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The Way to Love: The Last Meditations of Anthony de Mello
From the international bestselling author of Awareness, a pocket-sized guide that will bring you to new levels of spiritual awareness.
The Way To Love contains the final flowering of Anthony de Mello's thought, and in it he grapples with the ultimate question of love. In thirty-one meditations, he implores his readers with his usual pithiness to break through illusion, the great obstacle to love. "Love springs from awareness," de Mello insists, saying that it is only when we see others as they are that we can begin to really love. But not only must we seek to see others with clarity, we must examine ourselves without misconception. The task, however, is not easy. "The most painful act," de Mello says, "is the act of seeing. But in that act of seeing that love is born." Anthony De Mello was the director of the Sadhana Institute of Pastoral Counseling in Poona, India, and authored several books. The Way To Love is his last.
The Way To Love contains the final flowering of Anthony de Mello's thought, and in it he grapples with the ultimate question of love. In thirty-one meditations, he implores his readers with his usual pithiness to break through illusion, the great obstacle to love. "Love springs from awareness," de Mello insists, saying that it is only when we see others as they are that we can begin to really love. But not only must we seek to see others with clarity, we must examine ourselves without misconception. The task, however, is not easy. "The most painful act," de Mello says, "is the act of seeing. But in that act of seeing that love is born." Anthony De Mello was the director of the Sadhana Institute of Pastoral Counseling in Poona, India, and authored several books. The Way To Love is his last.
196 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
About the author
Anthony de Mello
142 books898 followersAnthony de Mello was a Jesuit priest and psychotherapist who became widely known for his books on spirituality. An internationally acclaimed spiritual guide, writer and public speaker, de Mello hosted many spiritual conferences.
The few talks which he allowed to be filmed, such as "A Rediscovery of Life" and "A Way to God for Today," have inspired many viewers and audiences throughout the United States, Canada, and Central America. De Mello established a prayer center in India. He died suddenly in 1987. His works are readily available and additional writings were published after his death.
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."
Some editions of his books have since been supplemented with the insertion of a caution:
"The books of Father Anthony de Mello were written in a multi-religious context to help the followers of other religions, agnostics and atheists in their spiritual search, and they were not intended by the author as manuals of instruction of the Catholic faithful in Christian doctrine or dogma."
The few talks which he allowed to be filmed, such as "A Rediscovery of Life" and "A Way to God for Today," have inspired many viewers and audiences throughout the United States, Canada, and Central America. De Mello established a prayer center in India. He died suddenly in 1987. His works are readily available and additional writings were published after his death.
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."
Some editions of his books have since been supplemented with the insertion of a caution:
"The books of Father Anthony de Mello were written in a multi-religious context to help the followers of other religions, agnostics and atheists in their spiritual search, and they were not intended by the author as manuals of instruction of the Catholic faithful in Christian doctrine or dogma."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 325 reviews
January 31, 2010
Anthony DeMello is my favorite spiritual teacher, so I'll admit to having a bit of bias in his favor. This is a nice little book with lots of wisdom shared in DeMello's usual frank, no-nonsense style. Here's one of my favorite quotes from it:
“Whenever you are insecure about what may happen in the future, just remember this: In the past six months or one year you were so insecure about events which when they finally came you were able to handle somehow. Thanks to the energy and the resources that that particular present moment gave you, and not to all the previous worrying, which only made you suffer needlessly and weakened you emotionally.
So say to yourself: If there is anything I can do about the future, right now, I shall do it. Then I’m going to just leave it alone and settle down to enjoy the present moment, because all the experience of my life has shown me that I can only cope with things when they are present, not before they occur. And that the present always gives me the resources and the energy I need to deal with them.”
“Whenever you are insecure about what may happen in the future, just remember this: In the past six months or one year you were so insecure about events which when they finally came you were able to handle somehow. Thanks to the energy and the resources that that particular present moment gave you, and not to all the previous worrying, which only made you suffer needlessly and weakened you emotionally.
So say to yourself: If there is anything I can do about the future, right now, I shall do it. Then I’m going to just leave it alone and settle down to enjoy the present moment, because all the experience of my life has shown me that I can only cope with things when they are present, not before they occur. And that the present always gives me the resources and the energy I need to deal with them.”
December 6, 2011
What a book. This scared and terrified the shit out of me on several occasions. What an astounding thing to do. I've read my share of books on spirituality, but for some reason, this one really got to me. Or maybe it's just the current stage I'm experiencing in my life. I was ready to hear and absorb the ideas/principles/etc it was trying to tell me. It has shaken me up. It has challenged every single thing I believe and hold true. I love challening my beliefs. I love deprogramming. I loved this book. He's now one of my favorite authors. Before this, I read his other book: "Awareness". Recommend it as well.
February 10, 2020
The most important things in life can be learned but not taught. "You can get someone to teach you things mechanical or scientific or mathematical like algebra or English or riding a cycle or operating a computer. But in the things that really matter, life, love, reality, God, no one can teach you a thing. All they can do is give you formulas. And as soon as you have a formula, you have reality filtered through the mind of someone else. If you take those formulas you will be imprisoned. You will wither and when you come to die you will not have known what it means to see for yourself, to learn."
December 26, 2008
If you read Anthony de Mello, you will find yourself nodding. And then you will have to read it again. The concepts can challenging, because it's not your typical Christian spirituality. de Mello will make you face the hardest questions about your one needs, fears, motives and beliefs. And it will change you.
July 7, 2020
This book is a mix of Eastern philosophy and psychoanalysis, framed together by New Testament scripture.
Theologically speaking, I did not find myself agreeing with many of the underlying assumptions that de Mello made. After a bit of research, I found out that the Catholic church is also a lil weary of de Mello's theological teachings. Nevertheless, this book has so much beautiful wisdom that it would be a shame to discredit it all together. So many profound ideas are explored by de Mello that it is impossible not to occasionally find yourself in a state of awe as you are reading this book.
