Paulo Coelho's Warrior of the Light - A Christmas Tale

Warrior of the Light
Issue n°162
A Christmas Tale

A medieval legend tells us that in the country we know today as Austria the Burkhard family – a man, a woman and a child – used to amuse people at Christmas parties by reciting poetry, singing ancient troubadour ballads, and juggling. Of course, there was never any money left over to buy presents, but the man always told his son:

“Do you know why Santa Claus’s bag never gets empty, although there are so many children in the world? Because it may be full of toys, but sometimes there are more important things to be delivered, what we call “invisible gifts”. In a broken home, he tries to bring harmony and peace on the holiest night in Christianity. Where love is lacking, he deposits a seed of faith in children’s hearts. Where the future seems black and uncertain, he brings hope. In our case, the day after Father Christmas comes to visit us, we are happy to be still alive and doing our work, which is to make people happy. Never forget that.”

Time passed, the boy grew up, and one day the family passed in front of the impressive Melk Abbey, which had just been built.

“Father, do you remember many years ago you told me the story of Santa Claus and his invisible gifts? I think that I received one of those gifts once: the vocation to become a priest. Would you mind if now I took my first step towards what I have always dreamed of?”

Although they really needed their son’s company, the family understood and respected the boy’s wish. They knocked at the door of the monastery and were given a loving, generous welcome by the monks, who accepted the young Buckhard as a novice.

Christmas Eve came around. And precisely on that day, a special miracle happened in Melk: Our Lady, carrying the baby Jesus in her arms, decided to descend to Earth to visit the monastery.

All the priests lined up and each of them stood proudly before the Virgin trying to pay homage to the Madonna and her Son. One of them displayed the beautiful paintings that decorated the place, another showed a copy of a Bible that had taken a hundred years to be written and illustrated, while a third recited the names of all the saints.

At the very end of the line, young Buckhard anxiously waited his turn. His parents were simple people, and all that they had taught him was to toss balls up in the air and do some juggling.

When it came his turn, the other priests wanted to put an end to all the homage that had been paid, since the ex-juggler had nothing important to add and might even mar the image of the abbey.

Nevertheless, deep in his heart he also felt a great need to give something of himself to Jesus and the Virgin. Feeling very ashamed before the reproachful gaze of his brothers, he took some oranges from his pocket and began to toss them in the air and catch them in his hands, creating a beautiful circle in the air just as he used to do when he and his family traveled to all the fairs in the region.

At that instant, the baby Jesus, lying in Our Lady’s lap, began to clap his hands with joy. And it was to young Buckhard that the Virgin held out her arms to let him hold the smiling child for a few moments.

The legend ends by saying that on account of this miracle, every two hundred years a new Buckhard knocks on the door of Melk Abbey, is welcomed in, and for the whole time he remains there he warms the hearts of all who meet him.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - Convention of those wounded in love

Warrior of the Light
Issue n°161
Convention of those wounded in love

General provisions:

A – Whereas the saying “all is fair in love and war” is absolutely correct;

B – Whereas for war we have the Geneva Convention, approved on 22 August 1864, which provides for those wounded in the battle field, but until now no convention has been signed concerning those wounded in love, who are far greater in number;

It is hereby decreed that:

Article 1 – All lovers, of any sex, are alerted that love, besides being a blessing, is also something extremely dangerous, unpredictable and capable of causing serious damage. Consequently, anyone planning to love should be aware that they are exposing their body and soul to various types of wounds, and that they shall not be able to blame their partner at any moment, since the risk is the same for both.

Article 2 – Once struck by a stray arrow fired from Cupid’s bow, they should immediately ask the archer to shoot the same arrow in the opposite direction, so as not to be afflicted by the wound known as “unrequited love”. Should Cupid refuse to perform such a gesture, the Convention now being promulgated demands that the wounded partner remove the arrow from his/her heart and throw it in the garbage. In order to guarantee this, those concerned should avoid telephone calls, messages over the Internet, sending flowers that are always returned, or each and every means of seduction, since these may yield results in the short run but always end up wrong after a while. The Convention decrees that the wounded person should immediately seek the company of other people and try to control the obsessive thought: “this person is worth fighting for”.

Article 3 – If the wound is caused by third parties, in other words if the loved one has become interested in someone not in the script previously drafted, vengeance is expressly forbidden. In this case, it is allowed to use tears until the eyes dry up, to punch walls or pillows, to insult the ex-partner in conversations with friends, to allege his/her complete lack of taste, but without offending their honor. The Convention determines that the rule contained in Article 2 be applied: seek the company of other persons, preferably in places different from those frequented by the other party.

Article 4 – In the case of light wounds, herein classified as small treacheries, fulminating passions that are short-lived, passing sexual disinterest, the medicine called Pardon should be applied generously and quickly. Once this medicine has been applied, one should never reconsider one’s decision, not even once, and the theme must be completely forgotten and never used as an argument in a fight or in a moment of hatred.

Article 5 – In all definitive wounds, also known as “breaking up”, the only medicine capable of having an effect is called Time. It is no use seeking consolation from fortune-tellers (who always say that the lost lover will return), romantic books (which always have a happy ending), soap-operas on the television or other such things. One should suffer intensely, completely avoiding drugs, tranquilizers and praying to saints. Alcohol is only tolerated if kept to a maximum of two glasses of wine a day.

Final determination : Those wounded in love, unlike those wounded in armed conflict, are neither victims nor torturers. They chose something that is part of life, and so they have to accept both the agony and the ecstasy of their choice.
And those who have never been wounded in love will never be able to say: “I have lived”. Because they haven’t.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - On the banks of the river Adour

Warrior of the Light
Issue n°160
On the banks of the river Adour

“When I take off my glasses I can still see the path. I can’t see the details, but I can see the path,” says my wife, with her + 6.5 degrees of myopia, while we walk through a field of corn during our European holidays.

I tell her that the same happens to me: although I am not short-sighted, sometimes I can’t see the details, but I always try to keep my eyes fixed on my choices.

We end up at a river in the middle of nowhere, near the village of Arcizac-Adour. And all of a sudden I remember that I made a promise that I have not yet fulfilled. Three years ago we were both sitting on the banks of this very same river when we spotted a beautiful woman wearing waterproof boots up to the knees, walking on the river-bed with a sack on her shoulders. When she saw us, she came over and said:

“I know Jacqueline (a friend of ours). I asked her to introduce us and she answered: “You’ll meet them when you least expect it. My name is Isabelle Labaune.”

She explained that she was there cleaning the river of odd bits of rubbish (plastic bottles and beer cans carried down by the current), but that her true passion were horses. That afternoon we went to visit her stables.

Isabelle had a dozen or so animals, and did everything absolutely alone – she fed them, kept the place in order, cleaned the stables and fixed the tiles – indeed, all the work that would drive anyone crazy.

“I set up an association for people born with mental problems. I am absolutely certain that horse-riding makes them feel loved and integrated with society.”

Whenever I spent holidays in the region, I met Isabelle. Minibuses arrived bringing young people suffering from the Down Syndrome to ride the beautiful horses and stroll by the rivers and through the forests and parks. There was never an accident. The parents looked on with tears in their eyes, and Isabelle wore a smile on her lips. She was deeply proud of what she did: she woke at five in the morning, worked the whole day long, and went to bed early, exhausted.

She was a very attractive young woman. But she did not have a boyfriend:

“All the men who appear in my life want me to be a housewife. But I have a dream. I suffer when I am alone, but I would suffer a lot more if I abandoned the purpose of my life.”

The situation changed right at the beginning of 2006. One afternoon when I went to visit her, she told me she was in love. And that her boyfriend accepted her rhythm of life and was willing to help her in whatever way he could.

Some days later on I traveled to Brazil. I think that it was October when I received a message from her on the answering service of my mobile phone: she would like to see me - but I was far away and I paid no importance to the message, because nothing urgent ever happens in small towns in the interior.

When I returned to the Pyrenees in December, I went to have lunch with Jacqueline. That is when I found out that Isabelle had died of a fulminating cancer.

That night I lit a fire in my garden. I remained all alone looking at the flames and thinking about a woman who had done nothing but good in her life and whom God had taken away so early. I did not weep, but I felt a deep love in the air, as if she were present all around me. The next day I received a call from her boyfriend, who asked me to write something on her: she was gone, and nobody had ever known her work.

I promised to do so. But only today, when we were passing by the river and sat down in the same place, did I remember that I had made that promise, and now I am fulfilling it. Of the many people I have known in my life, one of the closest to saintliness was Isabelle Labaune.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - Everything Moves

Warrior of the Light
Issue n°157
Everything Moves

Everything moves. And everything moves to a rhythm. And everything that moves produces a sound; that is happening here and all over the world at this very moment. Our ancestors noticed the same thing when they tried to escape from the cold in their caves: things moved and made noise.

The first human beings perhaps looked on this with awe, and then with devotion: they understood that this was the way that a Superior Being communicated with them. They began to imitate the noises and movements around them, hoping to communicate with this Being: and dancing and music were born.

When we dance, we are free.

To put it better, our spirit can travel through the universe, while our body follows a rhythm that is not part of the routine. In this way, we can laugh at our sufferings large or small, and deliver ourselves to a new experience without any fear. While prayer and meditation take us to the sacred through silence and inner pondering, in dance we celebrate with others a kind of collective trance.

They can write whatever they want about dancing, but it is no use: you have to dance to find out what they are talking about. Dance to the point of exhaustion, like mountain-climbers scaling some sacred peak. Dance until, out of breath, our organism can receive oxygen in a way that it is not used to, and this ends up making us lose our identity, our relation with space and time.

Of course we can dance alone, if that helps us to get over our shyness. But whenever possible, it is better to dance in a group, because one stimulates the other and this ends up creating a magic space where all are connected in the same energy.

