Religion (15)

A drunk was staggering across a bridge one night when he ran into a friend. The two of them leaned over the bridge and began chatting for a while.

"What's that down there?" asked the drunk suddenly.

"That's the moon," said his friend.

The drunk looked again, shook his head in disbelief and said, "Okay, okay. But how the hell did I get way up here?"

We almost never see reality. What we see is a reflection of it in the form of words and concepts which we then proceed to take for reality. The world we live in is mostly a mental construct. People feed on words, live by words, would fall apart without them.

Anthony de Mello

Religion (14)

"What a pretty baby you have there!"

"This is nothing! You should see his photographs!"

Words [and concepts] are indicators, not reflections, of reality. But, as the mystics of the East declare, "When the Sage points to the moon, all that the idiot sees is the finger!"

Anthony de Mello

Religion (13)

The poet Awhadi of Kerman was sitting on his porch one night, bent over a vessel. The Sufi Shams-e-Tabrize happened to pass by. "What are you doing?" he asked the poet.

"Contemplating the moon in a bowl of water" was the reply.

"Unless you have broken your neck, why don't you look directly at the moon in the sky?"

Words are inadequate reflections of reality. A man thought he knew what the Taj Mahal was because he was shown a piece of marble and told that the Taj was just a collection of pieces like that. Another one was convinced that, because he had seen Niagara water in a bucket, he knew what the Falls were like.

Anthony de Mello

Religion (12)

Pilot to passengers in midflight: "I regret to inform you we are in terrible trouble. Only God can save us now."

A passenger turned to a priest to ask what the pilot had said and got this reply: "He says there's no hope!"

Anthony de Mello

Religion (11)

A traveler was walking along the road one day when a man on horseback rushed by. There was an evil look in his eyes and blood on his hands.

Minutes later a crowd of riders drew up and wanted to know if the traveler had seen someone with blood on his hands go by. They were in hot pursuit of him

"Who is he?" the traveler asked.

"An evil-doer," said the leader of the crowd. "And you pursue him in order to bring him to justice?"

"No," said the leader, "we pursue him in order to show him the way."

Reconciliation alone will save the world, not justice which is generally another word for revenge.

Anthony de Mello

Religion (10)

A priest ordered his deacon to assemble ten men to chant prayers for the recovery of a sick man.

When they had all come in, someone whispered into the ear of the priest, "There are some notorious thieves among those men."

"All the better," said the priest. "When the Gates of Mercy are shut, these are the experts who will open them."

Anthony de Mello

Religion (9)

Mullah Nasruddin's house was on fire, so he ran up to his roof for safety. There he was, precariously perched on the roof, when his friends gathered in the street below holding a stretched-out blanket for him and shouting, "Jump, Mullah, jump!"

"Oh no I won't," said the Mullah. "I know you fellows. If I jump, you'll pull the blanket away just to make a fool of me!"

"Don't be silly, Mullah. This isn't a joke. This is serious. Jump!"

"No," said Nasruddin. "I don't trust any of you. Lay that blanket on the ground and I'll jump."

Anthony de Mello

Religion (8)

An atheist fell off a cliff. As he tumbled downward, he caught hold of the branch of a small tree. There he hung between heaven above and the rocks a thousand feet below, knowing he wasn't going to be able to hold on much longer.

Then an idea came to him. "God!" he shouted with all his might.

Silence! No one responded.

"God!" he shouted again. "If you exist, save me and I promise I shall believe in you and teach others to believe."

Silence again! Then he almost let go of the branch in shock as he heard a mighty Voice booming across the canyon. "That's what they all say when they are trouble"

"No, God, no!" he shouted out, more hopeful now. "I am not like the others. Why, I have already begun to believe, don't you see, having heard your Voice for myself. Now all you have to do is save me and I shall proclaim your name to the ends of the earth."

"Very well," said the Voice. "I shall save you. Let go of that branch."

"Let go of the branch?" yelled the distraught man. "Do you think I'm crazy?"

It is said that when Moses threw his wand into the Red Sea the expected miracle did not take place. It was only when the first man threw himself into the sea that the waves receded and the water divided itself to off a dry passage to the Jews.

Anthony de Mello

Religion (7)

Goldstein, aged ninety-two, had lived through pogroms in Poland, concentration camps in Germany, and dozens of other persecutions against the Jews.

"Oh, Lord!" he said, "isn't it true that we are your chosen people?"

A heavenly voice replied, "Yes, Goldstein, the Jews are my chosen people."

"Well, then, isn't it time you chose somebody else?"

Anthony de Mello

Religion (6)

A wealthy farmer burst into his home one day and cried out in an anguished voice, "Rebecca, there is a terrible story in town - the Messiah is here!"