A few of my favorite quotes and ideas:
"What makes you happy or unhappy is not the world and the people around you, but the thinking in your head."
"So spend some time seeing each of the things you cling to for what it really is, a nightmare that causes you excitement and pleasure on the one hand but also worry, insecurity, tension, anxiety, fear, unhappiness on the other."
"If you just enjoy things, refusing to let yourself be attached to them, that is, refusing to hold the false belief that you will not be happy without them, you are spared all the struggle and emotional strain of protecting them and guarding them for yourself."
"Attachments can only thrive in the darkness of illusion."
"To be in the state called love you must be sensitive to the uniqueness and beauty of every single thing and person around you."
"You must choose between your attachment and happiness. You cannot have both."
"Life is infinitely greater than this trifle your heart is attached to and which you have given the power to so upset you."
"If you hold on to an idea about someone, then you no longer love that person but your idea of that person."
"The moment you are aware of your holiness it goes sour and becomes self-righteousness. A good deed is never so good as when you have no consciousness that it is good - you are so much in love with the action that you are quite unselfconscious about your goodness and virtue."
"Spend some time in becoming aware of the fact that all the virtue that you can see in yourself is no virtue at all but something that you have cunningly cultivated and produced and forced on yourself."
"The rose has a gift that you lack: It is perfectly content to be itself."
"The question to ask is not, "What's wrong with this person?" but "What does this irritation tell me about myself?""
"It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them, otherwise it is not the person that you love but the idea that you have formed of this person, or this person as the object of your desire not as he or she is in themselves."
"Happy events make life delightful but they do not lead to self-discovery and growth and freedom. That privilege is reserved to the things and persons and situations that cause us pain."
"The present moment, no matter how painful, is never unbearable."
"People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is done actually by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it."
4.4/5
Theologically speaking, I did not find myself agreeing with many of the underlying assumptions that de Mello made. After a bit of research, I found out that the Catholic church is also a lil weary of de Mello's theological teachings. Nevertheless, this book has so much beautiful wisdom that it would be a shame to discredit it all together. So many profound ideas are explored by de Mello that it is impossible not to occasionally find yourself in a state of awe as you are reading this book.
A few of my favorite quotes and ideas:
"What makes you happy or unhappy is not the world and the people around you, but the thinking in your head."
"So spend some time seeing each of the things you cling to for what it really is, a nightmare that causes you excitement and pleasure on the one hand but also worry, insecurity, tension, anxiety, fear, unhappiness on the other."
"If you just enjoy things, refusing to let yourself be attached to them, that is, refusing to hold the false belief that you will not be happy without them, you are spared all the struggle and emotional strain of protecting them and guarding them for yourself."
"Attachments can only thrive in the darkness of illusion."
"To be in the state called love you must be sensitive to the uniqueness and beauty of every single thing and person around you."
"You must choose between your attachment and happiness. You cannot have both."
"Life is infinitely greater than this trifle your heart is attached to and which you have given the power to so upset you."
"If you hold on to an idea about someone, then you no longer love that person but your idea of that person."
"The moment you are aware of your holiness it goes sour and becomes self-righteousness. A good deed is never so good as when you have no consciousness that it is good - you are so much in love with the action that you are quite unselfconscious about your goodness and virtue."
"Spend some time in becoming aware of the fact that all the virtue that you can see in yourself is no virtue at all but something that you have cunningly cultivated and produced and forced on yourself."
"The rose has a gift that you lack: It is perfectly content to be itself."
"The question to ask is not, "What's wrong with this person?" but "What does this irritation tell me about myself?""
"It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them, otherwise it is not the person that you love but the idea that you have formed of this person, or this person as the object of your desire not as he or she is in themselves."
"Happy events make life delightful but they do not lead to self-discovery and growth and freedom. That privilege is reserved to the things and persons and situations that cause us pain."
"The present moment, no matter how painful, is never unbearable."
"People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is done actually by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it."
4.4/5
May 7, 2016
I usually write quotes, and this one made me write - a lot. First of all, I liked some parts of a book, he really gives us good advices. But I also have a lot of negative comments:
1. He says that we shouldn't look at things through our beliefs and there he goes he wrote it through Bible quotes and believes.
2. Humans are social beings, we live in certain culture, and sorry buddy, but we can't just excuse ourselves from it.
3. I kinda got a felling that all he wants to say is that you can't be happy as long as you are attached with someone - sorry again we all have parents and that's our first connection with world, we can't just throw it away, our friends, partners, pets,...
4. I think that if we actually lived the way he advices us we would never be happy. We would be alone separated from anyone who certainly made us feel happy, we would be flegmatic towards anything - meeeh it's the way it is I can change it.
5. Feelings ARE OK, it's ok to feel angry, to feel sad, or however we want to feel, feelings make us change and progress! You can't just ignore it it's like: ,,My parent just died, I feel sad, oh no, that's my attachment I got to get out of that, yeey and now I'm happy".
6. I agree we shouldn't compare ourselves with other people, but we need to compare us with ourselves! Otherwise we would be the same - again, no progress!
7. Our wishes, imaginations, believes, relationships make us go foward (healthy ones), and yes, when we complete them we feel a short-time happiness, but that's why we need to change our goals, and wishes all the time to keep us moving, and developing whatever we want!
1. He says that we shouldn't look at things through our beliefs and there he goes he wrote it through Bible quotes and believes.
2. Humans are social beings, we live in certain culture, and sorry buddy, but we can't just excuse ourselves from it.
3. I kinda got a felling that all he wants to say is that you can't be happy as long as you are attached with someone - sorry again we all have parents and that's our first connection with world, we can't just throw it away, our friends, partners, pets,...
4. I think that if we actually lived the way he advices us we would never be happy. We would be alone separated from anyone who certainly made us feel happy, we would be flegmatic towards anything - meeeh it's the way it is I can change it.
5. Feelings ARE OK, it's ok to feel angry, to feel sad, or however we want to feel, feelings make us change and progress! You can't just ignore it it's like: ,,My parent just died, I feel sad, oh no, that's my attachment I got to get out of that, yeey and now I'm happy".
6. I agree we shouldn't compare ourselves with other people, but we need to compare us with ourselves! Otherwise we would be the same - again, no progress!
7. Our wishes, imaginations, believes, relationships make us go foward (healthy ones), and yes, when we complete them we feel a short-time happiness, but that's why we need to change our goals, and wishes all the time to keep us moving, and developing whatever we want!
November 15, 2012
This pure, sincere observation about life can only be done by someone holy.
Read this with open heart and it will lead you to taste sweetness of enlightenment.
Most priests will interpret bible though what they learn in theology, through the ideas that lived in their mind for years planted by society and religion. De Mello is one of a kind priest.
I'm so grateful for him and his love.
Read this with open heart and it will lead you to taste sweetness of enlightenment.
Most priests will interpret bible though what they learn in theology, through the ideas that lived in their mind for years planted by society and religion. De Mello is one of a kind priest.
I'm so grateful for him and his love.
August 25, 2020
I think this is one of those books that should be read more than once. Sometimes you'll relate to author's wise words and take to heart his meaningful advice, but I think most of this needs a right moment to make an impact. But it's helpful. And I appreciate that.
March 25, 2016
Probably the most paradigm-shifting book I've read in a long long while (definitely this year, maybe my whole uni life). Despite being written by a Jesuit priest, the ideas expressed are reminiscent of Buddhism (non-attachment), with a distinct Christian lens. Reminded me of the book I read by Osho recently as well (Book of Living and Dying).
If you read only one book a decade, do yourself a favour and make it this one.
Attachment
Attachment - how is an attachment formed?
First comes the contact with something that gives you pleasure: a car, an attractively advertised modern appliance, a word of praise, a person's company. Then comes the desire to hold on to it, to repeat the gratifying sensation that this thing or person caused you. Finally comes the conviction that you will not be happy without this person or thing, for you have equated the pleasure it brings you with happiness. You now have a full-blown attachment; and with it comes an inevitable exclusion of other things, an insensitivity to anything that isn't part of your attachment. Each time you leave the object of your attachment, you leave your heart there, so you cannot invest it in the next place you go to. The symphony of life moves on but you keep looking back, clinging to a few bars of the melody, blocking your ears to the rest of the music, thereby producing disharmony and conflict between what life is offering you and what you are.
There is only one thing that blocks out entry into that world (of love) and the name of that thing is Attachment. It is produced by the lusting eye that excites craving within the heart and by the grasping hand that reaches out to hold, possess and make one's own, and refuses to let go. It is this eye that must be gouged out, this hand that must be cut off if love is to be born.
Mostly the discontent that you feel comes from not having enough of something- you are dissatisfied because you think you do not have enough money or power or success or fame or virtue or love, or holiness. This is not the discontent that leads to the joy of the kingdom. Its source is greed and ambition and its fruit is restlessness and frustration. The day you are discontented not because you want more of something but without knowing what it is you want; when you are sick at heart of everything that you have been pursuing so far and you are sick of the pursuit itself, then your heart will attain a great clarity, an insight that will cause you mysteriously to delight in everything and in nothing.
Make a list of all your attachments and desires and to each of them say these words: "Deep down in my heart I know that even after I have got you I will not get happiness." And ponder on the truth of those words. The fulfilment of desire can, at the most, bring flashes of pleasure and excitement. Don't mistake that for happiness.
"I am not really attached to you at all. I have merely cheated myself into the belief that without you I will not be happy."
But the light must shine uninterruptedly if it is to be effective. Attachments can only thrive in the darkness of illusion. The rich man cannot enter the kingdom of joy not because he wants to be bad but because he chooses to be blind.
"I leave you free to be yourself ... "In saying those words you have set yourself free. You are now ready to love. For when you cling, what you offer the other is not love but a chain by which both you and your beloved are bound.
Love can only exist in freedom. The true lover seeks the good of his beloved which requires especially the liberation of the beloved from the lover.
Now think of yourself listening to an orchestra in which the sound of the drum is so loud that nothing else can be heard. To enjoy the symphony you must be responsive to every instrument in the orchestra. To be in the state called love you must be sensitive to the uniqueness and beauty of every single thing and person around you. You can hardly be said to love what you do not even notice; and if you notice only a few beings to the exclusion of others, that is not love at all, for love excludes no one at all; it embraces the whole of life; it listens to the symphony as a whole, not to just one or the other of the musical instruments.
You falsely think that your fears protect you, your beliefs have made you what you are and your attachments make your life exciting and secure. You fail to see that they are actually a screen between you and life's symphony.
Love
So this is the first quality of love: its indiscriminate character.
The final quality of love is its freedom. The moment coercion or control or conflict enters, love dies. Think how the rose, the tree, the lamp leave you completely free. The tree will make no effort to drag you into its shade if you are in danger of a sunstroke. The lamp will not force its light on you lest you stumble in the dark.
Think for a while of all the coercion and control that you submit to on the part of others when you so anxiously live up to their expectations in order to buy their love and approval or because you fear you will lose them. Each time you submit to this control and this coercion you destroy the capacity to love which is your very nature, for you cannot but do to others what you allow others to do to you. Contemplate, then, all the control and coercion in your life and hopefully this contemplation alone will cause them to drop. The moment they drop, freedom will arise. And freedom is just another word for love.
