Books by Anthony de Mello, S.J.

Sadhana The Song of the Bird Wellsprings One Minute Wisdom Taking Flight The Heart of the Enlightened Awareness The Way to Love Contact with God One Minute Nonsense More One Minute Nonsense

Sadhana: A Way to God Christian Exercises in Eastern Form

This book has come to be recognized universally as a masterpiece in the art of teaching people how to pray. After its first publication in 1979, it ranked among the top U.S. Catholic best sellers for many years. Just to read it is a captivating and challenging experience. More than 20 translations have been published. Now all over the world this classic text has been acclaimed as the best how-to-do-it book on prayer available in any language. Sadhana is "perhaps the best book available today in English for Christians on how to pray, meditate, and contemplate." - Harvey D. Egan, S.J.

The Song of the Bird

"All stories are true," said a wise old man, "especially good ones." Truth in stories is a recent major "discovery" of some theologians. In this book Fr. de Mello has "rediscovered" the power of the story in prayer. Here are 124 of his best contemplative prayers. Everyone loves a story. Part of de Mello's magnetic power was his gift for telling stories. His punch lines boggled the imagination and opened the eyes of audiences to profound new awarenesses and self-discoveries. His worldwide acclaim rested on his unique approach to contemplation and his ability to heighten faith experience and self-awareness. This book tells the stories that held his audiences spellbound year after year. You will laugh or cry or stand in awe as you are caught by surprise in each story. The aim is to develop the art of tasting and feeling the message of each story to the point that you are transformed. "Let it [the story] speak to your heart, not to your brain," the author directs, "This may make something of a mystic of you." (Doubleday) Every one of these stories is about YOU. - Anthony de Mello

Wellsprings A Book of Spiritual Exercises

In Wellsprings, Fr. de Mello again draws on the Church's tradition, Exercises of St. Ignatius, and modern psychology to blend the best of East and West, to present old prayer forms in a new way. He has devised a whole new set of exercises to plumb the depths of your mind, heart, and senses, to help you experience the source of truth, goodness, and beauty within yourself. His creative genius leads you progressively to profound spiritual insights, inner peace, and deeply fulfilling purpose. If I wish to be alive, I must learn to die at every moment, that is, to say goodbye, let go, move on. - Anthony de Mello

One Minute Wisdom

This book aims to awaken and transform you through profound spiritual insights expressed in words, phrases, and parables which open your eyes to mysteries which no words can contain. Rooted in the spirit of the gospel and encompassing the mystical traditions of East and West, this stimulating volume was written to enliven your faith and to free you for wisdom. "Is there such a things as One Minute Wisdom?" "There certainly is," said the Master. "But surely one minute is too brief?" "It is fifty-nine seconds too long." To his puzzled disciple the Master later said, "How much time does it take to catch sight of the moon?" "Then why all these years of spiritual endeavor?" "Opening one's eyes may take a lifetime. Seeing is done in a flash." Whatever your religious persuasion, you will find in these pages the helpful direction you need in the ongoing process of self-discovery and in enjoying the satisfying riches that lie deep within you. (Doubleday) Wisdom can come without the slightest effort in the time that it takes to open your eyes. - Anthony de Mello

Taking Flight A Book of Story Meditations

This is the last book which Fr. de Mello wrote before he died. How fitting for the master storyteller to leave us one last legacy of stories. Everywhere he traveled he gathered new stories, new ways of pointing to the mystery behind the obvious. This collection derives from a variety of countries and cultures, but it still shares the master's touch and the popular humor of the human race. In the tradition of Song of the Bird, these 250 stories urge us to "take flight" and soar the heights of mystical experience, for the key to maturity in faith and self-knowledge lies in the freedom to "let go of the branch," to rise above all that binds us to the earth. God cannot be contained in a world or in a word. Stories may be some of the best words to describe God, but stories need to be prayed. They are mere signs pointing to the reality they represent, life a finger pointing to the moon. "Look behind the words to the mystery," Fr. de Mello warned. "Don't get stuck on the finger. Look for the moon." (Doubleday) Both what you run away from--and what you yearn for--is within YOU. - Anthony de Mello

The Heart of the Enlightened A Book of Story Meditations

This is the continuation of the author's popular Taking Flight. These story-meditations illuminate the higher levels of self-understanding that comes from releasing all fears and illusions and truly seeing ourselves as free. As he does so skillfully, de Mello uses the medium of the story to enable readers to arrive at that self-knowledge which leads to enlightenment. The 250 stories here, derived from a variety of cultures, share the spiritual heritage and popular humor that unite us as human beings. Grouped under the broad themes of Spirituality, Education, Authority, Human Nature, Service, Relationships, and Enlightenment, the stories have a quiet power to break down our defenses and "see for the first time that which we have always been looking at." A master of spiritual guidance, Anthony de Mello was a teacher who awakened, inspired, and ultimately led his listeners to open spaces where anxiety and fear could no longer shackle the human spirit. Here is another joyful, transforming reading experience. (Doubleday) To relate is to react. To react is to under stand oneself. To understand oneself is to be enlightened. Relationships are schools for enlightenment. - Anthony de Mello

