Yesterday, I established an official Facebook page devoted to my brother Anthony(Tony) deMello.
I have received a huge response to this page and I thank everyone who took the time and made the effort to visit and support the page Anthony deMello-Call to Love.
I will now keep updating the page with anecdotes, quotes and where possible, recordings of some of Tony's work from his books, and from his biography, which I published in April 2012. The Happy Wanderer is available in India through Gujarat Sahitya Prakash and throughout the world through Orbis Books, Maryknoll NY USA or if you prefer, Amazon.com
I look forward to your visits and encourage you to keep visiting as often as you can and to encourage your friends to do likewise.
Many thanks my friends. I wish you peace and love!

TRIBULATION

“Calamities can bring growth and enlightenment.” said the Master.

And he explained it thus:

Each day a bird would shelter in the withered branches of a tree that stood in the middle of a vast deserted plain. One day a whirlwind uprooted the tree forcing the poor bird to fly a hundred miles in search of shelter— till it finally came to a forest of fruit-laden trees.

Anthony deMello- One Minute Wisdom.

My friends,
I continue to get some pretty amazing emails from people who still admire and follow my brother's philosophy, now more than twenty six years after his death. Here is one such email I have received.
It is articulate and the content wholesome. Food for spiritual thought so to speak:

Reflections On Modern Living

James Williams

 

If Anthony de Mello were alive today, what would he make of 21^st century Westernized civilizations?

 When Tony presented the Rediscovery of Life satellite workshop at New York’s Fordham University in in the mid-1980s, here is how he reflected on society: “Despite our technological advances – we’ve yet to solve the problem of human suffering: loneliness, heartache, emptiness, depression, despair. The quality of our living has not been raised. We have more comfort, speed, entertainment, erudition – not less fighting, cruelty, or greed.” Are these striking words relevant now?
Human Suffering

Mental and emotional suffering is more prolific now, and the mass prescription of anxiety and depression medications has done nothing to eliminate the causes of suffering. These medications were initially designed and trialled as short-term support mechanisms to be used in combination with therapeutic approaches, yet nowadays therapy is skipped, and pills are prescribed and swallowed for decades. Rather than acknowledging and fully feeling our suffering in the moment, medical and pharmaceutical ‘ technologies’  have simply facilitated our psychological repression and done nothing to help us master and experience the suffering of the self.

Outside of the medical realm, mobile ‘phone companies advertise that their services are connecting people, yet often this is only through words on a screen instead of heartfelt, person-to-person contact. Loneliness, heart ache, emptiness, depression, and despair are not transformed by contact from other people using mobile devices; they are transformed by connecting with the reality of the situation that we have created for ourselves, fully tuning into our feelings, and then, if need be, to act differently.

Illusory Happiness


Comfort, speed, entertainment, and education are more readily available in a greater number of countries now, yet these can interfere with our ability to accurately perceive reality.  A more comfortable home, car, or work environment does nothing to permanently change the perception-distorting despair we feel about the inadequacy of our communication skills in interpersonal relationships, or the failure of our business ventures.

Comfort provides additional sensory stimulation and pleasure, yet these experiences of pleasure are very short-lived; our underlying anxiety, depression, or tension will resurface, and moves our awareness away from the perception of comfort back to the distress that is begging to be experienced in that moment.  Faster vehicles, speedier service, and faster Internet download speeds may save seconds, yet they do nothing to prevent us from wasting years living with a stressed mind, and missing out on the experience of happiness that is available in each moment.

Even a university education is perceived as a means to an end; a means to acquire a ‘better’ job after graduating (better than what, or who?); to get more money, which can then purchase the distractions of “comfort, speed, [and] entertainment,” that a higher salary can pay for. Still today, many people equate financial wealth and material comfort with happiness; these are often the same people taking the antidepressants and other medications. Yet happiness cannot be acquired through external means, let alone through a pill because happiness is our innate state.

Rather than using education as a vehicle to fuel personal growth, and to discover how one can serve and love the world, education has become an illusory trap. People believe that they need to acquire higher and higher levels of education to be able to contribute to the planet. Acquiring knowledge and degrees is no substitute for showing the ability to love.



Entertainment and Greed


Entertainment has become a significant distraction from experiencing the present moment. We may choose to watch films and television programs - and even participate in computer games - that depict graphic scenes of action, violence, drug use, power trips, and sex, and these hook the unconscious mind into a false sense of reality. Such forms of media can be so absorbing that we disengage our connection with what reality truly is. Researchers have already observed increases in stress in the human body while people watch gang violence in a movie, and aggressive words and behaviors by on-screen characters is also known to reinforce existing beliefs that behaving in this way, real life is acceptable.

Entertainment is also not bringing people together in the presence of reality; when two or more people watch television or a film together, more often than not, each person is watching the screen with little to no awareness of the other person’s experience; entertainment is becoming a solitary affair, and yet it can also be lovely by inviting meaningful and loving, present-moment engagement and interaction between people.

On fighting, cruelty, and greed, might Tony say that we have simply become more technologically sophisticated, and more emotionally-aloof from the consequences of our behaviour? Governments in certain countries continue to use false logic and then military force to achieve their goals to acquire resources from other lands for corporate shareholder profit. Greed has become commonplace through lobbyist-stimulated policy loopholes, turn-a-blind-eye operating practices in the financial sector, and institutional hierarchies rewarding the CEO or president, while paying the worker on the ground a minimum wage.

