Prayer is Fire: Anthony de Mello Short Story

I’ve been thinking about the ‘prayer is fire’ short story from Anthony de Mello for years now. It’s a powerful example of the difference between religion vs spirituality.

The excerpt below comes from the Anthony de Mello books Awareness, Taking Flight, and Rediscovering Life. He tells the same story in slightly different ways in each, so I’ve synthesized them together into a single version.

Here’s a video clip if you want to watch/listen to Anthony de Mello personally deliver the message (enjoy it while you can because Anthony de Mello videos often get removed from YouTube due to copyright violations):

Religion vs Spirituality: Prayer is Fire! (Anthony de Mello Short Story)

Let me tell you what I think prayer is in the form of a story.

There’s this guy who invented the art of making fire. He goes up to the snow-clad northern regions where you have hill tribes shivering in the bitter cold, and he begins to teach them the art and advantages of making fire. He shows them the value of being able to be warm in the winter, cooking their food, helping with their buildings—and they learnt enthusiastically.

They were so grateful that they had learned the art of making fire, but before they could express their gratitude, he quietly slipped away. He didn’t even give them time to thank him because you know those rare human beings endowed with greatness—they’re not bothered about being remembered, they’re not bothered about being thanked—they want your good.

He went to another tribe, and he began to teach them to make fire. The people were enthusiastic, and he began to get more and more popular. The priests feared that their own popularity would diminish, so they decided to get rid of him by poisoning him. A suspicion arose among the people that it was the priests who had done it, so you know what the priests did?

They had a portrait of the Great Inventor enthroned upon the main altar of the temple, and a liturgy designed so that his name would be revered and his memory kept alive. The greatest care was taken that not a single rubric of the liturgy was altered or omitted. The tools for making fire were enshrined within a casket and were said to bring healing to all who laid their hands on them with faith. The High Priest himself undertook the task of compiling a Life of the Inventor. This became the Holy Book in which the Inventor’s loving-kindness was offered as an example for all to emulate, his glorious deeds were eulogized, his superhuman nature made an article of faith. The priests saw to it that the Book was handed down to future generations, while they authoritatively interpreted the meaning of his words and the significance of his holy life and death. And they ruthlessly punished with death or excommunication anyone who deviated from their doctrine.

Caught up as they were in these religious tasks, the people completely forgot the art of making fire. The veneration, the worship, the ritual, were faithfully observed and went on decade after decade, century after century. But, there was no fire. Ritual, remembrance, gratitude, veneration, goodwill, yes. But, no fire.

The best religion in the world is the religion called Love, not the religion called ‘Lord, Lord’. Who says this thing about Love? Jesus Christ Himself. This is what Jesus Christ is all about. But we overemphasized the ‘Lord, Lord,’ didn’t we? Where’s the fire? And if worship isn’t leading to the fire, if adoration isn’t leading to love, if the liturgy isn’t leading to a clearer perception of reality, if God isn’t leading to life, of what use is religion except to create more division, more fanaticism, more antagonism? It is not from lack of religion in the ordinary sense of the word that the world is suffering, it is from lack of love, lack of awareness. And love is generated through awareness and through no other way. Understand the obstructions you are putting in the way of love, freedom, and happiness, and they will drop.

It’s your being that needs to be transformed. That’s the fire. That’s the transformation we’re talking about—literally another mind, another way of looking at things, another way of seeing everything. When that comes, you change, your deeds change, your life changes. That’s the fire.

Anything you do to get the fire, that’s prayer. Prayer is fire—’fire’ meaning transformation—that comes about from seeing one’s illusions and dropping them. This is what spirituality is all about. Tragically, we tend to lose sight of this, don’t we?

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