As a matter of fact, they have convinced you that if you ever broke free of them, you would become an island-solitary, bleak, unloving. But the exact opposite is true. How can you love someone
whom you are a slave to ? How can you love someone whom you cannot live without? You can only desire, need, depend and fear and be controlled. Love is to be found only in fearlessness and freedom. How do you achieve this freedom? By means of a two-pronged attack on your dependency and slavery. First, awareness. It is next to impossible to be dependent, to be a slave, when one constantly observes the folly of one's dependence. But awareness may not be enough for a person whose addiction is people. You must cultivate activities that you love. You must discover work that you do, not for its utility, but for itself.
If it is love that you truly desire then set out at once on the task of seeing, take it seriously and look at someone you dislike and really see your prejudice. Look at someone you cling to or something you cling to and really see the suffering, the futility, the unfreedom of clinging and look long and lovingly at human faces and human behaviour. Take some time out to gaze in wonder at Nature, the flight of a bird, a flower in bloom, the dry leaf crumbling to dust, the flow of a river, the rising of the moon, a silhouette of a mountain against the sky. And as you do this the hard, protective shell around your heart will soften and melt and your heart will come alive in sensitivity and responsiveness. The darkness in your eyes will be dispelled and your vision will become clear and penetrating, and you will know at last what love is.
Love springs from awareness. It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them, otherwise it is not the person that you love but the idea that you have formed of this person, or this person as the object of your desire not as he or she is in themselves.
The secret is to renounce nothing, cling to nothing, enjoy everything and allow it to pass, to flow.
Contrary to popular beliefs, the cure for lovelessness and loneliness is not company but contact with Reality. The moment you touch this Reality you will know what freedom and love are. Freedom from people -and so the ability to love them.
Virtue
Spend some time in becoming aware of the fact that all the virtue that you can see in yourself is no virtue at all but something that you have cunningly cultivated and produced and forced on yourself. If it were real virtue you would have enjoyed it thoroughly and would feel so natural that it wouldn't occur to you to think of it as a virtue. So the first quality of holiness is its unselfconsciousness.
There is another more subtle way in which the innocence of childhood is lost: when the child is infected by the desire to become somebody. Contemplate the crowds of people who are striving might and main to become, not what Nature intended them to be-musicians, cooks, mechanics, carpenters, gardeners, inventors-but somebody: to become successful, famous, powerful; to become something that will bring, not quiet self-fulfilment, but self-glorification, self-expansion. You are looking at people who have lost their innocence because they have chosen not to be themselves but to promote themselves, to show off, even if it be only in their own eyes.
If you read only one book a decade, do yourself a favour and make it this one.
Attachment
Attachment - how is an attachment formed?
First comes the contact with something that gives you pleasure: a car, an attractively advertised modern appliance, a word of praise, a person's company. Then comes the desire to hold on to it, to repeat the gratifying sensation that this thing or person caused you. Finally comes the conviction that you will not be happy without this person or thing, for you have equated the pleasure it brings you with happiness. You now have a full-blown attachment; and with it comes an inevitable exclusion of other things, an insensitivity to anything that isn't part of your attachment. Each time you leave the object of your attachment, you leave your heart there, so you cannot invest it in the next place you go to. The symphony of life moves on but you keep looking back, clinging to a few bars of the melody, blocking your ears to the rest of the music, thereby producing disharmony and conflict between what life is offering you and what you are.
There is only one thing that blocks out entry into that world (of love) and the name of that thing is Attachment. It is produced by the lusting eye that excites craving within the heart and by the grasping hand that reaches out to hold, possess and make one's own, and refuses to let go. It is this eye that must be gouged out, this hand that must be cut off if love is to be born.
Mostly the discontent that you feel comes from not having enough of something- you are dissatisfied because you think you do not have enough money or power or success or fame or virtue or love, or holiness. This is not the discontent that leads to the joy of the kingdom. Its source is greed and ambition and its fruit is restlessness and frustration. The day you are discontented not because you want more of something but without knowing what it is you want; when you are sick at heart of everything that you have been pursuing so far and you are sick of the pursuit itself, then your heart will attain a great clarity, an insight that will cause you mysteriously to delight in everything and in nothing.
Make a list of all your attachments and desires and to each of them say these words: "Deep down in my heart I know that even after I have got you I will not get happiness." And ponder on the truth of those words. The fulfilment of desire can, at the most, bring flashes of pleasure and excitement. Don't mistake that for happiness.
"I am not really attached to you at all. I have merely cheated myself into the belief that without you I will not be happy."
But the light must shine uninterruptedly if it is to be effective. Attachments can only thrive in the darkness of illusion. The rich man cannot enter the kingdom of joy not because he wants to be bad but because he chooses to be blind.
"I leave you free to be yourself ... "In saying those words you have set yourself free. You are now ready to love. For when you cling, what you offer the other is not love but a chain by which both you and your beloved are bound.
Love can only exist in freedom. The true lover seeks the good of his beloved which requires especially the liberation of the beloved from the lover.
Now think of yourself listening to an orchestra in which the sound of the drum is so loud that nothing else can be heard. To enjoy the symphony you must be responsive to every instrument in the orchestra. To be in the state called love you must be sensitive to the uniqueness and beauty of every single thing and person around you. You can hardly be said to love what you do not even notice; and if you notice only a few beings to the exclusion of others, that is not love at all, for love excludes no one at all; it embraces the whole of life; it listens to the symphony as a whole, not to just one or the other of the musical instruments.
You falsely think that your fears protect you, your beliefs have made you what you are and your attachments make your life exciting and secure. You fail to see that they are actually a screen between you and life's symphony.
Love
So this is the first quality of love: its indiscriminate character.