To dance, it is not necessary to learn in some school; just let our body teach us – because we have danced since the darkest times, and we never forget that. When I was an adolescent I envied the great “ballerinos” among the kids on the block, and pretended I had other things to do at parties – like having a conversation. But in fact I was terrified of looking ridiculous, and because of that I would not risk a single step. Until one day a girl called Marcia called out to me in front of everybody:

“Come on!”

I said I did not like to dance, but she insisted. Everyone in the group was looking, and because I was in love (love is capable of so many things!), I could refuse no further. I was ridiculous, I did not know how to follow the steps, but Marcia did not stop; she went on dancing as if I were a Rudolf Nureyev.

“Forget the others and pay attention to the bass,” she whispered in my ear. “Try to follow its rhythm.”

At that moment I understood that we do not always have to learn the most important things; they are already part of our nature. In youth, dancing is a fundamental rite of passage: for the very first time we feel a state of grace, a deep ecstasy, even if for the less tuned-in it is all just a bunch of boys and girls enjoying themselves at a party.

When we become adults, and when we grow old, we need to go on dancing. The rhythm changes, but music is part of life, and dancing is the consequence of letting this rhythm come inside us.

I still dance whenever I can. With dancing, the spiritual world and the real world manage to co-exist without any conflicts. As somebody once said, the classic ballerinas are always on tiptoe because they are at the same time touching the earth and reaching the sky.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - Fragments of a non-existing diary

Warrior of the Light
Issue n°157
Fragments of a non-existing diary

A Peruvian priest’s sermon

In my book “The Alchemist”, the young shepherd Santiago meets an old man in the town square. He is searching for a treasure, but does not know how to reach it. The old man starts up a conversation with him:
“How many sheep have you got?”
“Enough,” answers Santiago.
“Then we have a problem. I can’t help if you think you have enough sheep.”

Based on this extract, the Peruvian priest Clemente Sobrado wrote an interesting piece, which I transcribe below:

One of the biggest problems that we drag around with us all our life is to want to believe we have “enough sheep”. We are surrounded by certainties, and nobody wants someone showing up to propose something new. If we could only suspect that we don’t have everything, and that we aren’t all that we could be!
Maybe we are all faced with a very serious problem, namely that although we have the opportunity to help one another, the truth is that few people let themselves be helped.
Why is that? Because they think they have “enough sheep”. They already know everything, they are always right, they feel comfortable in their lives.
Almost all of us are like that: we have many things but few aspirations. We have many ideas already sorted out, and we don’t want to give them up. Our life scheme is already organized and we don’t need someone trying to make changes.
We’ve done enough praying, practiced charity, read the lives of the saints, gone to Mass, taken communion. A friend of mine once said: “I don’t know why I come to visit you, father. I am already a good Christian.”
On that day I could not help answering:
“Then don’t come to visit me, because there are a lot of people waiting to see me and they are all full of doubts. But one thing you ought to know: You aren’t bad enough to be bad, nor good enough to be good, nor holy enough to work miracles.
“You are just a Christian satisfied with what you have achieved. And all those who are satisfied have in fact renounced the ideal of always improving. Let’s talk about this some other time, all right?”
Ever since then, whenever we speak on the telephone he starts by saying: “this person who is calling hasn’t yet grown up as much as he could”.
Lord, give us always a dissatisfied heart.
Give us a heart where the questions that we never want to ask can be voiced.
Deliver us from our conformism.
Make us able to enjoy what we have, but let us understand that this is not everything.
Let us appreciate that we are good people.
But above all, make us always ask ourselves how we can become better people.
Because if we ask, then it is quite possible that You will come and show us horizons that we couldn’t see before.

Hakone, Japan

I finally manage to get my editor, Masao Masuda, to invite me to a traditional tea ceremony. We go to a mountain near Hakone, enter a small room, and his sister, dressed in the ritual kimono, serves us tea.
That is all. However, everything is done with such seriousness and protocol that a daily practice is changed into a moment of communion with the Universe.
The tea master, Okakusa Kasuko, explains what happens: “The ceremony is the adoration of the beautiful. All efforts are concentrated on the endeavor to attain Perfection through the imperfect gestures of daily life. All its beauty consists of respecting the simple things we do, because they can lead us to God.”

Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro

Strolling along the promenade, I hear a young woman saying to another in a very convincing voice: “I’ve programmed my life in the following way …”
That made me wonder: does she take into account things that happen just when we are not expecting them? Has she considered that maybe God has a different plan, a far more interesting one? Has she thought seriously about the hypothesis that, by including other people in her program, she might be interfering in different ideas and projects?
I am not sure whether the sentence I overheard was born of inexperience or total delirium.

Melbourne, Australia

I step out on to the stage with the usual apprehension. A local writer, introduces me and starts asking me questions. Before I can conclude my reasoning, he interrupts me and asks another question. When I answer, he says something like “that answer wasn’t very clear.” Five minutes later, I feel a certain restlessness in the audience. I remember Confucius, and do the only thing possible:
“Do you like what I write?” I ask.
“That doesn’t matter,” he answers. “I’m doing the interviewing, not you.”
“But it does matter. You don’t let me finish a sentence. Confucius said: ‘whenever possible, be clear.’ Let’s follow that advice and make things quite clear: do you like what I write?”
“No, I don’t. I have read only two books, and I hated them.”
“OK, so now we can continue.”
The camps were now defined. The audience relaxes, the environment fills with electricity, the interview turns into a true debate, and everyone – including the writer – is satisfied with the result.

In the plane between Melbourne and Los Angeles

This extract from the on-board magazine is attributed to Loren Eisley:
“The journey is difficult, long, sometimes impossible. Even so, I know few people who have let these difficulties stop them. We enter the world without knowing for sure what happened in the past, what consequences this has brought us, and what the future may have in store for us.
“We shall try to travel as far as we can. But looking at the landscape around us, we realize that it won’t be possible to know and learn everything.
”So what remains is for us to remember all about our journey so that we can tell stories. To our children and grandchildren, we can tell the marvels that we have seen and the dangers that we have faced. They too will be born and will die, they too will tell their stories to their descendants, and still the caravan won’t have reached its destination.”

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - Creep

Warrior of the Light
Issue n° 156 - Creep

Although the word is a bit on the strong side, the truth is that all of us have known a creep in our lives (the dictionary defines the term as “an individual without any character, dignity or spirit”). He is the kind of person who tries to stand out more when we are adolescents, when we are fighting to affirm our identities, our dreams, our place in the world. We are filled with doubts about what to do, and all of a sudden here comes the creep: always the leader, the one who thinks he is the best-looking, the most intelligent, the most able to face the challenges that lie ahead.

To remain in this position, he attacks our self-esteem: he wants us to think we are ugly, dull, without any future, and that we should imitate him and his way of leading the guys on the block (or in the building, or the condominium). In the case of boys, normally he imposes himself by brute force or by his “smart” attitudes, as if he knew more than everybody else. In the case of girls, the creep is always the one who seems to attract the looks of all the guys, get invited to all the parties, always be the most elegant.

Creeps (both male and female) look at us with a certain air of superiority and try to dictate the rules of the group. We naturally feel intimidated at such conduct, unsure of what to do, and end up letting the creep guide us for some time. Although we do not know it, we are giving the creep the power that he neither has nor deserves, and this will be the only moment in his life that his ephemeral light will manage to shine. But that is all part of our apprenticeship, since that is the way we develop our defenses in the future.
And so we grow up. Little by little each of us makes his choices, the group of adolescents splits up, and the creep disappears, although we still preserve his image of beauty, wisdom, leadership, elegance, strength and superiority.
During this important rite of passage called adolescence, all of us have our fundamental values tested – except the creep. While we suffer from feeling neglected, insecure and fragile, he sails smoothly by: after all, he is our leader! He does not have to endure all those endless difficult hours the rest of us spend on rainy afternoons and lying awake at nights.
One fine day, when we are already adults, we think about getting together with our friends from adolescence. We organize a party, usually in a restaurant – where everyone shows up with their husbands and wives. Nothing better than to sit down at a good meal, with good wine, and remember a little the years that made us all that we are today.
The creep shows up – generally married like the rest of us. We are all interested in what has become of his/her life, there is still a certain fascination and awe about an attitude so full of self-confidence. Where did that person go whom we secretly envied and admired?
The first surprise is that the creep went nowhere. Or rather, he may have taken a couple of successful steps, but soon life proved implacable towards his arrogance – the adult world is quite different from the one we live in when we are young.
But the creep still has one refuge: his adolescent gang. And since he thinks that the world has not moved forward, he wants to relive his moments of glory. When dinner starts, it seems that we have all been transported back, but soon we realize that he was just an instrument to enable us to grow. After a couple of drinks, we see the creep at bay, trying to prove a strength that no longer exists, feeling that we still believe that he is the leader of us all.
We smile, exchange kind words with everyone, pay the bill and leave with the impression that the creep has made the wrong choice. We think: “everything in that person should have worked out right, and it didn’t”.
All of us have known a creep or two in our lives. And that’s just as well.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - The Good Fight

