Shows
The Happiness Podcast100 - A Strange Trick of the Mind You are not your depression. You are not your anxiety or stress. That is but a strange kind of trick of the mind, a strange kind of illusion. You have deluded yourself into thinking— though you are not aware of it—that you are your depression, that you are your anxiety, that you are the thrills that you have. You so much more than a transient emotion.
2021-09-2401 minThe Happiness Podcast99 - Awareness Not AnalysisI want to give you a taste of the difference between analysis and awareness, or information on the one hand and insight on the other. I want to show how information is not insight, analysis is not awareness, knowledge is not awareness.
2021-09-1404 minThe Happiness Podcast98 - God is Only a WordDag Hammarskjöld, the former UN Secretary-General, put it so beautifully: “God does not die on the day we cease to believe in a personal deity. But we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance of wonder renewed daily, the source of which is beyond all reason.” We don’t have to quarrel about a word, because “God” is only a word, a concept. One never quarrels about reality; we only quarrel about opinions, about concepts, about judgments. Drop them you will the reality of God everywhere.
2021-08-2607 minThe Happiness Podcast97 - Clinging to IllusionsWhen you cling, life is destroyed; when you hold on to anything, you cease to live. Desire breeds anxiety but we don't want to see it. But when you’ve suffered sufficiently, then you will be ready to see it.
2021-08-1906 minThe Happiness Podcast96 - Effortlessness in ChangeIf the eye is unobstructed, it results in sight; if the ear is unobstructed, the result is hearing; if the nose is unobstructed, the result is a sense of smell; if the mouth is unobstructed, the result is a sense of taste; if the mind is unobstructed, the result is wisdom.
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2021-08-1104 minThe Happiness Podcast95 - The Secret of AwakeningListening to this podcast could be the most important few minutes in your lives. If you could grasp it, you’d hit upon the secret of awakening. You would be happy forever. You would never be unhappy again. Nothing would have the power to upset you again. Nothing.
2021-07-2810 minThe Happiness Podcast94 - God is Found in Silence"Silence is the great revelation, " said Lao-tse. We are accustomed to think of Scripture as the revelation of God. And so it is. I want you now to discover the revelation that silence brings. To take in the revelation that Scripture offers, you must expose yourself to Scripture. To take in the revelation that silence offers you must first attain silence. And this is not easy. Let us attempt to do this in this exercise.
2021-07-2108 minThe Happiness Podcast93 - The Awakened StateOne cannot say anything about the awakened state; one can only talk about the sleeping state. One hints at the awakened state. One cannot say anything about happiness. Happiness cannot be defined. What can be defined is misery. Drop unhappiness and you will know. Love cannot be defined; un-love can. Drop un-love, drop fear, and you will know. We want to find out what the awakened person is like. But you’ll know only when you get there.
2021-07-1405 minThe Happiness Podcast92 - A Royal Road to MysticismSlow down and taste and smell and hear, and let your senses come alive. That is extremely important for the process of change. If you want a royal road to mysticism, sit down quietly and listen to all the sounds around you. You do not focus on any one sound; you try to hear them all. Oh, you’ll see the miracles that happen to you when your senses come back to life.
2021-07-0704 minThe Happiness Podcast91 - Filtered RealityWe filter out life constantly, so much so that often we don’t see the reality of what is there. Where does the filtering come from? It's our conditioning, our culture, our programming. It's the way we were taught to see things and to experience life. Even the words we choose function as filters. There’s another demon doing the filtering, distorting and destroying true perception, haunting us with fear. It's the one called attachment. That filter is the root of all suffering.
2021-06-2911 minThe Happiness Podcast90 - Addictive LoveThe heart in love remains soft and sensitive. But when you’re hell-bent on getting this or that thing or result or person, you become ruthless, hard, and insensitive. How can you love people when you need people? You can only use them. If I need you to make me happy, I’ve got to use you, I’ve got to manipulate you, I’ve got to find ways and means of winning you. I cannot let you be free. I can only love people when I have emptied my life of the need for people.
Looking...2021-06-2405 minThe Happiness Podcast89 - Do Not Suppress Your DesiresSuppress your desire and you are likely to be tied to it. Whereas if you look at your desire and see it for what it is really worth, and how you are preparing the grounds for misery and disappointment and depression, your desire will then be transformed into a preference. When you go through life with preferences but don’t let your happiness depend on any one of them, then you’re awake. You’re moving toward wakefulness.
2021-06-1606 minThe Happiness Podcast88 - Is Psychology More Practical than SpiritualityIs psychology more practical than spirituality? Nothing is more practical than spirituality. What can the poor psychologist do? He can only relieve the pressure. I’m a psychologist myself, and I practice psychotherapy, and I have this great conflict within me when I have to choose sometimes between psychology and spirituality. I wonder if that makes sense to anybody here. It didn’t make sense to me for many years until I suddenly discovered that people have to suffer enough in a relationship so that they get disillusioned with all relationships.
