Quotes from Anthony de Mello

Let the story do its work in you, and when it is done then you won't need the story anymore.

No theory adequately covers reality.

Like the little girl who says to a little boy, "Are you a Presbyterian?" And he says, "No, we belong to another abomination!

That's why you'll never catch me saluting a flag. I abhor all national flags because they are idols. What are we saluting? I salute humanity, not a flag with an army around it.

When you go out to the world because of the love that someone else has for you, you are all aglow not with your perception of reality but with the love that you have received from someone else; someone else controls the switch and when it is switched off the glow fades away.

You're never so ready to forget yourself as when you are happy.

And you will understand how true it is that everyone who stops clinging to brothers or sisters, father, mother or children, land or houses Ã¢â'¬Â¦ is repaid a hundred times over and gains eternal life.

Is there anything I can do to make myself enlightened? As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning. Then of what use are the spiritual exercises you prescribe? To make sure you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise.

If there is anything I can do about the future, right now, I shall do it. Then I'm going to just leave it alone and settle down to enjoy the present moment, because all the experience of my life has shown me that I can only cope with things when they are present, not before they occur. And that the present always gives me the resources and the energy I need to deal with them.

Who decides what will finally make its way to your conscious mind from all the material that is pouring in from the world? Three decisive filters: first your attachments, second your beliefs and third your fears.

Say your thing and get out of here. And if they profit, that's fine, and if they don't, too bad!

A story is the shortest distance between a human being and the truth.

Think of yourself in a concert hall listening to the strains of the sweetest music when you suddenly remember that you forgot to lock your car. You are anxious about the car, you cannot walk out of the hall and you cannot enjoy the music. There you have a perfect image of life as it is lived by most human beings.

You want the little things that society has falsely taught you are essential for happiness. You want that.

That's what spirituality is all about, you know: unlearning. Unlearning all the rubbish they taught you.

Negative feelings are in you, not in reality. So stop trying to change reality. That's crazy! Stop trying to change the other person.

Suppose somebody showed us a way whereby we would truly love one another, and be at peace, be at love. Can you think of anything more practical than that? But, instead, you have people thinking that big business is more practical, that politics is more practical, that science is more practical. What's the earthly use of putting a man on the moon when we cannot live on the earth?

When we talk about self-worth, are we not talking, really, about how we are reflected in the mirrors of other people's minds?

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.

George Bernard Shaw. He was at one of those awful cocktail parties, where nothing gets said. Someone asked him if he was enjoying himself. He answered, "It's the only thing I am enjoying here.

It is a sobering thought that the finest act of love you can perform is not an act of service but an act of contemplation, of seeing.

Do you want to be happy? Uninterrupted happiness is uncaused. True happiness is uncaused. You cannot make me happy. You are not my happiness. You say to the awakened person, "Why are you happy?" and the awakened person replies, "Why not?" 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.

As one man said, "I got a pretty good education. It took me years to get over it.

The fact is that you're surrounded by God and you don't see God, because you "know" about God. The final barrier to the vision of God is your God concept.