Anthony de Mello
Anthony de Mello
Anthony "Tony" de Mellowas an Indian Jesuit priest and psychotherapist. A spiritual teacher, writer and public speaker, De Mello wrote several books on spirituality and hosted numerous spiritual retreats and conferences. He continues to be known for his unconventional approach to the priesthood and his storytelling which drew from the various mystical traditions of both East and West...
ProfessionClergyman
Date of Birth4 September 1931
Anthony de Mello quotes about
self ideas challenges
The only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your ideas. If you're ready to listen and if you're ready to be challenged, there's one thing that you can do, but no one can help you. What is this most important thing of all? It's called self-observation.
laughing people visitors
What is the work of a Master?" said a solemn-faced visitor. "To teach people to laugh ," said the Master gravely.
unique bored looks
If you don't look at things through your concepts, you'll never be bored. Every single thing is unique.
only-love
Has it ever occurred to you that you can only love when you are alone?
wall taken eye
A prisoner lived in solitary confinement for years. He saw and spoke to no one and his meals were served through an opening in the wall. One day an ant came into his cell. The man contemplated it in fascination as it crawled around the room. He held it in the palm of his hand the better to observe it, gave it a grain or two, and kept it under his tin cup at night. One day it suddenly struck him that it had taken him ten long years of solitary confinement to open his eyes to the loveliness of an ant.
mind division foolish
The human mind makes foolish divisions in what love sees as one.
world fool like-you
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.
law obedience break
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.'
ambition order greed
You've got to drop something. You've got to drop illusions. You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It's only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings.
congratulations mean lovely
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.
distance frustrated stories
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.'
eye reality expression
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!
running within-you
Both what you run from- and what you yearn for - are within you.
people legs steps
People who deliberate fully before they take a step will spend their lives on one leg