2021-06-0807 minThe Happiness Podcast87 - The Difference Between Analysis and AwarenessI want to give you a taste of the difference between analysis and awareness, or information on the one hand and insight on the other. Information is not insight, analysis is not awareness, knowledge is not awareness.
2021-06-0104 minThe Happiness Podcast86 - The Only Tragedy in the WorldCan one be fully human without experiencing tragedy? The only tragedy there is in the world is ignorance. The only tragedy there is in the world is un-wakefulness and unawareness. From them comes fear, and from fear comes everything else, but death is not a tragedy at all. Dying is wonderful; it’s only horrible to people who have never understood life. It’s only when you’re afraid of life that you fear death.
2021-05-2504 minThe Happiness Podcast85 - DetachmentThe only way to change is by changing your understanding. But what does it mean to understand? How do we go about it? Consider how we’re enslaved by various attachments; we’re striving to rearrange the world so that we can keep these attachments, because the world is a constant threat to them. I fear that a friend may stop loving me; he or she may turn to somebody else. I have to keep making myself attractive because I have to get this other person. Somebody brainwashed me into thinking I need his or her love. But I real...2021-05-1312 minThe Happiness Podcast84 - Negative Feelings Toward OthersAnytime you have a negative feeling toward anyone, you’re living in an illusion. There’s something seriously wrong with you. You’re not seeing reality. Something inside of you has to change. But what do we generally do when we have a negative feeling? “He is to blame, she is to blame. She’s got to change.” No! The world’s all right. The one who has to change is you.
2021-05-0503 minThe Happiness Podcast83 - If We’re Lucky, We’ll Return To Wonder AgainHow sad if we pass through life and never see it with the eyes of a child. This doesn’t mean you should drop your concepts totally; they’re very precious. Though we begin without them, concepts have a very positive function. Thanks to them we develop our intelligence. We’re invited, not to become children, but to become like children. We do have to fall from a stage of innocence and be thrown out of paradise; we do have to develop an “I” and a “me” through these concepts. But then we need to return to paradise.
2021-04-2904 minThe Happiness Podcast82 - The Light of AwarenessDo you want to change the world? How about beginning with yourself? How about being transformed yourself first? But how do you achieve that? Through observation. Through understanding. With no interference or judgment on your part. Because what you judge you cannot understand.
2021-04-2011 minThe Happiness Podcast81 - Losing Your "Rat Race" SelfIt’s quite false to think that the way to deny the self is to cause pain to the self, to go in for abnegation, mortification, as these were traditionally understood. To deny the self, to die to it, to lose it, to drop out of the rat race world of the ego is to understand your true nature. When you do that, the self will disappear; it will vanish. To lose the self is to suddenly realize that you are something other than what you thought you were. You thought you were at the center; now you experience yo...2021-03-2106 minThe Happiness Podcast80 - The First Step in Waking Up is Admitting You Don't Want to Wake UpThe first thing to understand, if you really want to wake up, is that you don’t want to wake up. The first step to waking up is to be honest enough to admit to yourself that you don’t like it. You want to stay in your nice warm bed made of illusions and false beliefs.
2021-03-1009 minThe Happiness Podcast79 - The Story of the SannyasiThere is a point I want to make that has to do with happiness. It is one of my favorite stories. You know, sometimes a story says more than a whole day’s lecture because it speaks to the depths within us, and this one certainly speaks to mine. This is a story of about a villager in India who comes across a sannyasi, which is a person who, having attained enlightenment, understands that the whole world is his home and the sky is his roof, and God is his father Who will look after him, so he moves fr...2021-03-0109 minThe Happiness Podcast78 - Life is a BanquetLife is a banquet. And the tragedy is that most people are starving to death. There’s a story about some people who were on a raft off the coast of Brazil perishing from thirst. They had no idea that the water they were floating on was fresh water from a river flowing out to sea with such force that it reached their raft. But they had no idea. In the same way, we’re surrounded with joy, happiness, and love but most people have no idea of it whatsoever.
2021-02-1910 minThe Happiness Podcast77 - You're Tied to Things That Don't ExistWe’re scared about things that are not. We’re tied to things that don’t exist. They’re illusions. They’re falsehoods. They’re beliefs; they’re not realities. The agonies we go through over things that we have—we have convinced ourselves that our happiness depends upon them, but it doesn’t.
2021-02-1102 minThe Happiness Podcast76 - How Could We Pray BetterLook into your own heart. Can you say? Oh, there's anger and quarrels in my life but there is no rancor, no bitterness, no hatred. Can you say? Oh, there is pain and suffering in my life, but there is no inner turmoil and conflict. There is a great deal of activity in my life, but there's no stress. Can you say that? If you can, you are a lovely oasis of peace in the vast desert of this world. If you can't, it's time to awaken the oasis within you.