Awareness The Perils and Opportunities of Reality

This latest book in the de Mello legacy, transcribed from one of Fr. de Mello's last spirituality conferences, records his exact words, and so he comes alive again. The day he was ordained a Jesuit priest in India, Tony de Mello swore an oath to himself--to learn how truly to help people, so that his counseling would not be useless. De Mello did learn. What he learned he taught, through writings such as his bestselling Sadhana and, more directly, in the workshops he conducted around the world. And always he taught the importance of "awareness"--of "waking up" to our illusions about ourselves, the world, and others, and realizing that we are the happiness we seek. Here is the spiritual instruction de Mello offered to all who seek this "awakened" state. The practice he outlines is, he warns, more difficult than it appears. Using humor, compassion, and insight, he teaches us not to fear the challenge but to welcome it as part of our journey to greater self-understanding and the rewards that come of living the "aware" life. "You begin to know things that cannot be described," he says. "It's called happiness." (Doubleday) What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you. - Anthony de Mello

The Way to Love The Last Meditations of Anthony de Mello
	The Way to Love contains the final flowering of Anthony de Mello's thought. Here, more than ever before in his best-selling writing, he grapples with the ultimate question of love. In thirty-one meditations, each several pages long and each preceded by a Gospel quotation, 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 the other as he or she really is that we begin to love. The second act of love, he says, is seeing ourselves without illusion--without the coercive nature of our needs, desires, memories, prejudices, and projections. If these steps are taken, then love will steal upon a person or into a relationship. But the task is not easy. "The most painful act the human can perform," de Mello says, "is the act of seeing. It is in that act of seeing that love is born." These are meditations to be savored and shared. This is a book--in a handy gift size--to be close to the heart. (Doubleday) If it is love that you truly desire then set out at once on the task of seeing . . . . 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. - Anthony de Mello

Contact with God Retreat Conferences

This is the first of three posthumous publications by best-selling author Anthony de Mello. As Parmananda Divarkar, S.J., fellow author and friend of Anthony de Mello, tells us, "Contact with God was carefully edited by de Mello himself, but never released. There is no answer to why he did not make [these papers] available, nor to what he would think of the present venture. The incontestable fact is that many people of all sorts will be very happy to have these notes." In Contact with God Anthony de Mello offers the reader reasons for going on retreat as well as suggestions for how to get the most out of retreat experiences. As he explores the subjects of prayer, penance, and the love of Christ, de Mello shares some of his personal encounters. Go on retreat with Anthony de Mello, one of the greatest spiritual directors of our time, through Contact with God. (Loyola Press)

One Minute Nonsense

"The man talks nonsense," said a visitor after hearing the master speak. Said a disciple, "You would talk nonsense, too, if you were trying to express the inexpressible." One Minute Nonsense is a collection of anecdotes told by a master to his disciples. The master is no one in particular--he is a Hindu guru, a Jewish rabbi, a Zen roshi, a Taoist sage. He is Jesus, Lao Tzu, and Socrates. The master's teaching is timeless. As de Mello tells us in his preface, "It will only take a minute to read each of the anecdotes that follow. You will probably find the master's language baffling, exasperating, even downright meaningless. This, alas, is not an easy book! It was written, not to instruct, but to awaken." Said a disciple to a newcomer at the monastery, "I must warn you that you will not understand a word of what the master says if you do not have the proper disposition." "What is the proper disposition?" "Be like a student eager to learn a foreign language. The words he speaks sound familiar, but don't be taken in; they have an altogether foreign meaning." (Loyola Press)

More One Minute Nonsense

"What's so original about this man?" asked a visitor, "All he gives you is a hash of stories, proverbs, and sayings from other masters." A woman disciple smiled. She once had a cook, she said, who made the most wonderful hash in the world. "How on earth do you make it, my dear? You must give me the recipe." The cook's face glowed with pride. She said, "Well, ma'am, I'll tell yer: beef's nothin'; pepper's nothin'; onion's nothin': but when I throws myself into the hash--that's what makes it what it is." That's what you'll find in the second part to de Mello's One Minute Nonsense--More One Minute Nonsense--an assortment of stories, proverbs, and sayings from a master thrown together with a dash of Anthony de Mello. The master referred to is no one in particular--he is a Hindu guru, a Jewish rabbi, a Zen roshi, a Taoist sage. He is Jesus, Lao Tzu, and Socrates. The master's teaching is timeless. These anecdotes will not be easy to understand and should be read and pondered one at a time. Within the pages of More One Minute Nonsense you'll find wise, witty, yet puzzling responses to life's many questions. (Loyola Press)