QUOTE: Jean-Paul Sartre

"I had always realized it; I hadn't the right to exist. I had appeared by chance, I existed like a stone, a plant or a microbe. My life put out feelers towards small pleasures in every direction. Sometimes it sent out vague signals; at other times I felt nothing more than a harmless buzzing."

From the book Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre

Paulo Coelho's Warrior of the Light – Looking at the past

In this issue
- Dialogues with the Master – Looking at the past

I was never one to dwell on the past; I think that the present is the result of all that we have lived, and seeing how we act at this very moment suffices for us to understand our blessings and correct our curses.

But now that my life is being turned upside down by journalist-biographer Fernando Morais, I have also decided to look at some notes on my apprenticeship with J., my friend and master in the Regnus Agnus Mundi (RAM) tradition. Most of these notes were written between 1982 and 1986. Many years ago I published some of these dialogues in this column, and although the reaction from the readers was excellent, I felt it was enough. Nevertheless, on re-reading some dust-covered notebooks (I no longer take notes or keep diaries), I discovered some very special things. In the next four columns I shall transcribe those that strike me as most interesting.

One afternoon, sitting in a café in Copacabana after a week of long spiritual exercises that resulted in nothing, I asked: “I often feel that I am ignored by God, although I know that He is here by my side. Why is it so hard to establish a dialogue with the Divine?”

“On one hand we know that it is important to seek God. On the other hand, life distances us from Him – because we feel ignored by the Divine, or else because we are busy with our daily life. This makes us feel very guilty: either we feel that we are renouncing life too much because of God, or else we feel that we are renouncing God too much because of life. This apparent double law is a fantasy: God is in life, and life is in God. If we manage to penetrate the sacred harmony of our daily existence, we shall always be on the right road, because our daily tasks are also our divine tasks.”

“But what kind of exercise can I practice that will make me really believe what you are telling me?”

“Relax. When we start our spiritual journey, we want so very hard to speak to God – and we end up not hearing what He has to tell us. That is why it is always advisable to relax a little. It is not easy: we have the natural tendency always to do the right thing, and we feel that we are going to improve our spirit is we work at it non-stop.”

“Are you saying that I ought to be passive and not try to improve myself?”

“That depends on how you see your work. We may feel that all that life can offer us tomorrow is to repeat what we did yesterday and today. But if we pay attention we can see that no day is like another. Each and every morning brings a hidden blessing, a blessing that is only good for that particular day, for it cannot be kept or re-used. If we don’t take advantage of this miracle today, it will be lost.”

“But isn’t there some sure way of establishing this dialogue with the Divine, like meditation, for instance? Or endeavoring to make myself better every day?”

“Your question reveals a man committed to an idea, and if that question can always be kept present, everything will fit together. The ideal conditions that you are looking for don’t exist. We shall never be able to get rid of certain defects. The trick lies in knowing that despite all your flaws you have a reason for being here, and you have to honor that reason.

“Try to go beyond the limits that you are used to. For ten minutes a day, be that person you have always wanted to be. If the problem is shyness, stimulate conversation. If the problem is guilt, feel approved. If you think that the world ignores you, try consciously to attract everyone’s looks. You will experience the occasional difficult situation, but it’s worth it. If for ten minutes a day you can manage to be what you dreamed, you are already making great progress.”

I decided to provoke him by quoting a Buddhist scripture on the six difficulties of living in a house: the work involved in building it, more work still to pay for it, the work of always having to repair it, the risk of having it confiscated by the government, the house constantly full of visitors and undesirable guests, and the house being used as a hiding place for condemnable activities.

According to the same Buddhist text, there are six advantages of living under a bridge: you can easily be found, the river shows us that life is a passage, we are rid of the feeling of covetousness, we need no fences, someone new is always passing by to have a chat, and we don’t have to pay rent.

I ended by saying that it was a beautiful philosophy, but that at least in my country, when we see people living under bridges and viaducts, we know for sure that this text is wrong.

J. answered: “The text is beautiful, but in our context it is certainly wrong. However, that should not serve to feed our sense of guilt. We feel guilty for all that is authentic in ourselves – our salary, our opinions, our experiences, our hidden desires, the way we speak – we even feel guilty for our parents and our brothers.

“And what is the result? Paralysis. We grow ashamed of doing anything different from what the others are expecting. We do not expose our ideas, we don’t ask for help. We justify this by saying: ‘Jesus suffered, and suffering is necessary’. Jesus experienced many situations of suffering, but he never advocated staying still in those circumstances. Cowardice cannot be concealed with this type of excuse, otherwise the entire world fails to move ahead. That is why, if you see someone under a viaduct, you go to help them, because they are part of your world.”

“And how can that be changed?”

“Have faith. Believe that it is possible, and all the reality around you will begin to change.”

“Nobody can perform that task all alone. What I see is that most people don’t have enough faith.”

“Sometimes we criticize lack of faith in others. We aren’t capable of understanding the circumstances in which this faith has been lost, nor do we try to alleviate our brother’s misery – and this causes revolt and incredulity in the divine power.