"What's so terrible in that?" asked his wife. "I think it's great. What are you so upset about?"

"What am I so upset about?" the man exclaimed. "After all these years of sweat and toil, we have finally found prosperity. We have a thousand head of cattle, our barns are full of grain, and our trees laden with fruit. Now we will have to give it all away and follow him."

"Calm down," said his wife consolingly. "The Lord our God is good. He knows how much we Jews have always had to suffer. We had a Pharaoh, a Haman, a Hitler - always some body. But our dear God found a way to deal with them all, didn't he? Just have faith, my dear husband. He will find a way to deal with the Messiah too."

Anthony de Mello

Religion (5)

Tetsugen, a student of Zen, resolved on a mighty undertaking: the printing of seven thousand copies of the sutras, which till the were available only in Chinese.

He traveled the length and breadth of Japan to collect funds for this project. Some wealthy people offered him as much as a hundred pieces of gold, but mostly he received small coins from peasants. Tetsugen expressed equal gratitude to each donor, regardless of the sum of money given.

After ten long years of travel, he finally collected the funds necessary for the task. Just then the river Uji overflowed and thousands were left without food and shelter. Tetsugen spent all the money he had collected for his cherished project on these poor people.

The he began the work of raising funds again. Again it was several years before he got the money he needed. Then as epidemic spread all over the country, so Tetsugen gave away all he had collected to help the suffering.

Once again he set out on his travels and, twenty years later, his dream of having the scriptures in the Japanese language finally came true.

The Printing block that produced this first edition of the sutras is on display at the Obaku Monastery in Kyoto. The Japanese tell their children that Tetsugen got out three editions of the sutras in all; and that the first two are invisible and far superior to the third.

Anthony de Mello

Religion (4)

On a cold winter night a wandering ascetic asked for shelter in a temple. The poor man stood shivering there in the falling snow, so the temple priest, reluctant though he was to let the man in, said, "Very well, you can stay, but only for the night. This is a temple, not a hospice. In the morning you will have to go."

In the dead of night the priest heard a strange crackling sound. He rushed to the temple and saw an incredible sight. There was the stranger warming himself at a fire he had lit in the temple. A wooden Buddha was missing. The priest asked, "Where is the statue?"

The wandered pointed to the fire, then said, "I thought his cold would kill me."

The priest shouted, "Are you out of your mind? Do you know what you have done? That was a Buddha statue. You have burned the Buddha!"

The fire was slowly dying out. The ascetic gazed into it and began to poke it with his stick.

"What are you doing now?" the priest yelled.

"I am searching for the bones of the Buddha whom you say I burned."

The priest later reported the incident to a Zen master who said, "You must be a bad priest because you valued a dead Buddha over a live man."

Anthony de Mello

Religion (3)

Dov Ber was an uncommon man. When people came into his presence, they trembled. He was a Talmudic scholar of repute, inflexible, uncompromising in his doctrine. And he never laughed. He believed firmly in self-inflicted pain and was known to fast for days on end. Dov Ber's austerities finally got the better of him. He fell seriously ill and there was nothing the doctors could do to cure him. As a final resort, someone made a suggestion: "Why not seek the help of the Baal Shem Tov?"

Dov Ber agreed, even though at first he resisted the idea because he strongly disapproved of Baal Shem whom he considered to be something of a heretic. Also, while Dov Ber believed that life was only made meaningful by suffering and tribulation, Baal Shem sought to alleviate pain and openly preached that is was the spirit of rejoicing that gave meaning to life.

It was past midnight when Baal Shem answered the summons and drove up dressed in a coat of wool and a cap of the finest fur. He walked into the sick man's room and handed him the Book of Splendour, which Dov Ber opened and began to read aloud.

He had hardly read for a minute when, so the story goes, Baal Shem interrupted. "Something is missing," he said "Something is lacking in your faith."

"And what is that?" the sick man asked.

"Soul," said the Baal Shem Tov.

Anthony de Mello

Religion (2)

The Kamakura Buddha was lodged in a temple until one day a mighty storm brought the temple down. Then for many years the massive statue stood exposed to sun and rain and wind and the changes of the weather.

When a priest began to raise funds to rebuild the temple, the statue appeared to him in a dream and said, "That temple was a prison, not a home. Leave me exposed to the ravages of life. That's where I belong."

Anthony de Mello

Religion (1)

Weary traveler: "Why in the name of heaven did they build the railway station three kilometers away from the village?"

Helpful porter: "They must have thought it would be a good idea to have it near the trains, sir."

An ultramodern station three kilometers away from the track is as much of an absurdity as a much-frequented temple three centimeters away from life.

Anthony de Mello