Warrior of the Light
Issue n°155 - The Good Fight

“I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith,” says Paul in one of his Epistles. And it seems appropriate to remember the theme now that a new year is stretching out before us.
Men can never stop dreaming. Dreams are the food of the soul, just as food is to the body. In our existence we often see our dreams come undone, yet it is necessary to go on dreaming, otherwise our soul dies and Agape does not penetrate it. Agape is universal love, the love which is greater and more important than “liking” someone. In his famous sermon on dreams, Martin Luther King reminds us of the fact that Jesus asked us to love our enemies, not to like them. This greater love is what drives us to go on fighting in spite of everything, to keep faith and joy, and to fight the Good Fight.
The Good Fight is the one we wage because our heart asks for it. In heroic times, when the apostles went out into the world to preach the Gospel, or in the days of the knights errant, things were easier: there was a lot of territory to travel, and a lot of things to do. Nowadays, however, the world has changed and the Good Fight has been moved from the battle fields to within us.
The Good Fight is the one we wage on behalf of our dreams. When they explode in us with all their might – in our youth – we have a great deal of courage, but we still have not learned to fight. After much effort we eventually learn to fight, and then we no longer have the same courage to fight. This makes us turn against ourselves and we start fighting and becoming our own worst enemy. We say that our dreams were childish, difficult to make come true, or the fruit of our ignorance of the realities of life. We kill our dreams because we are afraid of fighting the Good Fight.
The first symptom that we are killing our dreams is lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life had time for everything. Those who did nothing were always tired and could hardly cope with the little work they had to do, always complaining that the day was too short. In fact, they were afraid of fighting the Good Fight.
The second symptom of the death of our dreams are our certainties. Because we do not want to see life as a great adventure to be lived, we begin to feel that we are wise, fair and correct in what little we ask of our existence. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day life and hear the noise of spears clashing, feel the smell of sweat and gun-powder, see the great defeats and the faces of warriors thirsty for victory. But we never perceive the joy, the immense joy in the heart of those who are fighting, because for them it does not matter who wins or loses, what matters only is to fight the Good Fight.
Finally, the third symptom of the death of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon, not asking too much of us and not asking more than what we want to give. So we feel that we are “mature”, leave aside the “fantasies of childhood” and guarantee our personal and professional success. We are surprised when someone our age says they still want this or that out of life. But deep in our heart we know that what has happened is that we gave up fighting for our dreams, fighting the Good Fight.
When we give up our dreams and find peace, we enjoy a period of tranquility. But our dead dreams begin to rot inside us and infest the whole atmosphere we live in. We start acting cruel towards those around us, and eventually begin to direct this cruelty towards ourselves. Sickness and psychoses appear. What we wanted to avoid in fighting – disappointment and defeat – becomes the only legacy of our cowardice. And one fine day the dead and rotten dreams make the air difficult to breathe and then we want to die, we want death to free us from our certainties, from our worries, and from that terrible Sunday-afternoon peace.
So, to avoid all that, let’s face 2007 with the reverence of mystery and the joy of adventure.

Learning from the simple things

In the Bragavad-Gita, Arjuna the warrior asks the Enlightened Lord:
“Who are you?”
Instead of answering “I am this,” Krishna## begins to talk of the small and big things in the world – and to say that he is there. Arjuna begins to see the face of God in everything around him.
However, although we are created in the image and likeness of the Almighty, we spend all our life trying to lock ourselves inside a bloc of coherency, certainty and opinions. We do not understand that we are in the flowers, in the mountains, in the things that we see on our way to work every day. We rarely think that we came from a mystery - birth – and are heading towards another mystery – death.
If we reflect on this, if we realize that the Divine presence and universal wisdom are in everything that surrounds us, we shall perform each action with more freedom. What follows are some stories on the matter:

The philosopher and the boatman

Sufi tradition tells the story of a philosopher who was crossing a river in a boat. During the crossing, he tried to display his wisdom to the boatman.
“Do you know what great contribution Schopenhauer left to humanity?”
“No,” replied the boatman. “But I know God, the river, and the simple wisdom of my people.”
“Well, just know that you have lost half of your life!”
In the middle of the river the boat hit a rock and sank. The boatman was swimming towards one of the banks when he saw the philosopher drowning.
“I don’t know how to swim!” he shouted in despair. “I told you that you had lost half your life by not knowing Schopenhauer, and now I am losing my whole life for not knowing something so simple!”

Meanwhile, Schopenhauer…

The German philosopher Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was walking along a street in Dresden, seeking answers to the questions that troubled him. All of a sudden he saw a garden and decided to spend some hours contemplating the flowers.
One of the neighbors noticed the man’s strange behavior and went to look for a policeman. Some minutes later, a policeman approached him.
“Who are you?” asked the policeman in a rough voice.
Schopenhauer looked at the man from head to toe.
“That is what I want to find out while I look at the flowers. If you can answer that question, I shall be forever grateful.”

And while out walking…

While walking through a field, a man spotted a scarecrow.
“You must be tired standing there in this lonely field with nothing to do,” he commented.
The scarecrow replied:
“There is great pleasure in driving away danger, and I never grow tired doing this.”
“Yes, I too have acted like that, and with good results,” agreed the man.
“But those who are full of straw inside are always chasing things away,” said the scarecrow.
The man took some years to understand the answer: those with flesh and blood in their body must accept some unexpected things. But those with nothing inside them are always driving off everything that comes near them – and not even the blessings of God can come close to them.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - Changing sound into color

Warrior of the Light
Issue n°154 : Changing sound into color

“Let’s stop for a bit. I can’t stand this orange color!”
Where is the orange color? We are at the Trastevere in Rome, and all that I can see are the bars, the people in the streets in this early frozen spring, all this to the sound of church bells ringing. It’s almost night-time on a cloudy day, so we can’t even blame the sun for the optical illusion.
I am strolling with an actress I have known for some time, but we have never had the chance to have a proper conversation. I stop as she requested, but only out of politeness, since this well-balanced professional woman must be crazier than I thought.
We go into a restaurant to have dinner. We order risotto with truffles, and a good wine. We chat about life, and once again she comes out with an absurd comment:
“This food is rectangular!”
She noticed the alarmed expression on my face. Rectangular food?
“You must think I’m crazy; I’m not. At a certain moment in my life I thought that I was color-blind, that I got colors all mixed up. I went to the doctor and discovered that I have a common neurological disorder.”
When I got back home I immediately started to research on the computer and was surprised to find out something that I had never heard of before in my life: synesthesia. A condition in which the stimulus of a certain sense provokes perception in another. Those who suffer from this type of disorder confuse sounds with smells, sights with taste, colors with touch (not necessarily in that logical order).
Some scientific studies claim that the vision of auras in human beings was born there; I disagree with these studies, for I believe that all of us really have an astral body that can be seen when we alter perception. But what fascinated me most in my research was to find out that what we perceive through our five senses is not an absolute truth. Synesthetic people have a notion of the world completely different from ours, though this does not prevent them from leading a relatively normal life. My actress friend works on Italian TV every day, and says that she eventually became used to it.
Delving a bit deeper into the matter, I discovered a study in the British journal Cognitive Neuropsychology. A team of researchers from University College in London, headed by Dr. Jamie Ward, went even further: some synesthetics can perceive colors in emotion-laden words such as “love” or “son”. The vast majority of them end up associating someone’s name with a certain tonality. Ward describes the case of a girl identified as G.W., who simply by hearing certain names had her field of vision entirely covered by a certain color associated with that word.
I learn from an art magazine that the halos that we see around the heads of saints may have been created by some synesthetic painter in days of old, then repeated by others without anyone wondering about the reason for that circle of light. The 1965 winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics once said in an interview: “when I write equations on the blackboard, I note the numbers and the letters in different colors”. One article explains that Feynman belongs to a group of persons for whom the number two can be yellow, the word car may taste like strawberry jam, and a certain musical note may evoke the image of a circle.
Ward says that synesthesia is by no means a disease: “quite unlike psychiatric disorders, synesthetic people have none of their basic functions compromised, but they do have a positive symptom which most other human beings lack”. The big problem lies in school-age children, who cannot understand why they feel things differently from others.
To my great surprise, some studies point out that one on every 300 people is synesthetic (although most say that the ratio is one in every 2,000).
The next day I called my friend and asked what sensation she always associated with me. “Gentle” was her answer.
Well, synesthesia can’t always be logical!

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - Conversations with Children

Warrior Of Light
Issue n°153 - Conversations with children

What is treason?

Walking down the street, the prophet asked: “aren’t we all children of the same Eternal Father?”
The multitude agreed. And the prophet went on: “and if that is so, why do we betray our brother?”
A boy who was watching asked his father: “what does betray mean?”
“It means to trick your companion in order to gain a certain advantage.”
“And why do we betray our companion?” insisted the boy.
“Because in the past somebody began all that. Ever since then, nobody knows how to stop the wheel. We are always betraying or being betrayed.”
“Then I won’t betray anyone,” said the boy.
And so he did. He grew up and suffered a lot during his life, but kept his promise.
His children suffered less and endured fewer hardships.
His grandchildren did not suffer at all.

On jealousy

When she was eleven years old, Anita went to her mother to complain. “I can’t manage to have friends. They all stay away from me because I’m so jealous.”
Her mother was taking care of newly-born chickens, and Anita held up one of them, which immediately tried to escape. The more the girl squeezed it in her hands, the more the chicken struggled.
Her mother said: “try holding it gently.”
Anita obeyed her. She opened her hands and the chicken stopped struggling. She began to stroke it and the chicken cuddled up between her fingers.
“Human beings are like that too,” said her mother. “If you want to hold onto them by any means, they escape. But if you are kind to them, they will remain for ever by your side.”

The three things

Chen Ziqin asked Confucius’s son: “does your father teach you something that we don’t know?”
The other answered: “No. Once, when I was alone, he asked if I read poetry. I said no, and he told me to read some, because poetry opens the soul to the path of divine inspiration.
“On another occasion he asked whether I practiced the rituals of adoration of God. I said no, and he told me to do so, because the act of adoring would make me understand myself. But he never kept an eye on me to see if I was obeying him.”
When Chen Ziqin left, he said to himself:
“I asked one question and was given three answers. I learned something about poetry. I learned something about the rituals of adoration. And I learned that an honest man never spies on the honesty of others.”

