Anthony De Mello Quotes

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

Doesn't everyone see Reality as it is?

People who deliberate fully before they take a step will spend their lives on one leg

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

If you never condemned you would never need to forgive.

The only way to change is by changing your understanding.

One always treads with a joyful step when one has dropped the burden called the ego.

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

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

Look for competence not claims.

We live in a flash of light; evening comes and it is night forever. It's only a flash and we waste it. We waste it with our anxiety, our worries, our concerns, our burdens.

There comes a point in your life when you become stark raving insane, commit suicide or become a mystic.

the greatest learning of the ages lies in accepting life exactly as it comes to us.

When I speak, you must not listen to the words, my dear. Listen to the Silence.

The spiritual quest is a journey without distance. You travel from where you are right now To where you have always been. From ignorance to recognition.

A newly married couple said, "What shall we do to make our love endure?" Said the Master, "Love other things together".

Spirituality practiced in the state of activity is incomparably superior to that practiced in a state of withdrawel.

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

If the heart is unobstructed, the result is love.

Is there life before death? - that is the question!

The devil has a Ph.D. in perfect logic.

You're not living until it doesn't matter a tinker's damn to you whether you live or die. At that point you live. When you're ready to lose your life, you live it.

So love the thought of death, love it.

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

Take the leap! You cannot cross a chasm in little jumps.

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 sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and his song — not one. Not two.

To relate is to react. To react is to understand oneself. To understand oneself is to be enlightened. Relationships are schools for enlightenment.

To those who seek to protect their ego true Peace brings only disturbance.

This is what is ultimate in our human knowledge of God, to know that we do not know.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The best things in life cannot be willed into being.

My commitment is not to consistency but to the Truth.

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

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

I wish to become a teacher of the Truth.

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.'

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

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

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