* CONTRADICTION :
"What action shall I perform to attain God?" "If you wish to attain God there are two things you must know. The first is that all efforts to attain him are of no avail."
"And the second?" "You must act as if you do not know the first." - Anthony de Mello,SJ
Morsel :The act of contemplation creates the thing contemplated.
- Isaac D'Israeli (1766-1848)
* DOCTRINE :
To a visitor who claimed he had no need to search the Truth because he found it in the beliefs of his religion, the Master said: "There was once a student who never became a mathematician because he blindly believed the answer he found at the back of his math textbook - and, ironically, the answers were correct." - Anthony de Mello,SJ
Morsel : Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you. - Khalil Gibran (1883-1931)
* EXPANSION :
The Master sat in rapt attention as the renowned economist explained his blueprint for development. "Should growth be the only consideration in an economic theory?" he asked. "Yes. All growth is good in itself." "Isn't that the thinking of the cancer cell?" said the Master. - Anthony de Mello,SJ
Morsel : All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward. - Ellen Glasgow
* GENIUS :
A writer arrive at the monastery to write a book about the Master. "People say you are a genius. Are you?" he asked. "You might say so," said the Master, none too modestly. "And what makes one a genius?" "The ability to recognise." "Recognise what?" "The butterfly in a caterpillar; the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human being." - Anthony de Mello,SJ
Morsel : Sincerity is a transparent diamond through which light of God shines in our lives.
* IGNORANCE :
The young disciple was such a prodigy that scholars from everywhere sought his advice and marvelled at his learning. When the governor was looking for an adviser, he came to the Master and said, "Tell me, is it true that the young man knows as much as they say he does?" "Truth to tell," said the Master wryly, "the fellow reads so much I don't see how he could ever find the time to know anything." - Anthony de Mello,SJ
Morsel : The heart is wiser than the intellect. - Josiah Holland (1819-1881)
* INTERIORITY :
The disciple asked for a word of wisdom. Said the Master, "Go sit within your cell and your cell will teach you wisdom." "But I have no cell. I am no monk." "Of course you have a cell. Look within." - Anthony de Mello,SJ
Morsel : Seek refuge in the attitude of detachment and you will amass the wealth of spiritual awareness. Those who are motivated only by desire for the fruits of action are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do. - Bhagavad Gita 2:49-50
* MANIPULATION :
The Master sat through the complaints a woman had against her husband. Finally he said, "Your marriage would be a happier one, my dear, if you were a better wife." "And how could I be that?" "By giving up your efforts to make him a better husband." - Anthony de Mello,SJ
Morsel : You cannot raise a man up by calling him down. - William Boetcker
* SIN :
One of the disconcerting - and delightful - teachings of the Master was : "God is closer to sinners than to saints." This is how he explained it : "God in heaven holds each person by a string. When you sin, you cut the string. Then God ties it up again, making a knot and thereby bringing you a little closer to him. Again and again your sins cut the string and with each further knot God keeps drawing you closer and closer." - Anthony de Mello,SJ
Morsel : Guilt is a little prison that keeps you out of big ones. - Alan Harris
Source : Universal Mind, November 2009.
Linking only Part 1 and Part 18 here, the full series in 56 parts of Anthony De Mello's Awareness can be found on the awareness website below.
**Ophiuchus' Notes :
Anthony De Mello S.J. (1931-1987)
Anthony de Mello, a Jesuit priest and psychotherapist, was well known for his writings and spiritual conferences. Born on 4th September 1931, in Bombay, India, he travelled to many states and countries to study and pursue his career. De Mello showed the way of authentic living through his stories and lectures. His spiritual insight and thorough understanding of humanity was well reflected in his teachings. This depth of understanding fetched him world wide recognition. Anthony de Mello served as the director of Sadhana Institute of Pastoral Counselling in Poona, India, until his sudden demise on 2nd June 1987, in New York. He was also a member of the Jesuit province of Bombay.
He authored many books in his lifetime. The topics that he dealt with, in his books, included Christian spirituality, Buddhist parables, Hindu breathing exercises and psychological insight about life. Some of his most popular books include ‘Awareness’, ‘The Song of the Bird’, ‘Sadhana: A Way to God’, ‘Wellsprings’, ‘Walking on Water’, ‘The Way to Love’, ‘Contact with God’ and ‘Heart of the Enlightened’.
His Belief
The meditation techniques taught by De Mello were a combination of Eastern religious thought, modern psychology and the spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit religious order. He strongly believed that most of the people are asleep. They need to be awakened and made to know what is inside and outside them. According to him, human beings should be well acquainted with their feelings, sensations, thoughts and, most importantly, their mind.
In 1998, some of his opinions were condemned by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, wrote for the Congregation: 'But already in certain passages in [his] early works and to a greater degree in his later publications, one notices a progressive distancing from the essential contents of the Christian faith. ... With the present Notification, in order to protect the good of the Christian faithful, this Congregation declares that the above-mentioned positions are incompatible with the Catholic faith and can cause grave harm.'
After listening to his teachings on "Awareness", one can't help but begin to see the depth of his spiritual insight and thorough understanding of humanity which was well reflected in his teachings. And as such, with the Notification on (Jesuit) Father Anthony de Mello by the Catholic Church, one is reminded of another parallel - one of the Galileo Affair (sometime around 1610), where Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), the famous Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher was condemned by the Catholic Church for his support of Copernican astronomy, which supports the heliocentric view, which placed the Sun at the centre of the universe, instead of the then belief of the church in the theory of geocentrism that the earth was the centre of the universe and that all heavenly bodies revolved around the Earth.
In 2000, Pope John Paul II issued a formal apology for all the mistakes committed by some Catholics in the last 2,000 years of the Catholic Church's history, including the trial of Galileo among others.
" Thanks to his intuition as a brilliant physicist and by relying on different arguments, Galileo, who practically invented the experimental method, understood why only the sun could function as the centre of the world, as it was then known, that is to say, as a planetary system. The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture...."
– Pope John Paul II, L'Osservatore Romano N. 44 (1264) - November 4, 1992
For more info:
http://awareness.tk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_de_Mello
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