In search of rain

After four years of drought in the little village, the parish priest gathered everybody to make a pilgrimage to the mountain; there they would join in communal prayer to ask for rain.
In the middle of the group the priest noticed a boy all wrapped up in warm clothes and covered by a raincoat.
“Are you crazy?” he asked. “It hasn’t rained in this region for five years and you’ll die of the heat climbing the mountain!”
“I’ve got a cold, father. If we are going to pray to God for rain, can you imagine the climb back down? The downpour is going to be so heavy that it’s better to be prepared.”
At that very moment a loud roar was heard in the sky and the first drops began to fall. The faith of a boy was enough to work a miracle that thousands of men were praying for.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - The tree and its fruits

Warrior Of Light
Issue n°152 The tree and its fruits

A warrior remembers the past. He knows man’s Spiritual Quest, knows that this has accounted for some of the best pages in History.

And also some of its worst chapters; massacres, sacrifices, obscurantism. The Quest has been used for private ends and its ideals have served as a shield for terrible scheming.

The warrior has already heard comments of the type: “how am I to know if this is the right path?” He has seen many people give up the Quest because they did not know how to answer that question.

The warrior, however, has no doubts; he follows an infallible formula. “By its fruits you shall know the tree,” said Jesus.

He follows this rule, and it never fails.

The fruits of those who refuse to listen

A prophet arrived at a large city in Persia and crowds gathered around him every morning. But time passed and his presence was no longer a novelty.

“We already know all that you had to teach us,” they said, going to look for a new prophet to show them the way.

Even without anyone to listen to him, the prophet continued to go to the square to deliver his sermon.

“Why do you insist on continuing here?” asked a boy. “Don’t you see you’re talking to yourself?”

“Those who have the courage to say what they feel in their soul are in touch with God. I try to listen to Him when I am talking.

“The fact that now and again I have an audience does not change a thing.”

The fruits of those who refuse to receive

During a dinner at the Sceta monastery, the oldest priest rose to serve the others water. He moved from table to table with considerable effort, but none of the priests accepted.

“We are unworthy of the service of this saint,” they thought.

When the old man reached Abbot Little John’s table, he was asked to fill his glass to the very brim. The other monks looked on in horror. At the end of dinner, they surrounded Little John:

“How can you deem yourself worthy of accepting that water? Didn’t you notice the sacrifice he was making to serve you?”

“How can I stop good from manifesting itself? You who take yourselves for saints did not have the humility to receive, and deprived the poor man of the joy of giving.”

The fruits of the human heart

Sufi tradition tells the story of a king who looked for good painters to decorate his palace. Two teams – one Greek and one Chinese – appeared with their best artists, trying to obtain some work that would earn them thousands of gold pieces.

As a test, the king asked each of them to decorate a wall of one of the rooms. To prevent one group from seeing the work of the other, he chose opposite walls and hung a curtain in the middle.

The Chinese painted their wall with the utmost care, whereas the Greeks spent the whole time polishing the surface of the other wall over and over again. Finally the day arrived when the king decided to remove the curtain and compare the results.

On one side he saw the beautiful Chinese painting. On the other wall, which had been polished until it turned into a mirror, the king also saw the beautiful Chinese painting – but with his own image in the middle.

“This is the better,” said the king. And the Greeks won the contract, because they knew how to deal with the fruits hidden in the human heart.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - Twenty Years Later

Warrior Of Light
Issue n°151 - Twenty Years Later

Next week we commemorate Santiago de Compostela day (25th July). Last year, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of my first Santiago Walk, I made the pilgrimage again, by car, in the company of my wife.

I remember one afternoon sitting in a garden in Leon, looking at the river flowing by.

Beside me, Christina – my wife – is reading a book. Spring is beginning in Europe, so now we can put away our thick winter clothes. We have been traveling by car all these days, passing through certain places that have marked our lives (Christina traveled the Road to Santiago in 1990). Though not in any hurry, we have covered 500 kilometers in less than a week.

Mineral water. Coffee.

People talking, people walking.

People also having their coffee and mineral water.

Then I go back twenty years in time, to one afternoon in July or August 1986, a coffee, a mineral water, people talking and walking – except this time the scenario is the plain that stretches out beyond Castrojeriz. My birthday draws near; I left Saint Jean Pied-de-Port some time ago and have covered just over half the journey to Santiago de Compostela.

Walking speed: 20 kilometers a day.

I look ahead, the monotonous landscape, the guide also having his coffee in a bar that seems to have appeared out of nowhere. I look behind; the same monotonous landscape, the only difference being that the dust on the ground bears the marks of the soles of my shoes – but that is temporary, and the wind will sweep them away before night falls.

Everything seems unreal to me.

What am I doing here? This question goes on pursuing me, although several weeks have already gone by.

I am looking for a sword. I am performing a ritual of RAM, a small order within the Catholic Church without any secrets or mysteries besides trying to understand the symbolic language of the world. I am thinking that I have been fooled, that the spiritual quest is just something with no sense or logic and that I would be better off in Brazil, caring about what I always cared about.

I am doubting my own sincerity in this quest, because it is hard work looking for a God who never shows Himself, praying at specific times, traveling strange roads, being disciplined, accepting orders that seem absurd.

That’s it: I doubt my sincerity. During all these days, Petrus has said that the road belongs to everyone, the common folk, which makes me very disappointed. I thought that all this effort would ensure me a special place among the few chosen who approach the great archetypes of the universe. I thought that I was finally going to discover that it was all true, all those stories about secret governments of wise men in Tibet, magic potions capable of provoking love where there is no attraction, and rituals where all of a sudden the gates of Paradise open up, was all true.

But what Petrus tells me is exactly the opposite: there are no chosen. We are all chosen, if instead of wondering “what am I doing here?” we decide to do something that fills our hearts with enthusiasm. Working with enthusiasm, love that transforms, the choice that leads us to God, that is where the gates of Paradise are to be found.

And this enthusiasm connects us to the Holy Spirit, not the hundreds and thousands of readings of the classic texts. It is wanting to believe that life is a miracle that enables miracles to happen, not the so-called “secret rituals” or “initiatory orders”. In short, it is man’s decision to comply with his destiny that really makes him a man – not the theories that he develops around the mystery of existence.

And here I am. A little beyond halfway on the road to Santiago de Compostela. If everything is as simple as Petrus says, why all this useless adventure?
On that afternoon in León in the far-off year of 1986, I still do not know that in six or seven years’ time I will write a book on this experience of mine, which is already in my soul - the shepherd Santiago in quest of a treasure - that a woman called Veronika had prepared to swallow some pills and try to commit suicide, and that Pilar will stand on the banks of the river Piedra and write her diary in tears.

All I know is that I am on this absurd and monotonous walk. There is no fax, no cellular phone, the shelters are few and far between, my guide seems irritated the whole time, and I have no way of knowing what is going on in Brazil.

All I know at this very moment is that I am tense, nervous, incapable of talking with Petrus because I have just realized that I can no longer go on doing what I have been doing – even if this means giving up a reasonable amount of money at the end of the month, a certain emotional stability, a job that I know well and some techniques that I master. I need to change, follow in the direction of my dream, a dream that seems to me childish, ridiculous and impossible to make come true: to become the writer that I have secretly always wanted to be, but have never had the courage to admit.

Petrus finishes his coffee and mineral water, asks me to get the check and for us to start walking again, because there are still some kilometers to the next town. People go on passing by and talking, looking out of the corner of their eye at these two middle-aged pilgrims, wondering about the strange people in this world who are always ready to try and relive a past that is already dead (*). The temperature must be around 27o C because it is late afternoon and for the thousandth time I ask myself whether I have made the wrong decision.

Did I want to change? I don’t think so, but after all, this road is changing me. Did I want to know the mysteries? I think so, but the road is teaching me that there are no mysteries, that – as Jesus Christ said – nothing is hidden that has not been revealed. In other words, everything is happening in exactly the opposite way from what I expected.

We rose and started to walk in silence. I am engrossed in my thoughts, in my insecurity, and I imagine Petrus must be thinking about his job in Milan. He is here because somehow he was obliged by Tradition, but perhaps he hopes that the walk will soon come to an end so that he can get back to doing what he likes.

We walk for almost all of what remains of the afternoon without talking. We are isolated in our forced companionship. Santiago de Compostela lies ahead and I cannot imagine that this road leads me not only to this city, but also to many other cities in the world. Neither I nor Petrus know that this afternoon on the plain of León I am also walking to Milan, his city, which I shall reach almost ten years from now, with a book called “The Alchemist”. I am walking towards my destiny, dreamed of so many times and so many times denied.

In a few days I shall arrive at exactly the place where today, twenty years down the track, I write these lines. I am walking in the direction of what I always wanted, and I have neither faith nor hope that my life will be changed.

Yet I push ahead. In some distant future, in one of the bars which I shall pass by a few days from now, my wife is already sitting reading a book, and there am I, writing this text on a computer that in a few minutes will send it by Internet to the newspaper where it will be published.

I am walking towards that future – on this August afternoon in 1986.
(*) in the year I made the pilgrimage, only 400 people had taken the Road to Santiago. In 2005, according to non-official statistics, 400 people passed every day in front of the bar mentioned in the text.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - Deep in the Heart

Warrior Of Light
Issue n°150: Deep in the heart

Some months ago I published here a column with the title “The basement secrets”, describing a retreat that ended in a magic dinner in the underground area of Melk Abbey in Austria. In that article I commented that on looking deep into the basement of my soul, all that I could find were my mistakes, and that I would try to organize them so that rather than frighten me, they would help me understand better those things that I should not repeat. Among other people, I was in the company of the Abbot, Dr. Burkhard Ellegast, OSB, whom I consider a spiritual master, although we do not have a language in common (I can’t even ask for a glass of water in German). To my surprise, Abbot Burkhard wrote a text about “The basement secrets”, and here I adapt some of his reflections.