2021-02-0107 minThe Happiness Podcast75 - A Simple Truth We're All Missing"I discovered something about ten years ago," Anthony De Mello states, "and it revolutionized my life. I became a new man. Later, having discovered it, I found it in all the major religious writings, and I was amazed. I mean, I was reading it, but I hadn’t recognized it. I wished to God I’d found this when I was younger. Oh, what a difference it would have made."
2021-01-2010 minThe Happiness Podcast74 - You Have Been Programmed for MiseryYou were given a taste of various psychosocial addictions: approval, attention, success, making it to the top, prestige, getting your name in the paper, power, being the boss. Having a taste for these drugs, you became addicted and began to dread losing them. Recall the lack of control you felt, the terror at the prospect of failure or of making mistakes, at the prospect of criticism by others. So you became cravenly dependent on others and you lost your freedom.
2021-01-1406 minThe Happiness Podcast73 - Wellsprings Series - The SunriseTo exterminate the darkness, pronounce the name over each part of your being that is in need of healing (your heart … your mind … your limbs … your senses …) and see each part become aglow, alive with grace.
2021-01-0606 minThe Happiness Podcast72 - Wellsprings Series - SurrenderHow do you surrender. Begin by seeking silence. For this, come home to yourself. Come to the present. Ask yourself: Where am I right now? What am I doing? What am I thinking? What am I sensing in my body? What is the quality of my breathing?
2020-12-0804 minThe Happiness Podcast71 - Wellsprings Series - The HeartImagine you walk into a church. The candles on the altar are the only source of light. You rest your eyes upon the host at the altar that stands out clear and white against the darkness. The host is like a magnet, for it draws your eyes and being toward itself as to the center. Most of our life we focus on the outer surface, but here you gaze into the very heart of things, the center of your being and of the world. As you keep looking a silence falls upon you.
2020-11-3006 minThe Happiness Podcast70 - Wellsprings Series - The AbsoluteGod says, “Give me your heart.” And then, in answer to our puzzlement, we might hear God say, “Your heart is where your treasure is.”
What treasure? Is it people … places … occupations … things … experiences of the past … the future’s hopes and dreams? Or is it something entirely different that God wants from us?
2020-11-2312 minThe Happiness Podcast69 - Wellsprings Series - Centering YourselfImagine that you walk into a desert to contemplate your life. Immediately, you see how frequently you rush outside yourself —to people, occupations, places, things— in search of strength and peace and meaning, forgetting that the source of all is here within your own heart, understanding that it is here where you must search. Each person carries thoughts that have the power to bring instant peace. In this podcast, De Mello offers a way to search for yours.
2020-11-1707 minThe Happiness Podcast68 - Wellsprings Series - RevelationImagine you are in the presence of Christ and you ask him to give you a list of everything in you he finds defective— each indication of selfishness, each area where you have yet to grow, each thing in you you need to change. Then ask him which of these defects, in his opinion, needs the most urgent attention. Do you have the will to rise above this defect?
2020-11-0907 minThe Happiness Podcast67 - Wellsprings Series - EssenceIf you could choose the circumstances of your death, what would you choose? When your life is coming to an end, how many experiences shall you look back to and say, “To have experienced that alone would have made my life worthwhile”?
2020-11-0906 minThe Happiness Podcast66 - Wellsprings Series - The Foundation for EnlightenmentIn this next session of the Wellsprings Series, Anthony De Mello provides the simple, foundational elements that lead to an enlightened life. When you awaken, the world, your family, your feelings, your body, even your neuroses remain the same — it is you that are the same no longer. You are more loving now, more accepting of what is undesirable. More peaceful, too, for having come to see that attack and defense cannot lead to lasting change —only love and understanding can.
2020-10-2509 minThe Happiness Podcast65 - Wellsprings Series - Take a Spiritual Vacation (the stillness of Heaven)Anthony De Mello takes your mind on a vacation to find the place inside of you that steps out to the vast stillness of Heaven.
2020-10-2511 minThe Happiness Podcast64 - Introduction to the Wellsprings SeriesIn this podcast, Anthony De Mello introduces his Wellsprings Series and discusses the spiritual power it holds to transform your life experience.
2020-10-2506 minThe Happiness Podcast63 - You Want to Change the World?Do you want to change the world? How about beginning with yourself? How about being transformed yourself first? How do you achieve that? Through observation. Through understanding with no interference or judgment on your part. Because what you judge you cannot understand. When you say of someone, “He’s a Republican,” understanding has stopped at that moment. You slapped a label on him. “She’s a Democrat.” Understanding has stopped at that moment. How are you going to understand what you disapprove of or what you approve of, for that matter?
