Anthony de Mello Quotes

Happiness comes from the full understanding of your own being.

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.

Once you figure out who you are and what you love about yourself, I think it all kinda falls into place.

What emotions would we experience if we weren't working ourselves to death? What wishes drive us? What fantasies hitch themselves to our continual busyness? Only when we step away from our frenzy can we know.

I wanted to share the experience of how yoga and meditation have transformed my life, how they have enabled me to observe who I am, first in my body, and then emotionally, and on to a kind of spiritual path.

I've worked all my life on the subject of awareness, whether it's awareness of the body, awareness of the mind, awareness of your emotions, awareness of your relationships, or awareness of your environment. I think the key to transforming your life is to be aware of who you are.

I have achieved an inner freedom.

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.

To live is to find out for yourself what is true, and you can do this only when there is freedom, when there is continuous revolution inwardly, within yourself.

Once I was a prisoner lost inside myself with the world surrounding me, wandering through the misery, but now I am free. Free to love, free to laugh, free to soar, free to shine, free to give.

You've got to find yourself first. Everything else'll follow.

To know one's Self is to be blissful always.

And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.

Meditation is to be aware of what is going on - in our bodies, in our feelings, in our minds, and in the world. Each day...children die of hunger.... Yet the sunrise is beautiful, and the rose that bloomed this morning along the wall is a miracle. Life is both dreadful and wonderful. To practice meditation is to be in touch with both aspects. Please do not think we must be solemn in order to meditate. In fact, to meditate well, we have to smile a lot.

There is no mind to control if you realise the self. The mind having vanished, the self shines forth. In the realised man, the mind may be active or inactive, the self remains for him.

Meditation does not mean you have to grin every moment of your life, but to learn to let your bones smile.

If you become a little alert you will find love, light, laughter, everywhere.

It's an inside job to learn about forgiving, it's an inside job to hang on to the joy of living.

Transcending gives a human being a chance to think before acting. And experiencing this beautiful treasury within gets rid of torment and replaces it with happiness, inner peace, creativity intelligence, love, energy. This fuels a real good life and fuels an appreciation for all human beings. It's so powerful and it's a blessing for humanity.

The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation. In meditation we divest ourselves of all material conditions and feel our divine nature. We do not depend upon any external help in meditation. The touch of the soul can paint the brightest color even in the dingiest places; it can cast a fragrance over the vilest thing; it can make the wicked divine-and all enmity, all selfishness is effaced.

Meditation puts into question more or less everything you tend to do in your search for happiness. But if you lose sight of this, it can become just another strategy for seeking happiness - a more refined version of the problem you already have.

Do you want to be right more than you want to know the truth? It's the truth that set me free. Acceptance, peace, and less attachment to a world of suffering are all effects of doing The Work. They're not the goals. Do The Work for the love of freedom, for the love of truth.

Meditation is a way of moving into the unlimited dimension of who you are - it is the ultimate freedom.

Meditation means ultimate freedom within you.

Only when the mind is still, tranquil, not expecting or grasping or resisting a single thing, is it possible to see what is true. It is the truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.