The Way to Love: Meditations for Life

by Anthony de Mello

How could you go about creating a happy, loving, peaceful world? By learning a simple, beautiful, but painful art called the art of looking. This is how you do it: Every time you find yourself irritated or angry with someone, the one to look at is not that person but yourself. The question to ask is not, “What’s wrong with this person?” but “What does this irritation tell me about myself?” Do this right now. Think of some irritating person you know and say this painful but liberating sentence to yourself. “The cause of my irritation is not in this person but in me.” Having said that, begin the task of finding out how you are causing the irritation. First look into the very real possibility that the reason why this person’s defects or so-called defects annoy you is that you have them yourself. But you have repressed them and so are projecting them unconsciously into the other. This is almost always true but hardly anyone recognizes it. So search for this person’s defects in your own heart and in your unconscious mind, and your annoyance will turn to gratitude that his or her behavior has led you to self-discovery.