understand and are not aware of, you repress. You don't change. But when you understand it, it changes.

Anthony de Mello
Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed; after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed. You don't make a goal out of relaxation and sensitivity. Have you ever heard of people who get tense trying to relax? If one is tense, one simply observes one's tension. You will never understand yourself if you seek to change yourself. The harder you try to change yourself the worse it gets. You are called upon to be aware.

Anthony de Mello
Pleasant experiences make life delightful. Painful experiences lead to growth.

Anthony de Mello
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.

Anthony de Mello
A Jesuit once wrote a note to Father Arrupe, his superior general, asking him about the relative value of communism, socialism and capitalism. Father Arrupe gave him a lovely reply. He said, "A system is about as good or as bad as the people who use it." People with golden hearts would make capitalism or communism or socialism work beautifully.

Anthony de Mello
Don't ask the world to change — you change first. Then you'll get a good enough look at the world so that you'll be able to change whatever you think ought to be changed. Take the obstruction out of your own eye. If you don't you have lost the right to change anyone or anything. Till you are aware of yourself, you have no right to interfere with anyone else or with the world.

Anthony de Mello
Is it possible for the rose to say, "I will give my fragrance to the good people who smell me, but I will withhold it from the bad?" Or is it possible for the lamp to say, "I will give my light to the good people in this room, but I will withhold it from the evil people"? Or can a tree say, "I'll give my shade to the good people who rest under me, but I will withhold it from the bad"? These are images of what love is about.

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

Anthony de Mello
The three most difficult things for a human being are not physical feats or intellectual achievements. They are, first, returning love for hate; second, including the excluded; third, admitting that you are wrong.

Anthony de Mello
Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and
culture.

Anthony de Mello
No person on earth has the power to make you unhappy. There is no event on earth that has the power to disturb you or hurt you. No event, condition, situation, or person. Nobody told you this; they told you the opposite. That's why you're in the mess you're in right now. That is why you're asleep. They never told you this. But it's self-evident.

Anthony de Mello
As the Japanese Zen masters say, Don't seek the truth; just drop your opinions. Drop your theories; don't seek the truth.

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

Anthony de Mello
You are never in love with anyone. You're only in love with your prejudiced and hopeful idea of that person.

Anthony de Mello
Anytime you have a negative feeling toward anyone, you're living in an illusion. There's something seriously wrong with you. You're not seeing reality. Something inside of you has to change. But what do we generally do when we have a negative feeling? "He is to blame, she is to blame. She's got to change." No! The world's all right. The one who has to change is you.

Anthony de Mello
Ordinarily, everything we do is in our self-interest. Everything.

Anthony de Mello
Nobody is afraid of the unknown, what you really fear is the loss of the known.

Anthony de Mello
How sad if we pass through life and never see it with the eyes of a child.

Anthony de Mello
What is a loving heart? A loving heart is sensitive to the whole of life, to all persons; a loving heart doesn't harden itself to any persons or things.

Anthony de Mello
It's only when you become love - in other words, when you have dropped your illusions and attachments - that you will "know." As you identify less and less with the "me," you will be more at ease with everybody and with everything.

Anthony de Mello
Take away human beings from this planet and life would go on, nature would go on in all its loveliness and violence. Where would the problem be? No problem. You created the problem. You are the problem. You identified with "me" and that is the problem. The feeling is in you, not in reality.

Anthony de Mello
Drop your false ideas. See through people. If you see through yourself, you will see through everyone. Then you will love them. Otherwise you spend the whole time grappling with your wrong notions of them, with your illusions that are constantly crashing against reality.

Anthony de Mello
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.

Anthony de Mello
Step by step, let whatever happens happen. Real change will come when it is brought about, not by your ego, but by reality. Awareness releases reality to change you.

Anthony de Mello
Loneliness is not cured by human company. Loneliness is cured by contact with reality.

Anthony de Mello
There is no salvation till they have seen their basic prejudice.

Anthony de Mello
Suffering is a sign that you're out of touch with the truth. Suffering is given to you that you might open your eyes to the truth, that you might understand that there's falsehood somewhere, just as physical pain is given to you so you will understand that there is disease or illness somewhere. Suffering points out that there is falsehood somewhere. Suffering occurs when you clash with reality. When your illusions clash with reality when your falsehoods clash with the truth, then you have suffering. Otherwise there is no suffering.

Anthony de Mello
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.

Anthony de Mello
You keep insisting, I feel good because the world is right! Wrong! The world is right because I feel good. That's what all the mystics are saying.

Anthony de Mello
The way to really live is to die. The passport to living is to imagine yourself in your grave. Imagine you're lying in your coffin....Now look at your problems from that viewpoint. Changes everything, doesn't it?

Anthony de Mello