All of this sounds like a new world, doe2020-09-2511 minThe Happiness Podcast62 - The First Steps to Waking UpThe first thing you need to do to wake up is get in touch with negative feelings that you’re not even aware of. Lots of people have negative feelings they’re not aware of. Lots of people are depressed and they’re not aware they are depressed. It’s only when they make contact with joy that they understand how depressed they were. You can’t get rid of boll weevils on your farm if you’re not aware of their existence. To awaken, the first thing you need is awareness of your negative feelings
2020-09-1805 minThe Happiness Podcast61- The Most Important QuestionThe great masters tell us that The Most Important Question in the world is: “Who am I?” Or rather: “What is ‘I’?” What is this thing I call “I”? What is this thing I call self? Who’s living in you as you?
2020-09-1208 minThe Happiness Podcast60 - The Harder You Try to Change, The Worse It Can Get.The harder you try to change, the worse it can get. Does this mean that a certain degree of passivity is all right? Yes, the more you resist something, the greater power you give to it. That’s the meaning, I think, of Jesus’ words: “When someone strikes you on the right cheek, offer him your left as well.” You always empower the demons you fight. That’s very Oriental. But if you flow with the enemy, you overcome the enemy.
2020-08-2602 minThe Happiness Podcast59 - Does It Matter That You Should Be Enlightened?Some people make awakening a goal. They are determined to get there; they say, “I refuse to be happy until I’m awakened.” In that case, it’s better to be the way you are, simply to be aware of the way you are. Simple awareness is happiness compared with trying to react all the time. People react so quickly because they are not aware. You will come to understand that there are times when you will inevitably react, even in awareness. But as awareness grows, you react less and act more. It really doesn’t matter.
2020-08-1902 minThe Happiness Podcast58 - Introduction to Anthony De Mello (58 min)Anthony De Mello in a nutshell.
2020-08-1158 minThe Happiness Podcast57 - Don't Suppress DesireDo not suppress desire, because then you would become lifeless. You’d be without energy and that would be terrible. Desire in the healthy sense of the word is energy, and the more energy we have, the better. But don’t suppress desire, understand it. Understand it. Don’t seek to fulfill desire so much as to understand desire. Know your preferences. When you go through life with preferences but don’t let your happiness depend on any one of them, then you’re moving toward wakefulness
2020-08-0406 minThe Happiness Podcast56 -The Final LiberationA scientist observes the behavior of ants with no further end in view than to study ants, to learn as much as possible about them. He’s not attempting to change them or train them or get anything out of them. He wants to learn as much as possible about them. That’s his attitude. The day you attain a posture like that, you will experience a miracle. You will change—effortlessly, correctly.
2020-07-2807 minThe Happiness Podcast55 - A Self-Evident TruthDo you want to change the world? How about beginning with yourself? How about being transformed yourself first? But how do you achieve that? Through observation. Through understanding. With no interference or judgment on your part. Because what you judge you cannot understand. and what you do not understand cannot change.
2020-07-2305 minThe Happiness Podcast54 - You Don't Really Want to Wake UpThe first thing I want you to understand, if you really want to wake up, is that you don’t want to wake up. The first step to waking up is to be honest enough to admit to yourself that you don’t like it. You don’t want to be happy.
2020-07-1603 minThe Happiness Podcast53 - When You Cling, Life is DestroyedWhen you cling, life is destroyed; when you hold on to anything, you cease to live. Understand too, that happiness is not the same as excitement, it’s not the same as thrills. That’s another illusion, that a thrill comes from living a desire fulfilled. Desire breeds anxiety and sooner or later it brings its hangover. When you’ve suffered sufficiently, then you are ready to see it.
2020-06-3007 minThe Happiness Podcast52 - This is What Spirituality is AboutLove is generated through awareness and through no other way, no other way. Understand the obstructions you are putting in the way of love, freedom, and happiness and they will drop. Turn on the light of awareness and the darkness will disappear. Happiness is not something you acquire; love is not something you produce; love is not something that you have; love is something that has you.
2020-06-2507 minThe Happiness Podcast51 - How Does One Lose Oneself?You’re never so centered on yourself as when you’re depressed. You’re never so ready to forget yourself as when you are happy. Happiness releases you from self. It is suffering and pain and misery and depression that tie you to the self.
2020-06-1606 minThe Happiness Podcast50 - A New Mind, A New Heart to Meet the PandemicThe pandemic has changed the world as we have known it. What Anthony de Mello offers in this podcast is a change of mind, a change heart that opens to a new way of looking at the world, a new way of looking at life, at everything. It is a simple way of being in which peace and happiness become your constant companions, even as you relate to all the changes the Pandemic imposes.