The final quality of love is its freedom. The moment coercion or control or conflict enters, love dies. Think how the rose, the tree, the lamp leave you completely free. The tree will make no effort to drag you into its shade if you are in danger of a sunstroke. The lamp will not force its light on you lest you stumble in the dark.
Think for a while of all the coercion and control that you submit to on the part of others when you so anxiously live up to their expectations in order to buy their love and approval or because you fear you will lose them. Each time you submit to this control and this coercion you destroy the capacity to love which is your very nature, for you cannot but do to others what you allow others to do to you. Contemplate, then, all the control and coercion in your life and hopefully this contemplation alone will cause them to drop. The moment they drop, freedom will arise. And freedom is just another word for love.
As a matter of fact, they have convinced you that if you ever broke free of them, you would become an island-solitary, bleak, unloving. But the exact opposite is true. How can you love someone
whom you are a slave to ? How can you love someone whom you cannot live without? You can only desire, need, depend and fear and be controlled. Love is to be found only in fearlessness and freedom. How do you achieve this freedom? By means of a two-pronged attack on your dependency and slavery. First, awareness. It is next to impossible to be dependent, to be a slave, when one constantly observes the folly of one's dependence. But awareness may not be enough for a person whose addiction is people. You must cultivate activities that you love. You must discover work that you do, not for its utility, but for itself.
If it is love that you truly desire then set out at once on the task of seeing, take it seriously and look at someone you dislike and really see your prejudice. Look at someone you cling to or something you cling to and really see the suffering, the futility, the unfreedom of clinging and look long and lovingly at human faces and human behaviour. Take some time out to gaze in wonder at Nature, the flight of a bird, a flower in bloom, the dry leaf crumbling to dust, the flow of a river, the rising of the moon, a silhouette of a mountain against the sky. And as you do this the hard, protective shell around your heart will soften and melt and your heart will come alive in sensitivity and responsiveness. The darkness in your eyes will be dispelled and your vision will become clear and penetrating, and you will know at last what love is.
Love springs from awareness. It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them, otherwise it is not the person that you love but the idea that you have formed of this person, or this person as the object of your desire not as he or she is in themselves.
The secret is to renounce nothing, cling to nothing, enjoy everything and allow it to pass, to flow.
Contrary to popular beliefs, the cure for lovelessness and loneliness is not company but contact with Reality. The moment you touch this Reality you will know what freedom and love are. Freedom from people -and so the ability to love them.
Virtue
Spend some time in becoming aware of the fact that all the virtue that you can see in yourself is no virtue at all but something that you have cunningly cultivated and produced and forced on yourself. If it were real virtue you would have enjoyed it thoroughly and would feel so natural that it wouldn't occur to you to think of it as a virtue. So the first quality of holiness is its unselfconsciousness.
There is another more subtle way in which the innocence of childhood is lost: when the child is infected by the desire to become somebody. Contemplate the crowds of people who are striving might and main to become, not what Nature intended them to be-musicians, cooks, mechanics, carpenters, gardeners, inventors-but somebody: to become successful, famous, powerful; to become something that will bring, not quiet self-fulfilment, but self-glorification, self-expansion. You are looking at people who have lost their innocence because they have chosen not to be themselves but to promote themselves, to show off, even if it be only in their own eyes.
January 3, 2020
The most important book that brought me on a journey throughout the past week, when I first opened it at the hairdressers, making me reflect on my top 3 attachments; the next day I experienced those moments that can only be described as a “state of grace”, seeing parents and children play in Fuxing Park and seeing the sunlight filter through the windows and cast shadows on the books in the Sinan Mansions bookstore; discussions on depression with my Chinese teacher on Monday; an overall roller coaster journey that opened up deep seated insecurities in work, love and life.
This book that was heavily pushed to me by my sister thrice I have probably recommended to literally everyone in my circle, with the main pronouncement that the most important relationship we will have in this world is the relationship we have with ourselves. Like the quote at Breakfast at Tiffany’s to a Holly Golightly who was always on the run: No matter where you run, the only person you will run into is yourself.
The main principles are clear: see things and people as they are, and not through the labels, filters and projections we make on them. Love them for who they are — and more importantly, love ourselves for who we are instead of nitpicking on our flaws. It is the ego that gives rise to all this inner strife and knot-tying within us, the ego who relies on external validation, who always wants to be better if not the best, whose vanity suffers at the slightest word or action from someone else.
In a world where rationality is prized, but in the name of it so many layers of hardening is wrapped around oneself, one has to learn to unravel all of them and feel the innocence and pure love of a child again. And it is only when one learns to love herself or himself for its own sake can one love others properly.
To end off, this was at the very beginning of the book that got me hooked:
“Recall the kind of feeling you have when some one praises you, when you are approved, accepted, applauded. And contrast that with the kind of feeling that arises within you when you look at the sunset or the sunrise or Nature in general, or when you read a book or watch a movie that you thoroughly enjoy. Get the taste of this feeling and contrast it with the first, namely, the one that was generated within you when you were praised. Understand that the first type of feeling comes from self-glorification, self-promotion. It is a worldly feeling. The second comes from self-fulfillment, a soul feeling.”
This book that was heavily pushed to me by my sister thrice I have probably recommended to literally everyone in my circle, with the main pronouncement that the most important relationship we will have in this world is the relationship we have with ourselves. Like the quote at Breakfast at Tiffany’s to a Holly Golightly who was always on the run: No matter where you run, the only person you will run into is yourself.
The main principles are clear: see things and people as they are, and not through the labels, filters and projections we make on them. Love them for who they are — and more importantly, love ourselves for who we are instead of nitpicking on our flaws. It is the ego that gives rise to all this inner strife and knot-tying within us, the ego who relies on external validation, who always wants to be better if not the best, whose vanity suffers at the slightest word or action from someone else.
