Category: Anthony De Mello

The next few minutes could be the most important minutes in the lives of some of you. If you could grasp this, you’ve hit upon the secret for awakening. You would be happy forever. You would never be unhappy again. Nothing but nothing would have the power to hurt you, and I mean that.

Nothing. It’s like you take black paint and throw it up in the air. The air is uncontaminated. You don’t color the air black. And no matter what happens to you, you remain uncontaminated.

You remain at peace. Happiness is our natural state. To acquire happiness, you don’t have to do anything. There are human beings, and you know it, who have attained to this. That is what I call human.

That’s what I call natural, not what people are generally living. Without this nonsense of being a puppet jerked about this way and that, having any event or any person tell you how to feel, and then you proceed to feel it. They call it being vulnerable. I call it being a puppet. Want to be a puppet?

We press a button, and you’re down. If you do not identify with the label, first of all, most of your worries cease. What are you generally worried about? Ordinarily, you’re worried about what’s going to happen to your career. A businessman, small time businessman, about 55 years old, he’s sipping beer somewhere at a bar, and he thinks, well, look at my classmates.

They really made it. They’ve made it. What do you mean they’ve made it? They got their names in the newspapers. You call that made it.

They got their names in the prison journal, which all the prisoners are reading, and he thinks they’ve made it. Successful. President of a corporation. The other guy has become the chief justice, and somebody else has become this, and the other person has become that. Monkeys, all of them.

Who determines what it means to be a success? The main preoccupation of society is to keep society sick. And the sooner you realize that, the better. Every one of them, most of them, they’re moody. They’re crazy.

You became the president of the Lunatic Asylum, and you’re proud of it. It means nothing. It really means nothing. Being the president of a corporation has absolutely nothing to do with being awake or being happy or being a success in life. Nothing.

Absolutely nothing. Having a lot of money has nothing to do with being a success in life. You’re a success in life when you wake up. You don’t give a damn what anybody thinks of you or what anybody says about you. You have no worry.

You’re happy. Now that’s what I call being a success. So this small time businessman, poor guy, 55 years old. He’s sipping beer somewhere at a bar, and he’s thinking sadly that he isn’t a success like his classmate. Nobody is ever told in that having a good job and being famous and having a great reputation has absolutely nothing to do with happiness or success.

Nothing. It’s totally irrelevant. And so he’s worried about what his children will think of him. What will the neighbors think about him? What will his wife think?

He should have become famous. That’s what your society and your culture is drilling into your head day and night. People who made it. Made what? Made asses of themselves because they drained all their energy into getting something that was worthless.

And they’re frightened, and they’re confused, and they’re puppets like the rest. Look at them strutting across the stage. Look how upset they’d get if they had a stain on their shirt. You call that a success? Look how frightened they are at the prospect that they may not be reelected.

You call that a success? So controlled, so manipulated. These are not happy people. These are miserable people. They don’t enjoy life.

They’re constantly tense and anxious. You call that human? And do you know why that happened? There’s only one reason. They identified with some label.

They identified the eye with their money, with their job, with their profession. That was their error. You can be a plumber or a lawyer or a businessman or a priest. That does not affect essential I. It doesn’t affect you.

I change my profession tomorrow. That’s like changing my clothes. I is untouched. Are you your clothes? Are you your name?

Are you your profession? Stop identifying with that because that will come and go. You know what happens when you really understand this? No criticism can affect you. No flattery or praise can affect you either.

When someone says, you’re a great guy, what’s he talking about? He’s talking about me. He’s not talking about I. I is neither great nor small. I is neither successful nor a failure.

It is none of these labels. These things come and go. These things depend on the criteria that your society establishes. These things depend on your conditioning. These things depend on the mood of the person who happens to be talking to you right now.

They have nothing to do with I. I is none of these labels. Me is generally selfish, foolish, childish, and a great big ass. So when you say you’re an ass, you’re telling me something I’ve known for years. That guy there, the conditioned self, what did you expect?

I’ve known it for years. Why did you identify with him? That isn’t I. That’s me. Now here are those important minutes I was telling you about.

You want to be happy uninterruptedly. Happiness is uncaused. Try to understand that. Happiness, true happiness is uncaused. You cannot make me happy.

You are not my happiness. You say to the awakened person, why are you happy? And the awakened person replies, why not? Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children to whom the kingdom belongs.

Until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidities of our societies and our culture. To acquire happiness, you don’t have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because you have it already. How can you acquire what you already have?

Then why don’t you experience it? Because you’ve got to drop something. You’ve got to drop an illusion. You’ve got an illusion. You’ve got ambition.

You’ve got craving. You know where they come from? From your having identified with all kinds of labels. You don’t have to add anything on to be happy. You’ve got to drop something.

Life is easy. Life is delightful. It’s only rough on your illusion.