2020-05-2509 minThe Happiness Podcast49 - Having Trouble with Relationships?Are you having trouble with people? You find somebody selfish, moody, unreliable, rejecting, stupid, intolerable, irresponsible, insulting? Think of the troubles you have with human relations. Do you know the root of all of those problems? Hold onto your chairs.
2020-05-0605 minThe Happiness Podcast48 - A Guided Meditation for the PandemicYesterday you had occasions to be happy that you weren’t even conscious of. Do you see them now? It is inconceivable that anyone could be grateful and unhappy. Thank the Lord for each event of yesterday and notice the effect this has on you. And the things you call unpleasant, undesirable — search for the good that comes from these … the seeds for growth they carry … and find reason to be grateful for them too. Finally, see yourself moving through each portion of today in gratitude —and happiness.
2020-04-0911 minThe Happiness Podcast47 - Have You Ever Felt Disgusted with Life?Have you ever felt disgusted with life, sick at heart of constantly running away from fears and anxieties, weary of your begging rounds, exhausted from being dragged about helplessly by your attachments and addictions? Have you ever felt the utter meaninglessness of working for a degree, then finding a job, then settling down to a life of boredom; or, if you are an achiever, settling down to a life of emotional turmoil caused by the things that you are chasing after? If you have, and is there a single human being who hasn't, the divine flame of discontent has arisen...2020-03-0504 minThe Happiness Podcast46 - The Positive Side of SufferingThink of some of the painful events in your life. For how many of them are you grateful today, because thanks to them you changed and grew? Here is a simple truth of life that most people never discover. Happy events make life delightful but they do not lead to self- discovery and growth and freedom. That privilege is reserved to the things and persons and situations that cause us pain.
2020-02-2905 minThe Happiness Podcast45 - How to Drop AttachmentsHow does one drop an attachment? People try to do this through renunciation. But to renounce some bars of the music, to blot them out of one's consciousness creates exactly the type of violence, conflict and insensitivity that clinging does. Once again you have hardened yourself. The secret is to renounce nothing, cling to nothing, enjoy every thing and allow it to pass, to flow.
2020-02-2903 minThe Happiness Podcast44 - The Love in a Tree, a Rose and a LampGod makes his sun to shine on good and bad alike and makes his rain to fall on saints and sinners alike; so, you must be all goodness as your heavenly Father is all goodness." Contemplate in astonishment the sheer goodness of the rose, the lamp, the tree, for there you have an image of what love is all about. How does one attain this quality of love?
2020-02-2910 minThe Happiness Podcast43 - What Does It Mean to LoveWhat does it mean to love? It means to be sensitive to life, to things, to persons, to feel for everything and everyone to the exclusion of nothing and no one. For exclusion can only be achieved through a hardening of oneself, through closing one's doors. And the moment there is a hardening, sensitivity dies.
2020-02-2102 minThe Happiness Podcast42 - The Big Lie We Were ToldA big lie that we were told when we were kids is the following: You need to be loved. When you’re a kid, yes, granted, that’s okay. Let’s not quarrel about that. But what if you’re sixty-four years old? You’re twenty-five years old? They’re still telling you that you need to be loved. You need to be a success. You need to be approved. You need to be appreciated. It's rubbish yet everybody’ goes on believing this. There’s only one emotional need you have and that is to love.
2020-02-1905 minThe Happiness Podcast41 - You Have Been Programmed for UnhappinessHas it ever struck you that you have been programmed to be unhappy and so, no matter what you do to become happy, you are bound to fail? If you wish to be happy the first thing you need is not effort or even goodwill or good desires but a clear understanding of how exactly you have been programmed. This is what happened:your society and your culture taught you to believe that you would not be happy without lots of money, power, success, approval, a good reputation, love, friendship, spirituality, God. What is your particular combination?
2020-02-0809 minThe Happiness Podcast40 - Listen and UnlearnSome of us get woken up by the harsh realities of life. We suffer so much that we wake up. Other people keep bumping again and again into life. They still go on sleepwalking. It doesn't occur to them that there may be a better way. If you haven’t been bumped sufficiently by life, and you haven’t suffered enough, then there is another way: to listen.
2020-02-0807 minThe Happiness Podcast39 - Is There Any Way to Know You Are In Touch With Reality?Is there any way you can know that what you are in touch with is Reality? Here is one sign: What you perceive does not fit into any formula whether given by another or created by yourself. It simply cannot be put into words. So, what can teachers do? They can bring to your notice what is unreal, they cannot show you Reality; you will have to walk out there all alone and discover for yourself. To walk alone-that means to walk away from every formula-the one given to you by others, the ones you learned from books, the...2020-02-0405 minThe Happiness Podcast38 - How to Transform Your BeingAnytime you have a negative feeling toward anyone or anything, you’re living in an illusion. There’s something seriously wrong with you in need of correction. You’re not seeing reality. Something inside of you has to change. But what do we generally do when we have a negative feeling? “He is to blame, she is to blame. She’s got to change. The situation needs to change” No! The world’s all right. The one who has to change is you. So how do we transform our being? This podcasts provides a way.
2020-01-3013 minThe Happiness Podcast37 - What You Call Happiness ... Isn''tFrom Anthony DeMello's book The Way to Love. Narration by Paul Coutinho. What you call the experience of happiness is not happiness at all but the excitement and thrill caused by some person or thing or event. True happiness is un-caused. You are happy for no reason at all. And true happiness cannot be experienced. It is not within the realm of consciousness. It is un-self-consciousness.
2020-01-2311 minThe Happiness Podcast36 - An Exercise in DyingBuddhism says, "May all beings practice dying." Why? Because when we transcend the fear of death, we become more alive. This podcasts offers an exercise in dying to become more fully awake and alive.
2020-01-1503 minThe Happiness Podcast35 - Perfect LoveCan you be said to love me if you cling to me and will not let me go, if you will not let me be? Can you be said to love me if you need me psychologically or emotionally for your happiness? This is not love; it is craving and wherever there is craving there is a threat and where there is a threat there is fear, and where there is fear there is no love because we always hate what we fear. But where there is love there are no demands, no expectations, no dependency, and no fear b...2020-01-0805 minThe Happiness Podcast34 - GodIt is said that God was in the world for the world was created by Him but the world did not recognize Him. We have made images of God that are more unlike Him than like Him. Therefore, the first thing we need to do if we want to find God is have the readiness to realize that our ideas of God are all inadequate. Then the second thing we need to do is listen, hear, and see in a special way called heart listening, heart hearing, heart seeing. That’s all we have to do. DeMello explains how in th...2019-12-2107 minThe Happiness Podcast33 - Suffering is a SignSuffering is a sign given to you that you might open your eyes to the truth, that you might understand that there’s falsehood somewhere. Suffering occurs when you clash with reality. When your illusions clash with reality, when your falsehoods clash with truth, then you have suffering. Otherwise there is no suffering. What leads to growth is painful experiences. Suffering points up an area in you where you have not yet grown, where you need to grow and be transformed and change.
2019-12-0204 minThe Happiness Podcast32 - Turning Desire Into PreferencesIf you just suppress your desire and you attempt to renounce the object of your desire, you are likely to be tied to it. Whereas if you look at it and see it for what it is really worth, if you understand how you are preparing the grounds for misery and disappointment and depression, your desire will then be transformed into what I call a preference. When you go through life with preferences but don’t let your happiness depend on any one of them, then you’re awake.
2019-12-0202 minThe Happiness Podcast31 - The Harder You Try to Change, the Worse It GetSpiritual greed makes us attached to peace. We are saying, “Unless I’m peaceful, I won’t be happy.” Did it ever occur to you that you could be happy in tension? Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed; after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed. You don’t make a goal out of relaxation and sensitivity. Have you ever heard of people who get tense trying to relax? If one is tense, one simply observes one’s tension. You will never understand yourself if you seek to change yourself. The harder you try to change yourself, the worse it gets. You...2019-11-2904 minThe Happiness Podcast30 - God, Love and AttachmentsGod is love, so what is love? Love is sensitivity, love is consciousness. A loving heart is sensitive to the whole of life, to all persons; a loving heart doesn’t harden itself to any person or thing. Love entails clarity of perception, objectivity; there is nothing so clear-sighted as love. But the moment you become attached, then you’re blocking out so much of life. You’ve got eyes only for the object of your attachment; the heart has hardened. It can no longer see life as it is.
2019-11-2604 minThe Happiness Podcast29 - The Only Way to ChangeThe only way to change is by changing your understanding. But what does it mean to understand? How do we go about it? Consider how we’re enslaved by various attachments; we’re striving to rearrange the world so that we can keep these attachments, because the world is a constant threat to them. How liberating it is not to depend emotionally on anything. If you could get one second’s experience of that, you’d be breaking through your prison and getting a glimpse of the sky. Someday, maybe, you will even fly.
2019-11-2605 minThe Happiness Podcast28 - What You Need Most of AllLife is a banquet and the tragedy is that most people are starving to death. Why? We’ve been brainwashed into believing what isn't true. Wake up and see the truth. Heaven is here and now. Don’t suffer with the pain of the past; it happened when you were asleep. Wake up! Put on a new mind. Take on a new way of looking at things! Awakening is in direct proportion to the amount of truth you can take without running away. To do that, what you need most of all is the readiness to learn something new.
2019-11-1304 minThe Happiness Podcast27 - The Great BlockThis podcast is about what it means to really begin to live and what blocks us from living fully. DeMello offers an exercise to unblock ourselves that is so simple that you might think it couldn't possibly produce a change in you that changes everything for you . . . but it does.
