Anthony de Mello: Problems exist only in the human mind.

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

Anthony de Mello

sin hate guilt

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

Anthony de Mello

evidence blessing world

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

Anthony de Mello

feel-good awareness world

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

lovely congratulations mean

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

Anthony de Mello

gone rivers water

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

Anthony de Mello

mystic insane suicide

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

Anthony de Mello

readiness may

You are so proud of your intelligence," said the master. "You are like a like a condemned man, proud of the vastness of his prison cell.

Anthony de Mello

vastness cells men

Name one practical, down-to-earth effect of spirituality," said the skeptic who was ready for an argument. "Here's one," said the Master. "When someone offends you, you can raise your spirits to heights where offenses cannot reach.

Anthony de Mello

height earth names

And increasingly - you know this and so do I we're losing the youth everywhere. They hate us; they are not interested in having more fears and guilt laid on them. They're not interested in more sermons and exhortations. But they are interested in learning about love. How can I be happy? How can I live? How can I taste the marvelous things that the mystics speak of?

Anthony de Mello

hate guilt spiritual

The law is an expression of God 's holy will and as such must be honored and loved," said the preacher piously. "Rubbish," said the Master. "The law is a necessary evil and as such must be cut down to the barest minimum. Show me a lover of the law and I will show you a muttonheaded tyrant .

Anthony de Mello

cutting expression law

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

Anthony de Mello

masters christianity said

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

Anthony de Mello

library practice book

A disciple said to him, "I am ready, in the quest for God , to give up anything: wealth, friends, family, country, life itself. What else can a person give up?" The Master calmly replied, "One's beliefs about God.

Anthony de Mello

quests giving-up country

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

Anthony de Mello

dear silence speak

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

Anthony de Mello

acts-of-service

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!"

Anthony de Mello

eye expression reality

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.

Anthony de Mello

spiritual matter life

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

Anthony de Mello

ocean song two

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.

Anthony de Mello

another-life spiritual hot