“We often wonder: how come that happened to us? All of a sudden I saw myself surrounded by people who were willing to reflect on the meaning of life. What could I say to these people, if all that had happened in my life was to enter an abbey at an early age and later be put in charge of directing this same abbey for 26 years?”

“I think that people look at me as if I had an answer to everything. But all that I decided to do was speak a little about myself. To say that my faith is capable of keeping me alive and enthusiastic and to go ahead despite the moments of pessimism. Then I explained my motto: if I ever make a false step and get dragged down to the bottom, this will never be done in a quiet manner. Everyone will see and hear me shouting, kicking, and waving flags so that I can serve as an alert for those who will come later.

“Because of this motto, I know that I will hardly make others follow me in my errors, and so I manage to master my fear and risk sailing my boat into unknown waters. I know, of course, that if I begin to drown, despite all the noise that I will be making, I will still be able to raise my hand and beg: God, please come to my help! In all certainty I will be heard, and a new path will be opened”.

“In his article, Paulo Coelho comments that he was surprised to see that I introduced him using a text from his book “Eleven minutes” (Note – the book is all about sex and prostitution, no wonder I was surprised!). I read an extract from the diary of the main character, where she tells the story of a lovely bird who used to visit her. She admired it so much that one day she decided to keep it in a cage so that she could always have its singing and its beauty near her. As the days went by, she grew used to the new company and lost that wonderful feeling of waiting for that free soul to come visit her from time to time, without being obliged to do so. The bird in turn was unable to sing in captivity, and ended up dying. Only then did she understand that love needs freedom to express all its charm – although freedom implies risks.

“We tend to want to capture things because we usually see freedom as something that has no borders or responsibilities. And because of this we also end up trying to enslave all that we love – as if egoism were the only way to keep our world well balanced. Love does not limit, it broadens our horizons, we can see clearly what lies outside and we can see even more clearly the dark places in our heart.

“Although I do not speak English, I could understand everything that Coelho’s eyes and gestures said. I can still remember when he asked me, through one of the people present, what he should do now. I answered him: keep on looking.

“And even when you find, keep on looking, with enthusiasm and curiosity. In spite of the mistakes that will eventually be committed, love is stronger, it allows the bird to fly free, and each step will be not just a movement forward but will contain in itself a whole new path”.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - The Sign

Issue No. 149 The Sign

Once upon a time there was a wise man called Sidi Mehrez. He was very annoyed with the place where he lived, a beautiful town on the Mediterranean Sea where men and women lived in depraved fashion, and money was the only value that mattered. As Mehrez was also a saint and worked miracles, he decided to enfold Tunis in his long scarf and toss it into the ocean.

Buildings began to tumble, the ground rose up, the inhabitants started to panic on seeing that they were being hurled towards their death. In despair, they decided to ask for help from a friend of Mehrez, called Sidi Ben Arous. Ben Arous managed to convince the strict saint to interrupt the destruction, but ever since then the streets of Tunis have been rough and uneven.

I stroll through the bazaar of this African city, borne by the winds of this pilgrimage to celebrate the 20th anniversary of my first walk to Santiago in 1986. I am accompanied by Adam Fathi and Samir Benali, two local writers; fifteen kilometers away stand the ruins of Carthage, which in the remote past was capable of challenging powerful Rome. We discuss the epic of Hannibal, one of the city’s warriors: the Romans expected a sea battle (the two cities were separated only by a few hundred sea kilometers), but Hannibal braved the desert, crossed the straits of Gibraltar with an enormous army, marched through Spain and France, climbed the Alps with soldiers and elephants, and attacked the Empire from the North. He defeated all the enemies in his path and then suddenly, without anyone knowing exactly why, he stopped before Rome and did not attack it at the opportune moment. The result of this indecision was that Carthage was scored off the map by the Roman ships.

We pass by a beautiful building: in 1754, one brother murdered another and their father decided to erect this palace to house a school that would keep alive the memory of his murdered son. I comment that by doing so, the murdered son would also be remembered.

“That’s not quite true,” answers Samil. “In our culture, the criminal shares the blame with all those who allowed him to commit the crime. When a man is executed, the one who sold him the arm is also responsible before God. The only way for the father to correct what he considered a fault was by changing the tragedy into something that can help others: instead of vengeance limited to punishment, the school has enabled instruction and wisdom to be transmitted for over two centuries.”

On one of the doors of the old wall hangs a lantern. Fathi comments that I am a well-known writer, whereas he is still struggling for recognition:

“Here we have the origin of one of the most famous of Arab proverbs: “light only illuminates strangers.”

I reply that Jesus made the same comment: no-one is a prophet in his own country. We always tend to lend value to what comes from afar, without ever recognizing all the beauty that is around us.

We go into an old palace that has been transformed into a cultural center. My two friends begin to explain to me the story of the place, but my attention is completely distracted by the sound of a piano and I begin to follow it through the labyrinths of the building. I end up in a room where a man and a woman, apparently oblivious to the world, are playing the “Turkish March” for four hands. I remember that some years ago I saw something similar – a pianist in a shopping center, engrossed in his music, paying no attention at all to the people who passed by talking loud or with their radios turned on.

But here there are only the three of us and the two pianists. I can see the expression on both their faces: joy, sheer and utter joy. They are not there to impress an audience, but rather because they feel that this is the gift that God has given them to talk with their souls. Likewise, the souls of Adam, Samil and Paulo also end up talking to one another, and we all feel closer to the meaning of life.

We listened in silence for an hour. At the end we applauded, and when I returned to the hotel I thought for a while about that lantern.

Yes, it may be that it only shines on the stranger, but what difference does that make when we are possessed by this vast love for what we do?

Thank God the room is packed for my talk in this African country. I am to be introduced by two local intellectuals; we have met before - one of them has a two-minute text, the other has written a quarter-hour thesis on my work.

The coordinator very carefully explains that it will be impossible to read the thesis, since the meeting is to last 50 minutes at most. I imagine how hard the intellectual must have worked on his text, but I think that the coordinator is right: I am there to talk to my readers, who are the main reason for the meeting.

The lecture begins. The introductions last five minutes at most, so now I have 45 minutes for an open dialogue. I say that I am not there to explain anything and that it would be interesting to try to hold a dialogue.

The first question comes from a young woman: what are the signs that I speak so much about in my books? I explain that this is an extremely personal language that we develop all through our life by making mistakes and getting things right, until we understand when God is guiding us. Somebody else asks if it was a sign that brought me to this far-off country. I answer yes, I have been on a 90-day journey to celebrate the 20th anniversary of my first pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

The conversation continues, the time passes quickly, and I have to bring the talk to an end. From amid 600 people I choose a middle-aged man with a bushy moustache to ask the final question.

And the man says:

“I don’t want to ask any questions. I just want to say a name.”

And he says the name of a small hermitage located in the middle of nowhere thousands of kilometers from where I find myself, where one day I placed a plaque giving thanks for a miracle. And where I returned before this pilgrimage to ask the Virgin to protect my steps.

I no longer know how to continue the meeting. The following words were written by Adam Fethi, one of the two writers who made up the table:

“And suddenly the Universe in that room seemed to have stopped moving. So many things happened: I saw your tears. And I saw the tears of your sweet wife when that anonymous reader said the name of a chapel lost somewhere in the world.

“You lost your voice. Your smiling face grew serious. Your eyes filled with timid tears that trembled on the edge of your eyelashes as if apologizing for being there without being invited.

“I was there too, feeling a knot in the throat and not knowing why. I looked for my wife and my daughter in the audience, they are the ones I always look for when I feel on the brink of something I don’t understand. They were there, but their eyes were fixed on you, silent like everyone else there, trying to lend you support with their eyes, as if eyes could support a man.

“So I tried to concentrate on Christina, asking for help, trying to understand what was going on, how to end that silence that seemed infinite. And I saw that she too was crying, in silence, as if you were notes of the same symphony, as if your tears were joining the two of you despite the distance.

“And for long seconds there was no longer any room, no audience, nothing at all. You and your wife had parted to a place where no-one could follow you; all that existed was the joy of living all this, which was told only in silence and emotion.

“Words are tears that have been written. Tears are words that need pouring out. Without them no joy can shine, no sadness can come to an end. So, thank you for your tears.”

I should have told the young woman who asked the first question – about signs – that this was one of them, affirming that I found myself in the place where I should be, at the right moment, despite never properly understanding what took me there.

But I think that was not necessary: she must have realized.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - Meditation Walking

Issue n°148: Meditation walking
I arrive at Santiago de Compostela, this time by car, to celebrate my pilgrimage twenty years ago. When I was in Puente La Reina, I had the idea of holding afternoon book-signings without any elaborate preparations: just calling the next town where we were going to spend the night, ask them to put up a notice in the local bookstore, and be there at the appointed time.

It worked wonderfully in the small villages, but it did take a bit more organizing in big towns, like Santiago de Compostela itself. I had an unexpected meeting with readers, and I learned that things done with love can find improvising to be a great ally.

Santiago was now in front of me. And a few dozen kilometers further ahead lay the Atlantic Ocean. But I am determined to go ahead with my improvised book-signing afternoons, since my plan is to spend ninety days away from home.

And since I have no intention of crossing the ocean right now, should I take a right (Santander, the Basque Country) or a left (Guimarães, Portugal)?

Better let destiny make the choice: my wife and I enter a bar and ask a man who is drinking his coffee: right or left? He says with some conviction that we should go left – perhaps thinking we were referring to political parties.

