“You’re not a dancer at all. You are being danced. – You thought you were at the center, now you experience yourselfas satellite. You thought you were the dancer; you now experience yourself as the dance.”

16 Nov

Anthony de Mello in “Awareness”

“You are never so full of yourself as when you’re in pain.”

16 Nov

Anthony de Mello in “Awareness”

“The one who knows, does not say; the one who says, does not know.”

16 Nov

Anthony de Mello in “Awareness”

“The highest knowledge of God is to know God as unknowable.”

16 Nov

Anthony de Mello in “Awareness”

“The selfish thing is to demand that someone else live their life as YOU see fit. That’s selfish. It is not selfish to live your life as you see fit. The selfishness lies in demanding that someone else live their life to suit your tastes, or your pride, or your profit, or your pleasure.”

16 Nov

Anthony de Mello in “Awareness”

“We see people and things not as they are, but as we are.”

16 Nov

Anthony de Mello in “Awareness”

“Life is a mystery, which means your thinking mind cannot make sense out of it. For that you’ve got to wake up and then you’ll suddenly realize that reality is not problematic, you are the problem.”

16 Nov

Anthony de Mello in “Awareness”

“You don’t even need to be in love. Who told you you do? What you need is to be free. What you need is to love. That’s it; that’s your nature. But what you’re really telling me is that you want to be desired. You want to be applauded, to be attractive, to have all the little monkeys runnings after you.”

16 Nov

Anthony de Mello in “Awareness”

“Your depressions and your thrills have nothing to do with happiness. Those are the swings of the pendulum.”

16 Nov

Anthony de Mello in “Awareness”

P. 111 “Understand another illusion, too, that happiness is not the same as excitement, it’s not the same as thrills”

“Four steps to wisdom. The first thing you need to do is get in touch with negative feelings that you’re not even arware of. – The second step is to understand that the feeling is in you, not in reality. – The third step: Never identify with that feeling. It has nothing to do with the “I”. – The fourth step: How do you change things? How do you change yourselves?”

16 Nov

Anthony de Mello in “Awareness”

On expanding the third step; never identify with negative feelings:

  • P. 80 “If you want to say depression is in there, that’s fine; if you want to say gloominess is in there, that’s fine.  But not: I am gloomy.”
  • P. 80 “Your depression and your thrills have nothing to do with your happiness.  Those are the swings of the pendulum.”
  • P. 81 “You don’t even need to be in love.  Who told you you do? What you need is to be free.  What you need is to love.  That’s it; that’s your nature.  But what you’re really telling me is that you want to be desired.  You want to be applauded, to be attractive, to have all the little monkeys running after you. You’re wasting your life.  Wake up! You don’t need this.  You can be blissfully happy without it.”

The 4 Steps to Wisdom repeated again on P. 89: “Put this program into action, a thousand times:

  • (a) identify the negative feelings in you;
  • (b) understand that they are in you, not in the world, not in external reality;
  • (c) do not see them as an essential part of “I”; these things come and go;
  • (d) understand that when you change, everything changes.