The CEO fails to see their interdependence on the ground-level worker, without whom, there would be no business and no profits to earn a bonus from.


Tony probably would be unsurprised at all of the changes that have occurred during the last 26 years since his passing. He would maybe quote Julian of Norwich and say that: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”  The reality is perhaps that society in Western countries has made no progress in reducing human suffering during the last 26 years, and yet in this present moment, as you read these words, all is indeed well.


I used to have an lovely Aunt who faithfully recited her prayers from a prayer book. Tucked between the folds of the pages, was a list of people she prayed for. I am convinced that her intentions were of the purest nature. How effective her prayers were though, is hard to say. Here is a lovely quote from one of my brother's books-I love it.

Late one evening a poor farmer on his way back from the market found himself without his prayer book. The wheel of his cart had come off right in the middle of the woods and it distressed him that this day would pass without his having said his prayers.

So this is the prayer he made: “I have done something very foolish, Lord. I came away from home this morning without my prayer book and my memory is such that I cannot recite a single prayer without it. So this is what I am going to do: I shall recite the alphabet five times very slowly and you, to whom all prayers are known, can put the letters together to form the prayers I can’t remember.”

And the Lord said to his angels, “Of all the prayers I have heard today, this one was undoubtedly the best because it came from a heart that was simple and sincere.” - Anthony de Mello, S.J.

I found this email very touching and want to share it with my friends:
Hi Bill,

I have been reading the "Happy Wanderer" and "the Way to Love" , many feelings reading this!

It seems as if I could listen Tony and if he were with me at the time that I read, I can´t believe that so many years have passed since he left. In one part of the "Happy Wanderer" I had the same feeling as you describe when there is a service in the Chapel in the USA, I felt the same when a loved cousin leave us. This has been my major lost because fortunately my parents are alive.

I can see Tony´s life pieces through your book and really love this man. As I mentioned since my first mail to you, he helped to me a lot and now he is continuing supporting to me. I also had a gratitude feeling to your parents, specially to your mother, thanks to them for this incredible family! All the best for you!

I am very, very happy to had the great opportunity to be in contact with you, many thanks Bill for your kind disposition to answer my e-mail. 

 

Kind Regards

Esther

I may have posted this quote from one of Tony's books before. Nevertheless, I find it so beautiful and meaningful that I can't resist posting it again(if I have done so before)

Once upon a time there was a forest where the birds sang by day and the insects by night. Trees flourished, flowers bloomed and all manner of creatures roamed about in freedom.

And all who entered there were led to Solitude which is the home of God who dwells in Nature’s silence and Nature’s beauty.

But then the Age of Unconsciousness arrived when it became possible for people to construct buildings a thousand feet high and to destroy rivers and forests and mountains in a month. So houses of worship were built from the wood of the forest trees and from the stone under the forest soil. Pinnacle, spire and minaret pointed towards the sky; the air was filled with the sound of bells, with prayer and chant and exhortation.

And God was suddenly without a home.

God hides things by putting them before our eyes!

Anthony deMello. Prayer of the Frog Vol I.

Dorothy's Story.

 

I have studied Anthony de Mello since 1991 and have offered video presentations on him in Hawaii over the past couple of years, as well as book studies.  I have seen Tony and his teachings make a difference in the lives of a number of people who have attended these offerings.  I would like to briefly share the story of one woman, Dorothy.

 Dorothy, who attended the video presentations and two concurrent book studies for almost two years, recently passed away.  She was in her 70's and resolutely independent.  Not being a meditator she was never one to get into the mindfulness meditations which I routinely included in the presentations and book studies.  I did this as Vipassana meditation; it was something Tony encouraged without actually saying so directly, at least in his U.S. presentations.  In one of the book studies when we would silently meditate, Dorothy would turn her chair from the group and just look out the window appreciating the beauty of nature.  This I would say was her own meditation, and actually appreciation of nature is something Tony encouraged.  In the first year or so during the book study discussions Dorothy would often say things like, “What's he talking about?  I don't get it.”  Then when myself or another group member would explain to the best of our ability what Tony was talking about, Dorothy might say, “Well, okay, but I still don't get it.”

Then a little over a year ago Dorothy surprisingly gave an informal testimonial to a group viewing "A Rediscovery of Life" for the first time.  She told the audience how much her life had changed in the past year due to Tony's teachings.  Dorothy stated how she felt "at peace,” then added, “But I'm scared....I don't know who I am anymore!"  When asked what she meant, Dorothy gave an example: “I used to fight on the board of the condo association for what I believed was right, but now I speak up without fighting.  This isn't the 'me' I used to know."  When asked if she liked being “at peace,” Dorothy promptly said: “Oh, yeah!” and smiled.  Dorothy clearly was embodying Tony's teaching about the “me” and the “I”.  She clearly did “get it.”

A couple months later Dorothy was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. When I called her in the hospital, she was very calm.  I was impressed by this and said her so.  Again Dorothy simply said she was “at peace” and added: "My family and friends don't know what to make of me anymore.  So I just tell them, 'It's the new Dorothy.'  I feel at peace....and I owe it all to Tony." 

Dorothy lived out her last year very much “at peace.”  She truly has been an inspiration to all who knew her and continues to be so even now.  Her spirit indeed lives on.  Dorothy's name means “God's gift,” and she has certainly been, and still is, “a gift of God” to us all.

With much love and Aloha,

Richard Hennessey.