I telephone my Portuguese editor. He does not ask me if I have gone crazy, does not complain about being informed at the last moment. Two hours later he calls me back to say that he has contacted the local radio stations in Guimarães and Fatima and that in 24 hours I can meet my readers in those cities.

Everything works out fine.

And in Fatima, like a sign, I receive a present from one of the people present at the book-signing – the writings of a Buddhist monk called Thich Nhat Hanh, with the title “The long road to joy”. From that moment on, before I continue on this 90-day journey across the world, every morning I read the wise words of Nhat Hanh, which I summarize below:

1] You have already arrived. So, feel pleasure at each step and do not worry about things that you still have to face. We have nothing before us, just a road to be traveled at each moment with joy. When we practice pilgrim meditation, we are always arriving, our home is the present moment, and nothing more.

2] For that reason, always smile while you walk. Even if you have to force it a bit and feel ridiculous. Get used to smiling and you will end up happy. Do not be afraid of displaying your contentment.

3] If you think that peace and joy always lie ahead, you will never manage to achieve them. Try to understand that they are both your traveling companions.

4] When you walk, you are massaging and honoring the earth. In the same way, the earth is trying to help you to balance your organism and mind. Understand this relationship and try to respect it – may your steps have the firmness of a lion, the elegance of a tiger and the dignity of an emperor.

5] Pay attention to what is going on around you. And concentrate on your breathing – this will help you to get rid of the problems and worries that try to accompany you on your journey.

6] When you walk, it is not just you that is moving, but all past and future generations. In the so-called “real” world, time is a measure, but in the true world nothing exists beyond the present moment. Be fully aware that everything that has happened and everything that will happen is in each step you take.

7] Enjoy yourself. Make pilgrim meditation a constant meeting with yourself, never a penance in search of reward. May flowers and fruit always grow in the places touched by your feet.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - Two stories about Mountains

Issue n°147: Two Stories About Mountains
Here where I stand

After having won many archery competitions, the town champion sought out the Zen master.
“I am the best of all,” he said. “I did not learn religion, I did not look for help from the monks, and I have been considered the best archer in the whole region. I heard that some time ago you were the best archer in the area, so I ask you: did you have to become a monk to learn to shoot arrows?
“No,” answered the Zen master.
But the champion was not satisfied: he took out an arrow, placed it in his bow, fired, and hit a cherry at a considerable distance. He smiled, as if to say: “You could have saved your time and just dedicated yourself to technique.” And he said:
“I doubt if you can do the same.”
Without demonstrating the least concern, the master took his bow and began to walk towards a nearby mountain. On the way there was an abyss that could only be crossed by an old rotting rope bridge that was almost falling down: with the utmost calm, the Zen master went to the middle of the bridge, took his bow, placed an arrow, aimed at a tree on the other side of the gulch, and hit the target.
“Now it’s your turn,” he said gently to the young man as he walked back to safe ground.
In trepidation, looking at the abyss below him, the young man went to the indicated spot and fired an arrow, but it landed very far from the target.
“That’s what one gets from discipline and practicing meditation,” concluded the master when the young man re-appeared at his side. “You can be very skilled with the instrument you have chosen to earn a living, but it’s all useless if you can’t manage to master the mind that uses the instrument.”

Contemplating the desert

Three people who were passing in a small caravan saw a man contemplating the sunset in the Sahara desert from the top of a mountain.
“It must be a shepherd who has lost a sheep and is trying to find it,” said the first.
“No, I don’t think he is looking for something, especially not at sunset - that confuses your vision. I think he is waiting for a friend.”
“I bet he’s a holy man looking for enlightenment,” commented the third.
They began to discuss what the man was doing, and got so involved in the discussion that they nearly ended up fighting with one another. Finally, to find out who was right, they decided to climb the mountain and ask the man.
“Are you looking for your sheep?” asked the first.
“No, I don’t have a flock.”
“Then you must be waiting for someone,” claimed the second.
“I am a lonely man who lives in the desert,” was the answer.
“Since you live in the desert, and in solitude, then we have to believe that you are a holy man in search of God, and you are meditating!” asserted the third man, content with this conclusion.
“Does everything on Earth need to have an explanation? So let me explain: I am here just looking at the sunset: isn’t that enough to lend a meaning to our lives?”

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - The Letter I can't Answer

Issue n°146: The letter I can’t answer

The letter that I can’t answer is lying right here on my desk. It reached me through the efforts of a Dutch couple who sent me an e-mail in June 2006. I lent it no importance, and did not answer. At the end of that same month they wrote again, and again I paid no attention. And then came the warning phrased in more serious words:

“This is the last time we are asking you this favor. It is up to you to write to Justin or not. Or to put it better, it is up to your conscience. I got to know your books because he recommended them. Yours truly, Jacobus” (I shall omit his surname).

I read the text of the e-mail carefully: it says that Justin Fuller, prisoner #999266 at the Polunsky Unit, Livingston, Texas, will be executed exactly on my birthday, the 24th August. His lawyer, Don Bailey, has already been to all the appeal courts, and it looks like the cause is lost. They are not asking me to denounce the fact publicly, or to take some position on the case: they just want me to send this reader some comforting words.

I type Justin’s name in a search tool. I see his photo, then I discover that there is a page with the names of all those who are (or have been) in death row in Texas. I see his criminal record at www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/fullerjustin.htm

I write the letter. The week following my birthday, Jacobus writes to me once more: Justin received it, and answered me before he was executed. The letter is waiting for me in a hotel I usually stay at in a certain town, and that I used as the sender’s address.

Finally, at the end of October 2006, I stop at the hotel. I know that a letter from a man condemned to death awaits me. I know that he has already been executed. I collect the letter, enter a bar, and read the words from someone whom I will never be able to answer. Whom I will never be able to ask permission to publish extracts, but since we are talking about a true aberration of justice – death as an instrument of the State – I shall copy some parts:

“Dear Mr. Coelho:

“Death row is the arena where the policies of Power, Retribution and Violence are applied to a man using materials such as concrete and steel, until this man turns into steel and his heart becomes as hard as concrete. However, though steel can be hard, it can still be flexible, and though the heart can be transformed into concrete, it still beats. Beyond the concrete and the steel stands the man, his love of life, and the great principles that rule human beings.

“Your letter surprised me. And it is very strange that my transcendence (Justin always uses this term instead of “execution”) is to take place just on your birthday. Of course, I hope it does not take place, but we both know that life is always accompanied by death. In the USA they execute prisoners in the name of what they call “justice” without taking into account whether they can be well represented in court, the circumstances of their birth and their family environment.

“While I wait out the last appeal to the Supreme Court, I feel full of life and strong, and my spirit is completely free.

“If I transcend, I will finally be able to float in the wind and enjoy freedom. I have realized that although my body is imprisoned, my life has changed and my soul can still love, because all freedom is mental. Many people in this world, although they are on the outside of prison, are far more in bondage than I am.

“Only when these people come to understand that freedom is a state of the mind will they be able to really enjoy it.”
The letter that I couldn’t answer is much longer. It describes the relationship that we built through my books, and it wishes me and my family all the best. And now it sits on my desk.

The letter that I couldn’t answer, from a man condemned to death, arrested when he was 19 years old and executed when he was 27, contains not a word of lamentation: it speaks of freedom and life.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - As if it were the first time

Issue n°145: As if it were the first time

I would like to believe that I am going to look on this new year as if it were the first time that 365 days have unfolded before my eyes. To see the people around me with surprise and amazement, happy to discover that they are by my side and sharing something so often mentioned and so seldom understood, called love.

I shall climb on the first bus that comes along without asking where it is going to and I shall get off as soon as I see something that catches my attention. I shall pass by a beggar who asks me for some spare change. Maybe I’ll give him something, maybe I’ll think that he will spend it on drink and just walk past – hearing his insults and understanding that that is the way he has to communicate with me. I shall pass by someone who is trying to wreck a telephone booth. Maybe I’ll try to stop them, maybe I’ll understand that they are doing that because there is nobody to talk to on the other side of the line and that is their way of chasing off loneliness.

On each of these 365 days I shall look at everything and everybody as if it were the first time – especially the small things that I am not used to and whose magic I have forgotten. The keys of my computer, for example, that move with an energy that I fail to understand. The paper that appears on the screen and for a long time has not been revealed in a physical manner, although I believe that I am writing on a white sheet where it is easy to make corrections by pressing a key. At the side of the computer monitor are some papers that I do not have the patience to put in order, but if I feel that they are hiding something new, than all these letters, memoranda, newspaper cuttings and receipts will gain a life of their own and will have odd stories of the past and the future to tell me. So many things in the world, so many paths trodden, so many entrances and exits in my life.

I am going to put on a shirt that I wear a lot and for the first time I shall pay attention to the label and the way it was sewn, and I am going to imagine the hands that designed it and the machines that changed this design into something material and visible.

And even the things that I am used to – such as my bow and arrows, the breakfast coffee mug, the boots that have become an extension of my feet after wearing them so much – will be coated in the mystery of discovery. Let everything that my hand touches, my eyes see and my mouth taste be different now, although they been the same for many a year. In that way they will no longer be still-lifes and start to convey the secret of having been with me for such a long time, and they will show me the miracle of coming into touch again with emotions already worn down by routine.

I want to look at the sun for the first time, if the sun comes out tomorrow, or at cloudy weather, if tomorrow is overcast. Above my head there is a sky for which all of humanity - over thousands of years of observation - has given a series of reasonable explanations. Well, I shall forget everything I have ever learned about the stars, and they will once more turn into angels, or children, or anything else that I feel like believing in at the moment.
Time and life have changed everything into something perfectly understandable – and I need mystery, the thunder that is the voice of an angry god rather than just a simple electric discharge that sets off vibrations in the atmosphere. I want to fill my life again with fantasy, because an angry god is far more curious, frightening and interesting than a phenomenon of physics.