“Humanist Robert Owen traveled all over England talking of God. In the 19th century it was common to use child labor in heavy work, and one afternoon Owen stopped at a coal mine where an undernourished twelve-year-old boy was lugging a heavy sack of bricks. ‘I am here to help you talk to God’, said Owen. ‘Thanks very much, but I don’t know him. He must work in another mine’, answered the boy. How can you expect a boy in those conditions to be able to believe in God?”

“Let me return the question. How could that be made possible?”

“Besides faith, have patience. Understand that you are not alone when you want Divine Justice to make itself manifest on this Earth. In the Middle Ages the Gothic cathedrals were built by several generations. This prolonged effort helped the participants to organize their thoughts, to give thanks and to dream. Today that Romanticism is ended, and yet the desire to build remains in our hearts, it’s just a question of being open to meet the right people.”

(ends in the next edition)

Copyright @ 2006 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of Light Online, published by www.paulocoelho.com.br

Selected Warrior of the Light issues are available as free e-books (PDF format) from the Smink Works Books site

Paulo Coelho's Warrior of the Light - They always know what’s best for us

In this issue

- They always know what’s best for us

Preventing rheumatism
The centipede decided to ask the wise man of the forest, a monkey, what was the best remedy for the pain in his legs.
"That’s rheumatism", said the monkey. "You’ve got too many legs. You ought to be like me; with just two, rheumatism hardly ever appears".
"And what do I do to have just two legs?"
"Don’t bother me with details", answered the monkey. "A wise man just gives the best advice; it’s up to you to solve the problem".

Can I help?
As soon as he opened the church, the priest saw a woman come in, sit down on the front pew, and put her head between her hands. Two hours later, he noticed that the woman was still there in the same position.
Worried, he decided to approach her:
"Can I do anything to help?" he asked.,
"No, thanks", she answered. "I was just getting all the help I need when you interrupted me".
Jesuit Anthony Mello comments: "in a monastery no-one wrote Don’t talk on the notice-board. What was written was: Talk only if you can make the silence better.”

I know what’s right
A peasant was returning home when he saw a donkey in the field.
"I’m not a donkey", said the animal. "I saw the Messiah being born. I have lived for two thousand years, and am still alive to give this testimony."
Frightened, the peasant ran to the church to tell the parish priest. "Impossible!", he said. The peasant took him by the hands and led him to where the donkey was. The animal repeated everything he had said before.
I repeat: animals cannot talk” said the priest.
But you just heard it talk!” insisted the peasant.
How stupid can you be! You’d rather believe a donkey than a priest! “

This will work for us too
A fable of the Lebanese writer Mikail Naaimé is a good illustration of the danger of following the methods of others, no matter how noble they may seem to be:
"We need to free ourselves from being slaves to men", said an ox to his companions. "For years we have listened to human beings saying that the door to freedom is stained with the blood of martyrs. Let’s discover that door and knock it down with the strength of our horns”.
For days and nights they walked down the road until they saw a door all stained with blood.
"Here is the door to freedom", they said. “We know that our brothers were sacrificed on this spot”.
One by one the oxen went through the door. And it was only inside, when it was too late, that they realized that it was the door to the slaughterhouse.

Deciding the fate of others
Malba Tahan tells the story of a man who came across an angel in the desert and gave him water. "I am the angel of death and have come to find you", said the angel. "But since you have been good, I will lend you the Book of Destiny for five minutes; you can change whatever you want".
The angel handed him the book. Leafing through the pages, the man read the lives of his neighbors. He was discontented: “Those people don’t deserve such good things", he thought. Pen in hand, he began to make each of their lives worse.
Finally he reached the page of his own destiny. He saw his tragic ending, but just as he was about to change it, the book vanished. Five minutes had passed.
And right there and then the angel took the man’s soul.

Copyright @ 2006 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of Light Online, published by www.paulocoelho.com.br

Selected Warrior of the Light issues are available as free e-books (PDF format) from the Smink Works Books site

THOUGHTS ON: Ishmael and longevity of life and world

I am surprised that the book Ishmael: An Adventure in Mind and Spirit hasn't crossed my reading path before now. It is an important book with concepts that are imperative to the world's longevity.
This book is peppered with so many lightbulb moments, but the most important one for me was the explanation about why most of the world seems aware of the fact that we have embarked on systematic destruction of the earth, but that it doesn't seem to amount to any serious action. Unbelievable but true. We just continue on, more or less happy to plunder it of its resources. And in some cases even denying that problems like global climate change/warming exist.
The most interesting point in the book for me is the proposition that we have interfered with evolution - somehow coming to the conclusion that we are the 'end' of the evolutional journey - which has given rise to massive population explosion that the world cannot support, for one, but the worst thing is that the 'civilised' part of the world's population wants more than it needs - this not only applies to food, but the insatiable 'hunger' of an incredible consumerist and throw-away mind-set. We think we need it to be happy, but there is much more mental illness in 'civilised' society than in other societal groups.
While reading it I was reminded of this quote by US journalist Ellen Goodman:
"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it."
Why do we think it's so important to have the right to live such futile lives?

SM