2019-11-1203 minThe Happiness Podcast26 - The Lost Ability to LoveSociety drugged us when we were kids. They didn’t bring us up on the healthy, wholesome nourishment of play and work and the pleasures of the senses, and as we grew older, the pleasures of the mind. Instead, they addicted us to a drug called “approval.” A drug called “success.” A drug called "money" and "reputation" and "making it to the top" and "never feeling good enough or having enough." As a result, we've lost our ability to love.
2019-11-0803 minThe Happiness Podcast25 - The Parable of the BellsThis is Anthony DeMello's parable about listening for the singer in the song, looking for the dancer in the dance, experiencing the life inside the moment.
2019-11-0805 minThe Happiness Podcast24 - Stop Fixing YourselfThe trouble with most people is they’re busy trying to fix things in themselves that they really don’t understand. Stop fixing yourself. Don’t interfere. Don’t fix anything. Simply watch. Observe. You're OK. These things in you just need to be understood. If you understand them, they will change and you would finally see that all is well, within you and around you. This short practice is a simple way of discovering this.
2019-10-2904 minThe Happiness Podcast23 - When the Heart is UnobstructedDe Mello talks about effortlessness in transformation change. He likens it to the image a sailboat. When a sailboat has a mighty wind in its sail, it glides along so effortlessly that the boatman has nothing to do but steer. He makes no effort; he doesn’t push the boat. That’s an image of what happens when change comes about through awareness, through understanding.
2019-10-2501 minThe Happiness Podcast22 - Illusions About OthersCan you imagine how liberating it is to never be disillusioned by people again, never be disappointed by anyone again? Imagine never feeling let down again. Never feeling rejected. If you want to wake up, if you want happiness and freedom, here it is: Drop your false ideas about people and see through people. If you see through yourself, you will see through everyone. Then you will love everyone. Otherwise you spend your life grappling with your wrong notions about others, with your illusions constantly crashing against reality.
2019-10-2103 minThe Happiness Podcast021 - The Religion Called FreedomThe religion known as freedom makes all people good, for it destroys the inner conflict that makes people devils. As you begin to understand this, you stop making demands on yourself, you stop having expectations of yourself, you stop pushing yourself and you start nourishing yourself with sunsets and nature, with a good movie or a good book. You start pursuing enjoyable work that you love, and you make time for good company. In short, you break free of the negative drives society programmed into you that has blocked you from being happy.
2019-09-2504 minThe Happiness Podcast020 - There is Another WayEvery new idea, every great idea, when it first began was in a minority of one. That man called Jesus Christ—a minority of one. Everybody was saying something different from what he was saying. The Buddha— a minority of one. Everybody was saying something different from what he was saying. I think it was Bertrand Russell who said, “Every great idea starts out as a blasphemy.” That’s well and accurately put. It never occurs to our rigidity that comes from having become dogmatic that there may be a better way. If you haven’t been bumped sufficiently by life, and y...2019-09-1902 minThe Happiness Podcast019 - Why You Don't Want HappinessOne sign that you’ve woken up is you're asking yourself, “Am I crazy or is the whole world crazy?" We’re living on crazy ideas about love, about relationships, about happiness, about joy, about everything; and it's all been feed to us by our crazy society. The sooner we see this, the better for our mental and spiritual health.
2019-09-1803 minThe Happiness Podcast018 - If You're Lucky!If you’re lucky and the gods are gracious or if you are gifted with divine grace - use any mystical or theological expression you like - you might one day suddenly understand who “I” is, and you’ll never be the same again. Never. Nothing will ever be able to upset you again and no one will ever be able to hurt you again.
2019-09-1802 minThe Happiness Podcast017 - Enlightenment, Plain and SimpleSome people make awakening a goal. They're determined to get there. They say, “I refuse to be happy until I’m awakened.” This forms an attachment and attachments are the source of suffering, which moves in the opposite direction of awakening. Enlightenment comes from a deeper awareness of the way you are without judging it. DeMello tells a story of a disciple who leaves his guru for the hills to attain enlightenment. Years pass, but no enlightenment; not until he gives it up.
2019-09-0301 minThe Happiness Podcast0016 - I Choose Who or What I Let Into My HeartTo say no to people—that’s wonderful; that’s part of waking up. Part of waking up is that you live your life as you see fit. And understand: That is not selfish. The selfish thing is to demand that someone else live their life as YOU see fit. That’s selfish. It is not selfish to live your life as you see fit.
2019-09-0200 minThe Happiness Podcast015 - The Problem of EvilWhen you awaken, when you understand, when you see, the world becomes right. However, we’re always bothered by the problem of evil, aren't we. Our intellect can't explain it. There’s a powerful story about a little boy and crocodile that illuminates the nature of evil.