And finally, let me look at myself on each of these 365 days as if it were the first time that I was in contact with my body and my soul. Let me look at this person who walks, feels and talks like any other, let me feel surprised at his most simple gestures, like chatting to the mailman, opening his correspondence, contemplating his wife sleeping at his side, wondering what she is dreaming about.

And so I shall remain what I am and what I like to be, a constant surprise to myself. This I who was not created by my father or by my mother, nor by my school, but by all that I have lived so far - suddenly I forgot and am discovering it all over again.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - Manual for conserving paths

Issue n°144: Manual for conserving paths
1] The path begins with a crossroads. There you can stop and think what direction to follow. But don’t spend too much time thinking or you’ll never leave the spot. Ask yourself the classic Castañeda question: which of these paths has a heart? Reflect a lot on the choices that lie ahead, but once you have taken the first step, forget the crossroads for ever or else you will always torture yourself with the useless question: “did I take the right path?” If you listened to your heart before making the first movement, you chose the right path.

2] The path doesn’t last for ever. It is a blessing to travel the path for some time, but one day it will come to an end, so always be prepared to take leave of it at any moment. However enraptured you may be at certain landscapes, or scared whenever you have to make a great effort to go ahead, don’t get too used to anything. Neither to the hours of euphoria, nor to the endless days when everything seems so difficult and progress is so slow. Don’t forget that sooner or later an angel will appear and your journey will reach an end.

3] Honor your path. It was your choice, your decision, and just as you respect the ground you step on, that ground will respect your feet. Always do what is best to conserve and keep your path and it will do the same for you.

4] Be well equipped. Carry a small rake, a spade, a penknife. Understand that penknives are no use for dry leaves, and rakes are useless for herbs that are deep-rooted. Know also what tool to use at each moment. And take care of them, because they are your best allies.

5] The path goes forward and backward. At times you have to go back because something was lost, or else a message to be delivered was forgotten in your pocket. A well tended path enables you to go back without any great problems.

6] Take care of the path before you take care of what is around you. Attention and concentration are fundamental. Don’t be distracted by the dry leaves at the edges or by the way that others are looking after their paths. Use your energy to tend and conserve the ground that accepts your steps.

7] Be patient. Sometimes the same tasks have to be repeated, like tearing up weeds or closing holes that appear after unexpected rain. Don’t let that annoy you - that is part of the journey. Even though you are tired, even though certain tasks are repeated so often, be patient.

8] Paths cross. People can tell what the weather is like. Listen to advice, and make your own decisions. You alone are responsible for the path that was entrusted to you.

9] Nature follows its own rules. In this way, you have to be prepared for sudden changes in the fall, slippery ice in winter, the temptations of flowers in spring, thirst and showers in the summer. Make the most of each of these seasons, and don’t complain about their characteristics.

10] Make your path a mirror of yourself. By no means let yourself be influenced by the way that others care for their paths. You have your soul to listen to, and the birds to tell what your soul is saying. Let your stories be beautiful and pleasant to everything around you. Above all, let the stories that your soul tells during the journey be echoed at each and every second of the path.

11] Love your path. Without this, nothing makes any sense.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - Seventh Deadly Sin Sloth

Issue n°143: Seventh deadly sin - Sloth
Here we are, almost in the middle of the year. I’ve never believed in coincidences, but feel that having written the series about cardinal sins without thinking about the calendar, and noting that sloth ends up being published when many of our decisions on January 1 are already underway or abandoned, should be a sign for all of us.

Dictionary definition: feminine noun, from the Latin Prigritia. Aversion to work, negligence, indolence.

For the Catholic Church: all live beings that move should earn their daily bread with the sweat of their face, and not be always thinking about safe and immediate results. Sloth is lack of physical or spiritual effort, which degenerates the soul and leads to sadness and depression.

An old fable passed on orally: As soon as he died, Juan found himself in a very beautiful place, surrounded by the comfort and beauty that he had dreamt of. A person dressed in white came up: ‘you have the right to whatever you want: any food, pleasure, fun”, he said.
Delighted, Juan did everything he had dreamt of during life. After many years of pleasures, he looked for the person in white:
“I’ve already done everything I wanted to”, he said. “Now I need some work, to feel useful”.
“I’m very sorry”, said the person in white, “but this is the only thing that I cannot get for you. Here there is no work”.
“To spend eternity dying of tedium? I would prefer a thousand times to be in hell!”
The person in white came up, and said in a low voice:
“Where do you think you are?”

According to Winnie Albert: How can a society survive if it is increasingly more focused on frozen foods, instant photographs, mashed potatoes, speed reading and electronic calculators?

Sociology of sloth: Both he who overworks, and those that refuse to work, are reacting in the same way – trying to get away from the natural problems of any human being, avoiding thinking about the close reality and about the responsibilities inherent to a normal life (Source: The compulsive worker, Oxford, 2001)

According to Buddhism: Traditionally, sloth is one of the principal obstacles to awakening the soul. It is manifested in three ways: the sloth of comfort, which makes us stay always in the same place. Sloth of the heart, when we feel discouraged and unstimulated. Finally, the sloth of bitterness, when nothing matters more to us, and we are already not part of this world (Source: Pema Shodron in Shambala Sun, November 1998)

Comment from the Tao Te King: A man on the path adapts to the Path. An upright man adapts to Virtue. A man who loses something resigns himself to the Loss. He who adapts to the Path is happily accepted by it. He that is upright is accepted by Virtue. He that resigns himself to the loss is accepted by the Loss.

Therefore, already almost in mid-2007: We are accustomed to asking ourselves: Where does inspiration come from? Where is the joy of living? Is all this effort worth while, because during all the year gone by I tried to go beyond my limits, I sustained my family, I behaved as well as possible, and even so I did not arrive where I wanted to?
A warrior of the light understands that awakening is a long process, and that it is necessary to balance contemplation and work to get where one wants. It is not reflecting on what one did not get that he will change; quite the contrary, in these questions is the germ of inaction, of lack of incentive. Yes, perhaps we have done everything right and the results are not visible, but I am certain: there are results. They will surely be revealed as we go along– if we do not give up now.
Happy work to everyone.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - Sixth deadly sin: Envy

Sixth deadly sin: Envy

According to the dictionary: s.f., from the Latin Invidia. Mixture of pain and anger; feeling of displeasure about the prosperity and happiness of someone else; desire to have what others have.

For the Catholic Church: Against the Tenth Commandment (You shall not covet thy neighbor’s house). It appears for the first time in Genesis, in the story of Cain and his brother Abel.

In a Jewish parable: A disciple asks the rabbis about the passage in Genesis: “The Lord was pleased about Abel and his offer, whereas he was not pleased about Cain and his offer. Cain was exceedingly angry and his face fell. Then the Lord said to him: Why are you angry and why did your face fall?”
The rabbis answered:
“God should have asked Cain: Why are you angry? Was it because I did not accept your offering, or because I accepted the offering of your brother?"

For journalist Zuenir Ventura: The verbs associated to it (envy) are corrosion and destruction. At the same time, it is necessary to see envy as a human reaction. All the theories about envy reckon that the best way to fight against it is to assume that everyone feels it, in different degrees.

For writer Giovanni Papini: The best revenge against those that want me to lower myself consists of attempting to fly to a higher peak. Perhaps I would not go up so much without the impulse of someone who wants me on the ground. The truly wise individual goes further: he makes use of his own defamation to retouch his portrait better and eliminate the shadows that the light throws on him. The envious person becomes, without wanting to, the collaborator of his perfection.

Envy and ethics: For the scientist and researcher Dr. William M. Shelton, envy is a reaction provoked by losers, who seek to evade reality by hiding behind a crusade seeking to reinstate “moral values”, “noble ideas”, and “social justice”. The situation becomes dangerous when the school system begins to develop in the student the conditioning for despising all those who manage to be successful, always attributing any success to corruption, manipulation and moral degradation. As the pursuit of success is something inherent to the human condition, the students end up in a schizophrenic process of hating exactly that which would lead them to happiness, thereby increasing the anxiety crises, and reducing the capacity to innovate and improve society.

Satan and the demons: The demons came to complain to the Prince of Darkness. For two years they had tempted a certain monk who lives in the desert. “We have offered him money, women, all we have in our repertoire, and nothing worked.”
- You don’t know how to do it properly – replied Satan. – Come and see how you should act in a case of this sort.
They all flew to the cavern where the holy monk lived. There, Satan whispered in his ear:
- Your friend Maccarius has just been promoted to Bishop of Alexandria.
Immediately the man blasphemed against the heavens, and lost his soul.

Comment from the Tao Te King: The perfect wise men of Ancient times were mysterious, supernatural, penetrating, and too profound to be understood by men.
They were alert like the man who crosses the stormy river thawing after the winter. Prudent like he who is the guest of someone very ceremonious. Evanescent like ice when it melts. Unpretentious like uncut wood as yet unshaped by human hands.
Who can, through serenity, purify little by little, what is impure? Who can become calm and stay like that for ever? He who follows the Perfect Path does not want to be full of anything.

(next: Sloth, last deadly sin)


Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

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 - Fifth deadly sin Gluttony

Issue nº 141: Fifth deadly sin - Gluttony

According to the dictionary: feminine noun, from the Latin gula. Excessive eating and drinking, voracity, greediness.

According to the Catholic Church: Inordinate desire for pleasure related to food or drink. One should not appreciate foods that are bad for health. One should not pay more attention to food than to those that accompany us. Unjustified intoxication is a complete lack of sense and a mortal sin.

According to Peter de Vries: Gluttony is a disorder; it means that something is devouring us inside.

