Lessons from Anthony De Mello

The Indian Jesuit priest and psychotherapist Anthony de Mello was a masterful storyteller and spiritual teacher whose words continue to resonate with people of all backgrounds. Drawing from a rich tapestry of Eastern and Western traditions, his teachings emphasize awareness, love, and freedom from the illusions that cause suffering.

On Awareness and Waking Up

De Mello’s core message revolves around the concept of "waking up" to reality. He believed that most of us are asleep, living in a world of our own projections and conditioning.

"What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you. You are always a slave to what you're not aware of." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality) [1][2]
"Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality) [1][3]
"Spirituality is about unlearning. Unlearning all the rubbish they taught you." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality) [3]
"We see people and things not as they are, but as we are." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)
"The only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your ideas." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality) [4]
Learning: True change comes not from effort or willpower, but from awareness. When you observe your thoughts and feelings without judgment, they begin to lose their power over you.
"Self-observation means to watch everything in you and around you as far as possible and watch it as if it were happening to someone else." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality) [4]

On Love and Relationships

De Mello offered a radical perspective on love, one that is free from attachment and dependency.

"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." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)
"You are never in love with anyone. You're only in love with your prejudiced and hopeful idea of that person." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)
"As you identify less and less with the 'me', you will be more at ease with everybody and with everything. Do you know why? Because you are no longer afraid of being hurt or not liked." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)
"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." (The Way to Love) [5][6]
"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." (The Way to Love) [1][6]
Learning: To truly love is to see another person as they are, without projecting your own needs and desires onto them. This requires a level of inner completeness where your happiness does not depend on anyone else. [5][7]
"To love persons is to have died to the need for persons and to be utterly alone." (The Way to Love)

On Happiness and Suffering

According to de Mello, happiness is our natural state, obscured by our false beliefs and attachments.

"There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them." (The Way to Love) [6]
"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." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality) [8]
"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." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)
"Suffering is a signal that there is a falsehood in you, a clash between your beliefs and reality." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)
"Pleasant experiences make life delightful. Painful experiences lead to growth." (Often attributed to de Mello's talks) [3]
Learning: Unhappiness is not caused by external events, but by our reactions to them. These reactions are programmed by our attachments and false beliefs. By seeing through these, we can find a happiness that is not dependent on circumstances. [6][8]
"Anytime you have a negative feeling toward anyone, you're living in an illusion. There's something seriously wrong with you. You're not seeing reality. Something inside of you has to change." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality) [8]

On Freedom and Programming

A central theme in de Mello's teachings is the idea that we are all programmed by society, culture, and our upbringing. True freedom lies in recognizing and breaking free from this conditioning.

"Live your life as you see fit. That's not selfish. Selfish is to demand that others live their lives as you see fit." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality) [8]
"As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)
"The secret is to renounce nothing, cling to nothing, enjoy everything and allow it to pass, to flow." (The Way to Love)
"It is not that we fear the unknown. You cannot fear something that you do not know. Nobody is afraid of the unknown. What you really fear is the loss of the known." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)
Learning: Our minds are filled with a program of demands about how the world and people should be. This program is the source of our disturbances. Liberation comes from seeing this program for what it is and no longer identifying with it. [1][8]
"If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth." (One Minute Wisdom) [9]

On Truth and Reality

De Mello encouraged a direct perception of reality, unmediated by concepts and beliefs.

"The shortest distance between a human being and truth is a story." (A recurring theme in his lectures and books like The Song of the Bird) [10][11]
"People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it." (The Way to Love)
"Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)
"If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else... An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)
"The words of the Master are not to be understood. They are to be listened to as one listens to the wind in the trees and the sound of the river and the song of the bird." (The Song of the Bird) [10][11]
Learning: Truth cannot be captured in words or concepts. It can only be experienced directly. To do so, one must be willing to drop all preconceived notions and ideologies.
"Don't seek the truth. Just drop your opinions." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)

On God and Spirituality

Though a Jesuit priest, de Mello's approach to God was unconventional and mystical, transcending religious dogma.

"God is Unknown, the Unknowable. Every statement about Him, every answer to your questions, is a distortion of the Truth." (The Song of the Bird) [10][11]
"Why does the bird sing? Not because he has a statement, but because he has a song." (The Song of the Bird) [10][11]
"Silence is the first revelation of God." (Sadhana: A Way to God) [12][13]
"We forget all too easily that one of the big lessons of the Incarnation is that God is found in the ordinary." (Sadhana: A Way to God) [12][13]
"Spirituality is that which succeeds in bringing one to inner transformation." (The Song of the Bird) [10][11]
Learning: The spiritual journey is not about acquiring beliefs but about shedding illusions. It is a journey without distance, from where you are to where you have always been. [14]
"Loneliness is not cured by human company. Loneliness is cured by contact with reality." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)

On Life and Living

De Mello's teachings are ultimately a guide to living fully and authentically in the present moment.

"If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future." (The Way to Love)
"When the eye is unobstructed, the result is sight. When the ear is unobstructed, the result is hearing. When the mind is unobstructed, the result is truth. When the heart is unobstructed, the result is love." (Often attributed to de Mello's talks)
"The passport to living is to imagine yourself in your grave. Now look at your problems from that viewpoint. Changes everything, doesn't it?" (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)
"You must cultivate activities that you love...for they are your passport to freedom and to love." (The Way to Love)
"A nice definition of an awakened person: a person who no longer marches to the drums of society, a person who dances to the tune of the music that springs up from within." (Often attributed to his lectures)
"The one who would be constant in happiness must frequently change." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)
"Life is a banquet. And the tragedy is that most people are starving to death." (Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality) [3]
"No one can find your meaning for you. Not even the master." (The Song of the Bird) [10][11]
"Wholehearted cooperation with the inevitable." (One Minute Wisdom) [9][15]

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