2019-08-3105 minThe Happiness Podcast014 - How to Let Go of Negative FeelingsNever identify with a negative feeling, or any feeling for that matter. A fleeting emotion has nothing to do with your essential self. Don’t say, “I am depressed.” If you want to say, depression is there, that’s fine. But to say "I am depressed is defining yourself in terms of that feeling. That’s your illusion; that’s your mistake. There is a depression there right now, there are hurt feelings there right now, but let it be, leave it alone. It will pass.
2019-08-3001 minThe Happiness Podcast013 - No "Me" No ProblemReality is not problematic. Problems exist only in the human mind. We might add: problems exist only in the not-yet-awakened human mind. But reality is not problematic. Take away human beings from this planet and nature would go on in all its loveliness and violence. Where would the problem be? No problem.
2019-08-3003 minThe Happiness Podcast012 - Are You Coming From Love?You’ve got to make sure of your “being” before you swing into action. You have to make sure of who you are before you act. Unfortunately, when people who are not awake swing into action, they simply substitute one cruelty for another, one injustice for another. And so it goes. Meister Eckhart says, “It is not by your actions that you will be saved” (or awakened) "but by your being.
2019-08-2901 minThe Happiness Podcast011 - Are You Suffering? Try This!Think of anything that's causing you pain, worry or anxiety. First, can you see the desire under that suffering? Make no mistake, there’s something you desire keenly or else you wouldn’t be suffering. What is that desire? Second, it isn’t simply a desire; there’s an identification made. You have said to yourself, “The very well-being of my existence is tied to fulfilling this desire.” Open to it and it will reveal how all suffering is caused by identifying with something within or outside you.
2019-08-2601 minThe Happiness Podcast010 - Negative Feelings Toward OthersAnytime you have a negative feeling toward anyone, you’re living in an illusion.
2019-08-2200 minThe Happiness Podcast009 - Giving is ReceivingA good is never so good as when you have no awareness that you’re doing good. You are never so good as when you have no consciousness that you’re good. Or as the great Sufi would say, “A saint is one until he or she knows it.” Unselfconscious!
2019-08-2100 minThe Happiness Podcast008 - Listening as an Attitude of OpennessAre you listening, as most people do, in order to confirm what you already think? Or are you listening with an attitude of openness? Are you listening to learn something new? That's what's important!
2019-08-2102 minThe Happiness Podcast007 - A Practical SpiritualityWe’ve been taught to look for our happiness in outside things: money, power, romance, approval. That’s the first thing we need to understand if we want to come awake, which is the same thing as saying: if we want to love, if we want freedom, if we want joy and peace and spirituality. In that sense, spirituality is the most practical thing in the whole wide world. I challenge anyone to think of anything more practical than spirituality as I have defined it—not piety, not devotion, not religion, not worship, but spirituality—waking up, waking up!
2019-08-2101 minThe Happiness Podcast006 - Self WorthTony De Mello on where self-worth comes from? He asks: Do you get it from success in your work? Do you get it from having a lot of money? Do you get it from attracting a lot of men if you’re a woman or a lot of women if you’re a man? How fragile all that is, how transitory.
2019-08-1801 minThe Happiness Podcast005 - How Happiness HappensHappiness is your natural state. It is coming home to yourself simply by observing yourself. Does that sound a bit tedious? It's not. Self-observation is such a delightful and extraordinary thing. After a while you don’t have to make any effort, because, as illusions begin to crumble, you begin to know things that cannot be described. It’s called happiness, which is the experience of your essential nature. Everything changes and you become oriented to awareness instead of to suffering.
2019-08-1801 minThe Happiness Podcast004 - Introduction to Tony DeMello - Embracing True NatureSooner or later there arises in every human heart the desire for holiness, spirituality, God, call it what you will. One hears mystics speak of a divinity all around them that is within our grasp, that would make our lives meaningful and beautiful and rich, if we could only discover it.
2019-04-1004 minThe Happiness Podcast003 - Introduction to Tony DeMello - The Shift from Awareness to UnderstandingSooner or later there arises in every human heart the desire for holiness, spirituality, God, call it what you will. One hears mystics speak of a divinity all around them that is within our grasp, that would make our lives meaningful and beautiful and rich, if we could only discover it.
2019-04-1004 minThe Happiness Podcast002 - Introduction to Tony DeMello - Wake-up to happinessSooner or later there arises in every human heart the desire for holiness, spirituality, God, call it what you will. One hears mystics speak of a divinity all around them that is within our grasp, that would make our lives meaningful and beautiful and rich, if we could only discover it.
2019-04-1003 minThe Happiness Podcast001 - Introduction to Tony DeMello - Wake Up to What?Sooner or later there arises in every human heart the desire for holiness, spirituality, God, call it what you will. One hears mystics speak of a divinity all around them that is within our grasp, that would make our lives meaningful and beautiful and rich, if we could only discover it.
2019-04-1002 min