Odilia Carmen Chirica

"TEACHER," THEY SAID, "WE KNOW THAT YOU SPEAK AND TEACH RIGHTLY, AND SHOW NO PARTIALITY." -LUKE 20:21 " Look at your life and see how you have filled its emptiness with people. As a result they have a stranglehold on you. See how they control your behaviour by their approval and disapproval. They hold the power to ease your loneliness with their company, to send your spirits soaring with their praise, to bring you down to the depths with their criticism and rejection. Take a look at yourself spending almost every waking minute of your day placating and pleasing peo­ple, whether they are living or dead. You live by their norms, conform to their standards, seek their company, desire their love, dread their rid­icule, long for their applause, meekly submit to the guilt they lay upon you; you are terrified to go against the fashion in the way you dress or speak or act or even think. And observe how even when you control them you depend on them and are enslaved by t

"A mother could not get her son to come home before sunset. So, she told him that the road to their house was haunted by ghosts who come out after dusk. By the time the boy grew up he was so afraid of ghosts that he refused to run errands at night. So she gave him a medal and taught him that it would protect him. Bad religion gives him faith in the medal. Good religion gets him to see that ghosts do not exist." from the book  "Song Of The Bird"  by  Anthony de Mello ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen

"Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of the heart, and that depends upon how much one has polished it. Whoever has polished it more, sees more – more unseen forms become manifest."   Maulana Rumi ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen

"The village priest was distracted at his prayer by the children. To get rid of them he said, “Hurry to the river and you will see a monster breathing fire through his nostrils.”  Soon the whole village had heard of this monstrous apparition and was rushing to the river. The priest too joined the crowd. As he panted his way through four solid miles, he kept saying to himself, “It is true I invented the story. But you never can tell I”  A good way to believe in the gods we have created is to convince others of their existence."   from the book  "Song Of The Bird"  by  Anthony de Mello ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen

"Each time the guru sat for worship with his students the ashram cat would come in to distract them, so he ordered them to tie it when the ashram was at prayer. After the guru died the cat continued to be tied at worship time. And when the cat expired, another cat was brought into the ashram to make sure that the guru’s orders were faithfully observed at worship time. Centuries passed and learned treatises were written by the guru’s scholarly disciples on the liturgical significance of tying up a cat while worship is performed."   from the book " Song Of The Bird " by Anthony de Mello ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen

We are never truly healed until we understand that we were never wounded in the first place. ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen

" The industrialist was horrified to find the fisherman lying beside his boat, smoking a pipe.  “Why aren’t you out fishing?” said the industrialist.  “Because I have caught enough fish for the day.”  “Why don’t you catch some more?”  “What would I do with it?”  “Earn more money. Then you could have a motor fixed to your boat and go into deeper waters and catch more fish. Thai would bring you money to buy nylon nets, so more fish, more money. Soon you would have enough to buy two boats... even a fleet of boots. Then you could be rich like me.”  “What would I do then?”  “Then you could really enjoy life.”  “What do you think I am doing now?”  Which would you rather have: a fortune or a capacity for enjoyment?" from the book  "Song Of The Bird"  by  Anthony de Mello ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen