Here, i'm gonna post my favorite quotes or smart thoughts I find here or there...
When you educate a boy,
you educate an individual,
but when you educate a girl,
you educate a community.
-African proverb-
(my comment- a great one, but i'd really like to see more freedom for African women meanwhile.)
REALITY
While the Master seemed to relish life and live it to the full, he was also
known to take great risks, as when he condemned the tyranny of the
government, thereby courting arrest and death; and when he led a group of
his disciples to serve a plague-stricken village.
"The wise have no fear of death," he would say.
"Why would a man risk his life so easily?" he was once asked.
"Why would a person care so little about a candle being extinguished when
day has dawned?"
Anthony de Mello, SJ
Two thousand years ago, a Roman Senator suggested that all slaves wear white armbands to better identify them.
"No," said a wiser Senator. "If they see how many of them there are, they may revolt." ++
CONTEMPLATION
The Master would often say that Silence alone brought transformation.
But no one could get him to define what Silence was. When asked he would
laugh, then hold his forefinger up against his tightened lips ? which only
increased the bewilderment of his disciples.
One day there was a breakthrough when someone asked, "And how is one to
arrive at this Silence that you speak of?"
The Master said something so simple that his disciples studied his face for
a sign that he might be joking. He wasn't. He said, "Wherever you may be,
look when there is apparently nothing to see; listen when all is seemingly
quiet."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
MORSEL: Stillness is your essential nature. What is stillness? The inner space or awareness in which the words on this page are being perceived and become thoughts. Without this awareness, there would be no perception, no thoughts, no world. You are that awareness disguised as a person.
--Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks
OPPOSITION
To a pioneering spirit who was discouraged by frequent criticism the Master
said, "Listen to the words of the critic. He reveals what your friends hide
from you."
But he also said, "Do not be weighed down by what the critic says. No
statue was ever erected to honor a critic. Statues are for the criticized."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
He who knows Self as the enjoyer of
The honey from the flowers of the senses,
Ever present within, ruler of time,
Goes beyond fear. For this Self is Supreme!
-- Upanishads (c. B.C. 800)
HigherAwareness.com
"The key is to not resist or rebel against emotions or to try to get
around them by devising all sorts of tricks; but to accept them
directly, as they are."
-- Takahisa Kora
Any mysticism that doesn't
grow better potatoes and corn isn't worth it!
--Native North American proverb
DISTANCE
The owner of Fun Park commented on the irony of the fact that while the
kids had a great time at his park he himself was habitually depressed.
"Would you rather own the park or have the fun?" said the Master.
"I want both."
The Master made no reply.
When questioned about it later, the Master quoted the words of a tramp to a
wealthy landowner: "You own the property. Others enjoy the landscape."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
Mystic is one side and magic is the other one. Without mystic (qualitiy - love) you can´t master magic (quantity - power). So be a great myst and it will helps you to master everything you want!
Franz Bardon
SERENITY
"Are there ways for gauging one's spiritual strength?"
"Many."
"Give us one."
"Find out how often you become disturbed in the course of a single day."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
MORSEL:
Peace of mind is that mental condition in which you have
accepted the worst.
-- Lin Yutang
DEMONSTRATION
"Does God exist?" said the Master one day.
"Yes," said the disciples in chorus.
"Wrong," said the Master.
"No," said the disciples.
"Wrong again," said the Master.
"What's the answer?" asked the disciples.
"There is no answer."
"Why ever not?"
"Because there is no question," said the Master.
Later he explained: "If you cannot say anything about Him who is beyond
thoughts and words, how can you ask anything about Him?"
Anthony de Mello, SJ
MORSEL:
A person desperately searching for God is like a
fish desperately searching for water.
PRECEDENCE
The Master welcomed the advances of technology, but was keenly aware
of its limitations.
When an industrialist asked him what his occupation was, he replied,
"I'm in the people industry."
"And what, pray, would that be?" said the industrialist.
"Take yourself," said the Master. "Your efforts produce better things;
mine, better people."
To his disciples he later said, "The aim of life is the flowering of
persons. Nowadays people seem concerned mostly with the perfectioning
of things."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
MORSEL:
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
--Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
INSINUATION
The Master claimed he had a book that contained everything one could
conceivably know about God.
No one had ever seen the book till a visiting scholar, by dint of
persistent entreaty, wrested it from the Master. He took it home and
eagerly opened it? only to find that every one of its pages was blank.
"But the book says nothing," wailed the scholar.
"I know," said the Master contentedly. "But see how much it indicates!"
