De Mello - Taking flight: a book of story meditations

A N I MAGE B OOK
PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY
a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036

I MAGE , D OUBLEDAY , and the portrayal of a deer drinking from a stream are trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

This book was originally published in India by Gujarat Sahitya Prakash in 1988 and published in a hardcover edition by Doubleday in September 1988. This Image Books edition was published July 1990 by special arrangement with Doubleday.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
De Mello, Anthony, 19311987
Taking flight: a book of story meditations
Anthony de Mello.
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: Prayer of the frog. 1988.
1. Spiritual lifeCatholic authors. 2. Meditations. 3. Parables.
I. De Mello, Anthony, 19311987. Prayer of the frog. II. Title
BX2350.2.D388 1988 88-19194
242dc19
eISBN: 978-0-307-80548-5

Copyright 1988 by the Center for Spiritual Exchange
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

v3.1

Once upon a time there was a Jesuit spiritual teacher named Tony de Mello. He touched the hearts of people across the continents because he was so interested in lifereal, vibrant, joy-filled living. His captivating stories, his warmth and humor, his insights into happiness and the discovery of the true selfall had an exhilarating effect on anyone who listened to him. He went about liberating hearts, making sense out of nonsense, giving meaning to whatever spiritual path one trod.

One constant spirit evident in his teaching centered not on himself, but on each of us:

to bring out the guru in ourselves,

to dance our own dance,

to sing our own song.

Tony de Mello delighted in the command:

Be a light unto yourself.

When Tony died on June 2, 1987, I shouldnt have been surprised at the enormous sense of loss conveyed to me by friends and admirers all over this country and beyond. What amazed me was the personal feelings of grief and disappointment not only from those who knew him, but also from so many who had longed to meet and hear him.

One consolation I have offered to these people is the legacy of the words he left us. His last gift was the completed manuscript reflect on, and surely profit from. In a letter to a friend which he never had a chance to send, he described how hard he worked to finish the manuscript before coming to the U.S.A.: I wanted to write before leaving India, but it was impossible to find a spare moment. I have been working (and am still working) round the clock on the manuscript which I am to hand over to the publisher. It was truly a labor of love.

To write this prologue to Tonys last work is also a labor of love. Can you imagine what it is like to pick up a manuscript prepared by your closest of friends, collaborator, spiritual mentor, companion, after he has died, knowing this was your personal copy? With what depths of emotion I read those first pages. I had never heard the first story, The Prayer of the Frog. How characteristic of that marvelous mans spiritualityso open to life, so sensitive to the good, the beauty in everythingeven the croaking of a frog! I live in a residence hall with college students, and there are times when the sounds can getshall I say bothersome? Never will I forget Tonys paradoxical suggestion: Try not to disturb the noise! Wonder of wonders.

In the last analysis, however, Tony never taught me a thing. That is, in the sense of trying to instill in me some spiritual philosophy or way of life. All he did was encourage me to discover for myself what is real, true, beautiful in life. No better form of education, no purer spirituality. He insisted: No one will be happy, there will be no true spirituality, no real understanding, till you are free. And conversely there will be no true freedom till you really understand. Discovering truth, understanding your real self were synonymous for him.

That is why every talk he delivered, every story he told, every laugh he caused became a force planted in the prison of your fear ready to explode at any moment to shatter the chains of your past or the anxiety about your future as soon as you were open enough to permit it.

For such as Tony de Mello, there is no death.

J. F RANCIS S TROUD , S.J.
De Mello Spirituality
Center
Fordham University
Bronx, New York

PUBLISHERS NOTE: Because of its considerable bulk, the manuscript was published as two separate books. The sequel to Taking Flight is The Heart of the Enlightened.

It is a great mystery that though the human heart longs for Truth in which alone it finds liberation and delight, the first reaction of human beings to Truth is one of hostility and fear. So the Spiritual Teachers of humanity, like Buddha and Jesus, created a device to circumvent the opposition of their listeners: the story. They knew that the most entrancing words a language holds are Once upon a time , that it is common to oppose a truth but impossible to resist a story. Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata, says that if you listen carefully to a story you will never be the same again. That is because the story will worm its way into your heart and break down barriers to the divine. Even if you read the stories in this book only for the entertainment there is no guarantee that an occasional story will not slip through your defenses and explode when you least expect it to. So you have been warned!

If you are foolhardy enough to court enlightenment, this is what I suggest you do:

A. Carry a story around in your mind so you can dwell on it in leisure moments. That will give it a chance to work on your subconscious and reveal its hidden meaning. You will then be surprised to see how it comes to you quite unexpectedly just when you need it to light up an event or situation and bring you insight and inner healing. That is when you will realize that, in exposing yourself to these stories, you were auditing a Course in Enlightenment for which no guru is needed other than yourself!

B. Since each of these stories is a revelation of Truth, and since Truth, when spelled with a capital t, means the truth about you, make sure that each time you read a story you single-mindedly search for a deeper understanding of yourself. Read it the way one would read a medical bookwondering if one has any of the symptoms; and not a psychology bookthinking what typical specimens ones friends are. If you succumb to the temptation of seeking insight into others, the stories will do you damage.

So passionate was Mullah Nasruddins love for truth that he traveled to distant places in search of Koranic scholars and he felt no inhibitions about drawing infidels at the bazaar into discussions about the truths of his faith.

One day his wife told him how unfairly he was treating herand discovered that her husband had no interest whatsoever in that kind of Truth!

Its the only kind that matters, of course. Ours would be a different world, indeed, if those of us who are scholars and ideologues, whether religious or secular, had the same passion for self-knowledge that we display for our theories and dogmas.

Excellent sermon, said the parishioner, as she pumped the hand of the preacher. Everything you said applies to someone or other I know.

See?

Instruction