In a world where rationality is prized, but in the name of it so many layers of hardening is wrapped around oneself, one has to learn to unravel all of them and feel the innocence and pure love of a child again. And it is only when one learns to love herself or himself for its own sake can one love others properly.
To end off, this was at the very beginning of the book that got me hooked:
“Recall the kind of feeling you have when some one praises you, when you are approved, accepted, applauded. And contrast that with the kind of feeling that arises within you when you look at the sunset or the sunrise or Nature in general, or when you read a book or watch a movie that you thoroughly enjoy. Get the taste of this feeling and contrast it with the first, namely, the one that was generated within you when you were praised. Understand that the first type of feeling comes from self-glorification, self-promotion. It is a worldly feeling. The second comes from self-fulfillment, a soul feeling.”
September 8, 2020
This was very difficult for me to go through because almost everything that was written either felt like common sense or just completely wrong. A friend recommended this book to me, so I took the extra effort to not put the book down too quickly. But woah, this was pretty bad. Ratings are above 4, so I guess I might be the odd one out here but I really wonder what people enjoyed by reading this. To each his own I guess.
Most of his concepts were so repetitive and most of the time, the chapter titles had no connection to the chapter itself. It felt like someone wrote some words in their diary and bundled it into a book. Maybe it's just me, I don't know. Maybe I would look at it differently when I read it again in the future. But for now, nope.
Most of his concepts were so repetitive and most of the time, the chapter titles had no connection to the chapter itself. It felt like someone wrote some words in their diary and bundled it into a book. Maybe it's just me, I don't know. Maybe I would look at it differently when I read it again in the future. But for now, nope.
September 9, 2021
A truly astonishing book that's full of a lot of insides and wisdom. Really forces you to reflect, think and challenge the status quo and your thinking.
Try to be as a child, free of any brain programming, culture, biases, attachments and etc, and see people and things as they are not as your brain and thinking think they are. Try to be a little freer from attachments!
Recommend it to every human being!
Try to be as a child, free of any brain programming, culture, biases, attachments and etc, and see people and things as they are not as your brain and thinking think they are. Try to be a little freer from attachments!
Recommend it to every human being!
November 2, 2009
This is a little book espousing a life with no suffering. It teaches that we suffer because we attach our identity to things that we cannot control and are only concepts. Buddhist-like teaching mixed with Christianity.
September 26, 2019
What a beautiful little book full of deep meditations about life, how we have been programmed by society and have lost connection with our deeper selves. A must for every one who is on a spiritual journey (and aren't we all).
July 4, 2020
Revelatory. Empowering. Perceptive. Potent.
--
De Mello's timeless wisdom and clarity seep through the pages of this little book. Of his books that I have read so far, they almost always revolve around the disproportional influence of attachment and awareness, and this one is no exception to the rule. The Way to Love is filled to the brim with thought-exercises and wake-up calls, which elongate this brief read through copious amounts of thought and meditation, both prescribed and aroused.
-----Standout Quotes-----
--- "There is not a single moment in your life when you do not have everything that you need to be happy" (7).
--- "If you learn to enjoy the scent of a thousand flowers you will not cling to one or suffer when you cannot get it" (31).
--- "Attachments can only thrive in the darkness of illusion. The rich man cannot enter the kingdom of joy not because he wants to be bad but because he chooses to be blind" (31).
--- "You see persons and things not as they are but as you are" (47).
--- "A good deed is never so good as when you have no consciousness that it is good" (70).
--- "Finally take a look at the society we live in-- rotten to the core, infected as it is with attachments. For if anyone is attached to power, money, property, to fame and success; if anyone seeks these things as if their happiness depended on them, they will be considered productive members of society, dynamic and hardworking. In other words, if they pursue these things with a driving ambition that destroys the symphony of their life and makes them hard and cold and insensitive to others and to themselves, society will look upon them as dependable citizens, and their relatives and friends will be proud of the status that they have achieved" (115-6).
--- "to understand all is to forgive all" (120).
--- "The orchestra is within you and you carry it with you wherever you go. The things and people outside you merely determine the melody the orchestra will play. And when there is no one or nothing that has your attention the orchestra will play a music of its own; it needs no outside stimulation. You now carry in your heart a happiness that nothing outside of you can put there, and nothing can take away" (155).
--- "Has it ever struck you that those who most fear to die are the ones who most fear to live? That in running away from death we are running away from life?" (177).
--
De Mello's timeless wisdom and clarity seep through the pages of this little book. Of his books that I have read so far, they almost always revolve around the disproportional influence of attachment and awareness, and this one is no exception to the rule. The Way to Love is filled to the brim with thought-exercises and wake-up calls, which elongate this brief read through copious amounts of thought and meditation, both prescribed and aroused.
-----Standout Quotes-----
--- "There is not a single moment in your life when you do not have everything that you need to be happy" (7).
--- "If you learn to enjoy the scent of a thousand flowers you will not cling to one or suffer when you cannot get it" (31).
--- "Attachments can only thrive in the darkness of illusion. The rich man cannot enter the kingdom of joy not because he wants to be bad but because he chooses to be blind" (31).
--- "You see persons and things not as they are but as you are" (47).
--- "A good deed is never so good as when you have no consciousness that it is good" (70).
--- "Finally take a look at the society we live in-- rotten to the core, infected as it is with attachments. For if anyone is attached to power, money, property, to fame and success; if anyone seeks these things as if their happiness depended on them, they will be considered productive members of society, dynamic and hardworking. In other words, if they pursue these things with a driving ambition that destroys the symphony of their life and makes them hard and cold and insensitive to others and to themselves, society will look upon them as dependable citizens, and their relatives and friends will be proud of the status that they have achieved" (115-6).
--- "to understand all is to forgive all" (120).