Anthony de Mello, SJ
DESTRUCTION
For all his holiness, The Master seemed
vaguely opposed to religion. This never
ceased to puzzle the disciples who,
unlike the Master, equated religion
with spirituality.
"Religion as practiced today deals in
punishments and rewards. In other words,
it breeds fear and greed -- the two things
most destructive of spirituality. "
Later he added ruefully, "It is like
tackling a flood with water; or a
burning barn with fire."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
INFLEXIBILITY
"Heavens, how you've aged!" exclaimed the Master after speaking with a
boyhood friend.
"One cannot help growing old, can one?" said the friend.
"No, one cannot," agreed the Master, "but one must avoid becoming aged."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
MORSEL:
The minute a man ceases to grow, no matter what his years,
that minute he begins to be old.
-- William James
FRUSTRATION
The disciples could not understand the seemingly arbitrary manner in which
some people were accepted for discipleship and others were rejected.
They got a clue one day when they heard the Master say, "Don't attempt to
teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time -- and irritates the pig."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
MORSEL:
I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.
--Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
DEFINITIONS
The Master had a childlike fascination for modern inventions. He could not
get over his amazement at the pocket calculator when he saw one.
Later he said, good-naturedly, "A lot of people seem to have those little
pocket calculators, but nothing in their pockets worth calculating! "
Weeks later, when a visitor asked him what he taught his disciples, he
said, "To get their priorities right: Better have the money than calculate
it; better have the experience than define it."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
MORSEL:
Ours is a society that has perfected its means yet neglected its meaning.
--Albert Einstein
INFINITY
It was impossible to get the Master to speak of God or of things divine.
"About God," he said, "we can only know that what we know is nothing."
One day he told of a man who deliberated long and anxiously before
embarking on discipleship. "He came to study under me, with the result that
he learned nothing."
Only a few of the disciples understood: What the Master had to teach could
not be learned. Nor taught. So all one could really learn from him was nothing.
Anthony de Mello, SJ
ENLIGHTENMENT
The Master was an advocate both of learning and of Wisdom.
"Learning," he said when asked, "is gotten by reading books or listening to
lectures."
"And Wisdom?"
"By reading the book that is you."
He added as an afterthought: "Not an easy task at all, for every minute of
the day brings a new edition of the book!"
Anthony de Mello, SJ
GREATNESS
"The trouble with the world," said the Master with a sigh, "is that human
beings refuse to grow up."
"When can a person be said to have grown up?" asked a disciple.
"On the day he does not need to be lied to about anything."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
MORSEL:
As long as a man stands in his own way,
everything seems to be in his way.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 -1882)
AT--ONE--MENT
When a man whose marriage was in trouble sought his advice, the Master
said, "You must learn to listen to your wife."
The man took this advice to heart and returned after a month to say that he
had learned to listen to every word his wife was saying.
Said the Master with a smile, "Now go home and listen to every word she
isn't saying."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
PERSECUTION
A disciple was one day recalling how Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed were
branded as rebels and heretics by their contemporaries.
Said the Master, "Nobody can be said to have attained the pinnacle of Truth
until a thousand sincere people have denounced him for blasphemy."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
MORSEL:
When out on a picnic, the Master said, "Do you want to know what the
Enlightened is like? Look at those birds flying over the lake."
While everyone watched, the Master exclaimed:
"They cast a reflection on the water that they have no awareness of ? and
the lake has no attachment to."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
MORSEL: Life's lessons are not taught in classrooms.
PRAYER
The Master never ceased to attack the notions about God that people
entertain.
"If your God comes to your rescue and gets you out of trouble," he would
say, "it is time you started searching for the true God."
When asked to elaborate, this is the story he told:
"A man left a brand-new bicycle unattended at the marketplace while he went
about his shopping.
He only remembered the bicycle the following day ? and rushed to the
marketplace, expecting it would have been stolen. The bicycle was exactly
where he had left it.
Overwhelmed with joy, he rushed to a nearby temple to thank God for having
kept his bicycle safe only to find, when he got out of the temple, that the
bicycle was goner"
Anthony de Mello, SJ
There must be a strong balance between power and control.
Without power nothing happens, without control *anything* can happen.
omjoi
AGGRESSION
A zealous disciple expressed a desire to teach others the Truth and asked
the Master what he thought about this. The Master said, "Wait."
Each year the disciple would return with the same request and each time the
Master would give him the same reply: "Wait."
One day he said to the Master, "When will I be ready to teach?"
Said the Master, "When your excessive eagerness to teach has left you."
Anthony de Mello, SJ
MORSEL:
You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
--Oliver Goldsmith
