Unlearning Relearning Good Reads In Life Long Learning
“Don't ask the world to change....you change first.”
“As one man said, "I got a pretty good education. It took me years to get over it." That's what spirituality is all about, you know: unlearning. Unlearning all the rubbish they taught you.”
― Anthony de Mello, Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality
“the tragedy of an attachment is that if its object is not attained it causes unhappiness. But if it is attained, it does not cause happiness – it merely causes a flash of pleasure followed by weariness, and it is always accompanied, of course, by the anxiety that you may lose the object of your attachment.”
“When you get rid of your fear of failure, your tensions about succeeding... you can be yourself. Relaxed. You'll no longer be driving with your brakes on.”
“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.” ― Anthony de Mello, Awareness
“When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.” ― Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom
“As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. … That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life… Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.” - Anthony de Mello“If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else.” “I know. An overwhelming passion for it.” “No. An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong.”
“Any time you are with anyone or think of anyone you must say to yourself: I am dying and this person too is dying, attempting the while to experience the truth of the words you are saying. If every one of you agrees to practice this, bitterness will die out, harmony will arise.”
“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. To acquire happiness you don't have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don't you experience it? Because 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. Do you know where these things come from? From having identified with all kinds of labels!”
― Anthony de Mello, Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality
“"I have no fear of losing you, for you aren't an object of my property, or anyone else's. I love you as you are, without attachment, without fears, without conditions, without egoism, trying not to absorb you. I love you freely because I love your freedom, as well as mine.”
“These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness, and worship without awareness.”
“Perfect love casts out fear. Where there is love there are no demands, no expectations, no dependency. I do not demand that you make me happy; my happiness does not lie in you. If you were to leave me, I will not feel sorry for myself; I enjoy your company immensely, but I do not cling.”
― Anthony de Mello, Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality
“The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, 'If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.' Said Diogenes, 'Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king".”
“You see persons and things not as they are but as you are. ”
“When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself.”
“Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance.”
― Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom
“As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. … That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life… Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.”
“Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.” ― Anthony de Mello
"Anthony de Mello, SJ”
by Giorgio Piacenza Cabrer
"Father Anthony de Mello SJ is considered one of the foremost mystical theologians of the late Twentieth Century. His simple and direct approach to life continues to untie all kinds of blockages preventing man’s acceptance of his spiritual nature, even decades after his unexpected death. De Mello’s radiated authenticity, love for all and his characteristic laughter tended to disarm any negative preconceived notions against his ideas. As far as my research goes, I’d say that most of those that knew him personally can attest to his sincere and friendly attitude to all as people from every religious persuasion felt comfortable and at soulfully at home near him.
Through his books, Anthony de Mello still speaks about happiness and freedom by illuminating us on how to perceive conflicts and paradoxes differently, that is, by showing us that there’s an enlivening core of wisdom which is far more fundamental than our attachments to partial conceptual stances. Kindly and sagely de Mello often used stories which offered unexpected solutions to paradoxical situations we might be able to relate with. Each of these solutions recapitulated an essential intuition that apparently sprung spring from his direct awareness of non-relative Truth. As far as I know, this intuition was integrated into his whole being exulting joy, care and an unassuming attentive sympathy towards those that approached him.
In his foundational years, Father de Mello originally learned with great discipline the spiritual practices of Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuit Order) and gradually became a master teacher in spiritual retreats which incorporating yoga, vipassana meditation and other oriental and multicultural spiritual practices. He was a man of much charisma and, after reaching beyond the confines of the Jesuit centers in Bombay, gradually became well known throughout the world. Through books, lectures and retreats and by taking at heart the humanitarian outreach recommendations of the Vatican II Council, Father de Mello showed the way for a possible renovation of Catholic ministry and for offering a deeper kind of understanding to individuals of all faiths or of no particular faith at all. Anthony de Mello, SJ used to call himself a “rolling stone” always available to move onto the challenges where Spirit took him. He expressed as a genuine brother to all and came to understand that the genuine Catholic Church encompasses all people: Christians and non-Christians.
Anthony deMello’s vision and path are attempts to bring to life what Ken Wilber calls the churches “Conveyor Belt” (read Wilber’s Integral Spirituality). However, long after his physical departure Father Anthony prompted a censoring reaction from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This, in turn, prompted a reaction in liberal sections of the U.S. Roman Catholic Church and in the Mid Asian synod. In his own way, Father de Mello stands as an example to follow for any integral Church that may emerge in the future and will more likely than not serve as a referent symbol in additional attempts to assist the Roman Catholic Church become a more contemporarily useful, integral “Conveyor Belt.”
I believe that Father Anthony de Mello, SJ also stands next to other important pioneers behind the emerging fertile integration connecting East and West wisdom traditions. I think that his works also stand in line (in their own subtle and profound ways) with an emerging Integral Catholicism contributed by Catholic creatives such as Trappist monk Thomas Merton, Fr. Thomas Keating O.C.S.O., and Fr. Thomas Berry C.P.
It’s the way of the future: Out with prejudiced rigidity; in with embrace through an integrally expressed love!
In my view de Mello’s sufi-like, paradoxical short stories are superb. They are deceptively simple and yet perhaps as inspiring as Kahlil Gibran’s and as touching as the stories about Mullah Najrudin. Perhaps a pre-established 2nd Tier sensibility would be required to seek them out without being prompted by the advertising given to other more popular and somewhat similar, spiritually-inspiring authors. I recommend you to visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_de_Mello where you’ll find a fine list of these works.
Spirituality is that which succeeds in bringing a person to inner transformation.