--- "The orchestra is within you and you carry it with you wherever you go. The things and people outside you merely determine the melody the orchestra will play. And when there is no one or nothing that has your attention the orchestra will play a music of its own; it needs no outside stimulation. You now carry in your heart a happiness that nothing outside of you can put there, and nothing can take away" (155).
--- "Has it ever struck you that those who most fear to die are the ones who most fear to live? That in running away from death we are running away from life?" (177).
September 14, 2021
Contrary to what I thought when I picked this up, this is really not about romance, but really meditations on a way to live, a way to desire, and a way to be happy. Love is just the powerful, general vehicle. Short, sharp and very real. Several passages directly resonated with and illuminated my current problems. So dense and clear, my notes on the book are comparable to the book itself. While there is some repetition of the main ideas, there isn't fluff. Top book to recommend for anyone seeking a lasting happiness(everyone!). This book with its truth, importance, and density really makes me want to reread books like this rather than read new ones.
Key Ideas:
At any moment, you have everything you need to be happy. Unhappiness is caused by attachment, believing you need something to make you happy.
"How many activities can you count in your life that you engage in simply because they delight you and grip your soul? Find them out, cultivate them, for they are your passport to freedom and to love."
many more...
Key Ideas:
At any moment, you have everything you need to be happy. Unhappiness is caused by attachment, believing you need something to make you happy.
"How many activities can you count in your life that you engage in simply because they delight you and grip your soul? Find them out, cultivate them, for they are your passport to freedom and to love."
many more...
April 22, 2008
This is one of those books that just helps you get perspective. It is done in short chapters that reflect on the meaning of a scripture verse, but does not preach a sermon. It's more about how to see everything for what it really is - not what it has become for us through the influences of our culture or other relationships. Anthony De Mello was a thinker who cut through so much of what we assume we understand, but have not critically looked at.
October 3, 2021
An okay read. I came across this as a spiritual read and having read nothing from Jesuit scholars, this piqued my interest. Some good stuff(when talking about trying to describe happiness, "Can you describe reality to someone in a dream?") and some bad stuff(oversimplification of the lived human experience) but it's kept short overall, before it gets way too repetitive. It does have some thoughts that keeps you thinking after you've finished it, so it deserves 3.5 stars!
March 9, 2021
Great book with useful insights. Lots of parallels with more universal ideas that stoic writers like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus have written about such as living in the present moment, being indifferent towards pride/social status, external events, desire, happiness, etc. Still a great read overall.
August 5, 2021
"You live to so that you may learn to love
You love that you may learn to live
no other lesson is required of man"
---the Book of Mirdad
This book is a practical guide on how to love rightly so that you are not drowned in the surging ocean of love but are born by it waves by it to the shore of the bliss of eternal Oneness .
You love that you may learn to live
no other lesson is required of man"
---the Book of Mirdad
This book is a practical guide on how to love rightly so that you are not drowned in the surging ocean of love but are born by it waves by it to the shore of the bliss of eternal Oneness .
Want to read
May 16, 2010Meditative, contemplative readings that I ponder as I drift off to sleep each night. This book was recently given to be by a wise and gentle soul I know and admire.
September 9, 2020
This felt like Albert Ellis meets Alan Watts—for better (i.e., the unpadded, no nonsense advice about why you're going about happiness in the wrong ways) and worse (i.e., the inconsistent exaggerations, blank slate-ism, and repetitive messaging).
It's a tiny book and I probably wouldn't have liked it so much if I'd blown through it. But I read a chapter or so each morning, and noticed de Mello's words influencing me (for the better) as I went about my days.
It's a tiny book and I probably wouldn't have liked it so much if I'd blown through it. But I read a chapter or so each morning, and noticed de Mello's words influencing me (for the better) as I went about my days.
December 12, 2022
Second time reading it, and I enjoyed it as much as the first time. This is a book to read multiple times. It's a good reminder of what truly matters.
December 29, 2023
This is one book that I think about perhaps more than any other. I will probably never stop reading this. Opens me to many questions and appears to propose a more pure vision of Christianity than I have seen elsewhere, a kind of synthesis of the best of all western and eastern theology that I have been exposed to. However, also very audacious and opposed to most of our social conditioning. It is hard for me to integrate these ideas with what I have learned reading western philosophy.
This book makes bold claims about the power of a change in psychology toward a yogic interpretation of Jesus' words and actions in the gospels. I take away from my reading a sense that selfless moral action is effortless and joyful, and that rational thought about meaning and philosophy is in a way superfluous and misleading, since direct experience of the devotional state which De Mello describes as "the Kingdom of Heaven" or "eternal life" or "the ocean of truth" seems to go beyond logic and material reality. I can see why many would be challenged and even frightened by these ideas, because I have been and still am.
My resistance to this book comes from many places:
1. Are humans evolved to have an ego-driven, materialist worldview? Is the act of applying reason and devotion to transcend our sense of self in practice pitting parts of our brain against one another, causing friction and confusion? Will it be more effective to live ethically by using egoistic emotions to drive action, rather than selfless devotion and contemplation? I believe De Mello would respond that meaning, truth, ethics, love are more important and beyond our understanding of material reality. The whole process of human progress has been a process of transcending animalistic & selfish tendencies. The act of devotion ("awareness") is an act of unity, not division: by letting go of the arbitrary self-image and desires proposed by evolutionary and cultural conditioning, one can integrate every part of oneself with Nature toward an ideal of selfless love. This is the most effective and ethical act because, first, it is ethical to forgive oneself and have compassion for oneself, and second, because without the friction and pain coming from egoistic attachments, work and selfish action are effortless and joyful.
2. If we stay in a state of persistent devotion/awareness-prayer, without skeptical rational & conceptual thought, how do we know that our uncritical understanding of selfless action exemplified by Christ is ethical, or that we are following it correctly? I think of the many horror stories of cults gone wrong. Is the ideal of selfless action proposed in the gospels itself a potent exercise of social conditioning?
