When we make a place for silence, we make room for ourselves. By making room for silence, we resist the forces of the world which tell us to live an advertised life of surface appearances, instead of a discovered life — a life lived in contact with our senses, our feelings, our deepest thoughts and values.
The Master always left you to grow at your own pace. He was never known to "push." He explained this with the following parable:
"A man once saw a butterfly
struggling to emerge from
its cocoon, too slowly
for his taste, so he began
to blow on it gently. The
warmth of his breath speeded
up the process all right. But
what emerged was not a butterfly
but a creature with mangled
wings.
"In growth," the Master concluded, "you cannot
speed the process up. All you can do is abort it."
~ Anthony de Mello from "Miracles" in ONE MINUTE WISDOM
A man traversed land and sea to check for himself the Master's extraordinary fame. "What miracles has your Master worked?" he said to a disciple. "Well, there are miracles and miracles. In your land it is regarded as a miracle if God does someone's will. In our country it is regarded as a miracle if someone does The will of God."
~ Anthony de Mello from "Miracles" in ONE MINUTE WISDOM
If you wish to love you must learn to see again...You must tear away from your being the roots of society that have penetrated to the marrow. You must drop out. Externally everything will go on as before, you will continue to be in the world, but no longer of it...And in your heart you will now be free at last and utterly alone...There is no one there by your side, absolutely no one. At first it will seem unbearable, but that is only because you are unaccustomed to aloneness. But if you manage to stay there for a while the desert will suddenly blossom into Love.
Recall the kind of feeling you have when you succeed, when you have made it, when you get to the top, when you win a game or an argument. And contrast it with the kind of feeling you get when you really enjoy the job you are doing, you are absorbed in, the action you are currently engaged in. . . . Notice the qualitative difference between the worldly feeling and the soul feeling. . . . Now attempt to understand the true nature of worldly feelings—of self-promotion, self-glorification. They are not natural, they were invented by your society and your culture to make you productive and to make you controllable. These feelings do not produce the nourishment and happiness that is produced when one contemplates nature or enjoys the company of one's friends or one's work. They were meant to produce thrills, excitement—and emptiness.
~ from THE WAY TO LOVE by Anthony de Mello,thanks to Paula Brown
A disciple suddenly discovered the richness of fecundity of emptiness -- the realization that everything is impermanent, unsatisfactory, and empty of self. In this mood of divine emptiness, he sat in joy under a tree, when suddenly flowers began to fall all around him.
And the angels whispered, "But I haven't uttered a word about emptiness."
"True," the angels replied. "You have not spoken of emptiness, we have not heard of emptiness. This is true emptiness." And the showers of blossoms continued to fall.
I used to be stone deaf. I would see people stand up and go through all kinds of gyrations. They called it dancing. It looked absurd to me -- until one day I heard the music!
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."