Haven’t resolved these questions, but this book changed me in deep ways.
This book makes bold claims about the power of a change in psychology toward a yogic interpretation of Jesus' words and actions in the gospels. I take away from my reading a sense that selfless moral action is effortless and joyful, and that rational thought about meaning and philosophy is in a way superfluous and misleading, since direct experience of the devotional state which De Mello describes as "the Kingdom of Heaven" or "eternal life" or "the ocean of truth" seems to go beyond logic and material reality. I can see why many would be challenged and even frightened by these ideas, because I have been and still am.
My resistance to this book comes from many places:
1. Are humans evolved to have an ego-driven, materialist worldview? Is the act of applying reason and devotion to transcend our sense of self in practice pitting parts of our brain against one another, causing friction and confusion? Will it be more effective to live ethically by using egoistic emotions to drive action, rather than selfless devotion and contemplation? I believe De Mello would respond that meaning, truth, ethics, love are more important and beyond our understanding of material reality. The whole process of human progress has been a process of transcending animalistic & selfish tendencies. The act of devotion ("awareness") is an act of unity, not division: by letting go of the arbitrary self-image and desires proposed by evolutionary and cultural conditioning, one can integrate every part of oneself with Nature toward an ideal of selfless love. This is the most effective and ethical act because, first, it is ethical to forgive oneself and have compassion for oneself, and second, because without the friction and pain coming from egoistic attachments, work and selfish action are effortless and joyful.
2. If we stay in a state of persistent devotion/awareness-prayer, without skeptical rational & conceptual thought, how do we know that our uncritical understanding of selfless action exemplified by Christ is ethical, or that we are following it correctly? I think of the many horror stories of cults gone wrong. Is the ideal of selfless action proposed in the gospels itself a potent exercise of social conditioning?
Haven’t resolved these questions, but this book changed me in deep ways.
December 21, 2020
No matter where you go, there you are.
No matter what you read, there you are.
This book is a gem to be savored.
Perhaps just words on a page for some. For others like myself at this time it provides simple, undeniable words pointing a way forward, if daring enough to take it on.
Seems to contain many similar ideas while a deeper reading reveals that de Mello is actually explaining very different ways of seeing reality or waking up or becoming conscious or any other way one would describe living one's life above the minute by minute, day by day chaos and stress mixed with some occasional small joys existence of most humans.
That each short chapter's theme is drawn from a bible verse is fascinating as I've never been a Christian while de Mello's ideas are much more buddhist to my understanding.
The following is pulled from online sources:
That 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."
Reviewer again:
Will never get it but it sure would be interesting to hear more of what exactly the Congregation objected to.
No matter what you read, there you are.
This book is a gem to be savored.
Perhaps just words on a page for some. For others like myself at this time it provides simple, undeniable words pointing a way forward, if daring enough to take it on.
Seems to contain many similar ideas while a deeper reading reveals that de Mello is actually explaining very different ways of seeing reality or waking up or becoming conscious or any other way one would describe living one's life above the minute by minute, day by day chaos and stress mixed with some occasional small joys existence of most humans.
That each short chapter's theme is drawn from a bible verse is fascinating as I've never been a Christian while de Mello's ideas are much more buddhist to my understanding.
The following is pulled from online sources:
That 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."
Reviewer again:
Will never get it but it sure would be interesting to hear more of what exactly the Congregation objected to.
May 23, 2021
This book reminds me of the Steve Martin joke on how to be a millionaire, “first, get yourself a million dollars”. There is no “way to love” described here other than “give up attachments”. There are no concrete real world examples to help you. The usual methods used to achieve this, like meditation are dismissed as impractical.
For someone who claims that the path to happiness is to be nonjudgmental, the author uses rather judgmental language like “prison”, “disgusting” and “nauseated” to describe those who aren’t enlightened. There are some truths here, unfortunately they’re lost in abstractions.
It’s hard to read how you should “love yourself” without judgment and then DeMello refers negatively to a flabby body or how you should accept everyone and then has a throwaway line that Judaism and Islam lead you astray. I have a strong suspicion, DeMello does not practice what he preaches.
September 12, 2021
I am convinced that this book will help me live a richer, fuller life. Even if it couldn’t tell me exactly how to get there.
It instantly became my favorite book of all time.
It instantly became my favorite book of all time.
January 31, 2023
I had a strong reaction to this book -- it prescribes a very strict regiment of stoicism that I don't think I could ever truly achieve. However, my recoil at the level of detachment it recommends definitely revealed how much I center my life around the praise and criticism of others. While I would never discount that I truly feel love for my friends (and have made an effort to keep possessiveness to a minimum), I do believe that I react too strongly/change my behavior based on the words of others, when I could instead find peace, pleasure, and gratefulness in the friendships I have.
i.e., I need to struggle less to keep my relationships intact, and just relax/appreciate the current state of things more.
i.e., I need to struggle less to keep my relationships intact, and just relax/appreciate the current state of things more.
January 23, 2018
One of the most enlightening books.. it's a bit like his book "awareness" , he's stressed a lot on the attachment and clinging to persons, things.
It's one of those books which breaks your denial state of how much suffering that you have when you cling and attach..
Holiness is not achievement, it is a Grace. A Grace called Awareness, a Grace called Looking, Observing, Understanding.
It's one of those books which breaks your denial state of how much suffering that you have when you cling and attach..
Holiness is not achievement, it is a Grace. A Grace called Awareness, a Grace called Looking, Observing, Understanding.
February 16, 2022
Messed with my thinking in a good way, reconsider and let go of attachments. A bit similar to yoga philosophy/ untethered soul/the power of now. Liked the way he wrote, some vivid images, neat turns of phrase.
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