From the “Verba Seniorum” (The Wisdom of the Ancients): The Father Abbott was strolling with a monk from Sceta, when they were invited in to eat. The owner of the house, honored by the presence of the priests, gave orders to serve what was best.

However, the monk was fasting. When the food arrived, he picked out a pea and chewed it slowly. He ate nothing further.

Upon leaving, the Father Abbott said to him:

- Brother, when you visit someone, don’t make your holiness an insult. Next time you are fasting, don’t accept invitations to dinner.

Recipe for goose liver with truffles: Clean the goose livers impeccably, chop the liver and truffles into small cubes. Line entirely a small, high pie dish with several small strips of bacon (the strips should be very finely cut). Season with a little salt and pepper and scatter on top some small pieces of truffle. Place the remaining pieces of liver and truffle in successive layers. Seal the pie dish hermetically using a strip of pastry made of flour and water and bake the foie gras in a bain-marie in the oven for 50 to 60 minutes. Afterwards, place a weight on top to compress the mixture.

Hunger in the world: The number of hungry people in the developing countries should drop from the present 777 million to around 440 million in 2030. This means that the goal of the World Food Summit agreed upon in 1996, of cutting by half the number of hungry people compared with the levels found in 1990-92 (815 million), will not be achieved even in 2030. Sub-Saharan Africa is a reason for great concern because the number of chronically undernourished people will only fall probably from the present 194 million to 183 million in 2030 ( Source: FAO report – World agriculture: Toward 2015/2030)

In a Sufi fable: A baker wanted to meet Uways, so Uways went to the bakery disguised as a beggar. He began to eat a bread roll; the baker beat him and threw him out into the street.

- Madman! – said a disciple arriving – don’t you see that you threw out the master you wanted to know?

Contrite, the baker asked what he could do for him to forgive him. Uways asked him to invite him and his disciples to eat.

The baker took them to an excellent restaurant and ordered the most expensive dishes.

- That is how we distinguish the good man from the bad man – said Uways to the disciples, in the middle of lunch. This man is capable of spending ten gold coins on a banquet because I am famous, but he is incapable of giving a bread roll to feed a hungry beggar.

Comment from the Tao Te King: Thirty spokes are fitted together in the cube forming a wheel. But it is its middle empty space that allows the car to be used. Model some clay to make a vase. Cut out in the empty space of the walls doors and windows so that a room may be used.

In that way someone produces what is useful but it is the empty space that makes it effective.

(next: Envy)

Copyright @ 2007 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 - Fourth Deadly Sin Wrath

Issue #140 The Fourth Deadly Sin - Wrath

According to the dictionary: feminine noun, from the Latin Ira. Choler, anger, indignation, rage, desire for revenge.
For the Catholic Church: Wrath is not only against others, but can turn back against someone who lets hate sow seeds in his heart. In this case usually he is led to suicide. We need to understand that punishment and its imposition belong to God.
In “Verba Seniorum” (The Word of the Ancients): Two wise men who lived in the same chapel in the Sahara desert, chatted one day: “Let’s fight so that we don’t become disassociated from the human being, or we will end up not understanding properly the passions that torture him”, said one of them.“I don’t know how to begin a fight”.“Well, we will do the following: I am putting this brick here in the middle, and you say to me: it’s mine. I will answer: no, this brick is mine. Then we will begin arguing and we will end up fighting”.And so they did. One said that the brick was his. The other argued, saying it was not. “Don’t let’s waste time over this, keep this brick,” said the first. “Your idea for a fight was not very good. When we perceive that we have an immortal soul, it is impossible to fight over things”.
In a laboratory study: Janice Williams followed up for six years 13,000 men and women aged between 45 and 64 years and, basing herself on their behavior, discovered that people who get intensely irritated, and frequently, have three times more chances of having a heart attack than those that face adversities more serenely (Williams, 2000).That happens because, at each episode of Anger, the organism releases an extra load of adrenalin in the bloodstream. The high concentration of adrenalin raises the number of heartbeats and, at the same time, makes the blood vessels narrower, raising blood pressure. The repetition of such episodes may give rise to two problems usually associated to the heart attack: alteration of the heart rate and a sudden dilation of fatty deposits that might be in the arteries. (Source: Ballone G.J. – Anger and Hate, negative emotions)
In popular Brazilian music: While there is strength in my heart I don’t want anything else/ Just revenge! Revenge! Revenge! Crying out to the saints / You have to roll like the stones that roll on the road / without ever having a place of your own to be able to rest in. (Lupicínio Rodrigues)
In the words of William Blake: I was angry with my friend: I mentioned this to him, and the anger went. I was angry with my enemy: I didn’t mention it to him, and the anger increased.
On hate for foreigners (xenophobia): “All Western countries are infiltrated by Moslems. Some of them are even able to talk amiably, while they wait for the moment to kill us. They say that the events of September 11 (2001) happened because of a shock of civilizations. That is a lie: a shock of civilizations calls for two distinct civilizations and that is not the case. There is only one civilization: ours. “ (Statements made by the leaders of the Danish People’s Party - – DPP – sowing the seeds of hate and the new Fascism, which Europe and the entire world are watching grow without taking serious steps)
Comment from the Tao Te King: All weapons are instruments of evil and are absolutely not the instruments of the wise prince. He uses them only when urged by necessity. Calm and repose are what he appreciates; victory by the force of weapons is undesirable for him.Considering it necessary is a sign that the man takes pleasure in killing other men, and he who takes pleasure in that killing may not run an empire.When we want to weaken someone, we should first strengthen him. If we want to defeat him, we must first raise him. If we intend to deprive him, we must first give him presents. This is what is called subtle discernment.Thus, the submissive and the weak will conquer the tough and strong.
(next: Gluttony)

Copyright @ 2007 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 - Third deadly sin Lust

Issue nº 139: Third deadly sin - Lust

Dictionary definition: Feminine noun, derived from the Latin Luxuria. Lechery, sensuality, lasciviousness. It can also be defined as luxuriance in plants, or exuberance of sap.

According to the Catholic Church: Inordinate desire for sexual pleasure. Desires and acts are inordinate when they do not conform to the divine purpose, which is to propitiate mutual love between spouses and to beget offspring. It goes against the Sixth Commandment (Thou shalt not sin against chastity).

According to Henry Kissinger: There is nothing more aphrodisiacal than power.

In a Buddhist story: Chu and Wu returned home after a week’s meditation in the monastery. They talked about how temptations appear before man.
They reached the banks of a river. There, a beautiful woman was waiting to cross the river. Chu picked her up in his arms, carried to the other side and continued his journey with his friend.
At a certain point, Wu said:
“We talked about temptation and you picked up that woman in your arms. It provided an opportunity for sin to enter your soul”.
Chu answered:
“My dear Wu, I behaved naturally. I took that woman across and left her on the other side of the river. But you continued carrying her in your thoughts – and for that reason you are closer to sin”.

From a prostitute’s diary: I earn 350 Swiss Francs to spend an hour with a man. I am exaggerating. If we don’t count taking off clothes, pretending to be affectionate, chatting about something obvious and getting dressed, we will reduce this time to eleven minutes of actual sex.
Eleven minutes. The world revolves around something that takes only eleven minutes. It is because of these eleven minutes in a 24-hour day (considering that all make love with their wives, every day, which is truly absurd and a complete lie), that they marry, sustain a family, put up with the children crying, overdo themselves in explanations when they arrive home late, look at dozens or hundred of other women with whom they would like to stroll around Lake Geneva, buy expensive clothes for themselves, and even more expensive clothes for their wives, pay prostitutes to make up for what was missing without knowing what it is, sustain a gigantic industry of cosmetics, diets, gymnastics, pornography, power – and when they get together with other men, contrary to what the myth says, never talk about women. They talk about jobs, money and sport. There is something very wrong with civilization.

Lust and numbers (in 2002): William Lyon, of the Free Speech Coalition, estimates that just on the internet the pornography sector makes an annual profit of between 10 and 12 billion dollars (23 to 26 billion Reals), well over Microsoft’s profit. In 1999, the Video and Software Sellers Association found that the sale or rental of pornographic films was around 4.1 billion dollars (8.7 billion Reals), exceeding the majority of the very expensive films made in Hollywood (Source: Caslon Analytics Profiles)

The Tao Te King says: Keep the sensitive soul and the animal body in one compartment so that they cannot be separated.
Control the vital force, so that you will be transformed again into a newborn child.
When you banish mysterious visions from your imagination you may, then, become unblemished.
Purify yourself and don’t look for intellectual answers for the Mystery.
When discernment penetrates the four regions, perhaps you will not recognize what gives life and sustains it.
That which gives life does not claim any possession. It benefits, but does not demand gratitude. It commands, but does not exercise authority. That is what is called “mysterious quality”.

(next: Wrath)

Copyright @ 2007 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 The seven deadly sins: Greed

Issue nº 138: The seven deadly sins: Greed

Dictionary definition: from the Latin Avaritia, a feminine noun: Excessive fondness for money, stinginess, meanness.

Catholic Church definition: Goes against the Ninth and Tenth Commandments (You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house). Inordinate inclination or desire for pleasure or possessions.

For the philosopher Seneca: The poor always want something, the rich want a lot and the greedy want everything.

A story of Priests of the desert: “Holy man” – said a novice to the Father Abbot - My heart is full of love for the world and my soul is free of temptations from the Devil. What is my next step?

The abbot asked the disciple to accompany him on a visit to a sick person who needed extreme unction. After comforting the family, the abbot noticed that in one of the corners of the house there was a trunk.

“What is inside it?” he asked.

“Clothes that my uncle never used”, said the sick man’s nephew.” He bought everything, always thinking that the right occasion would arise to wear them, but they ended up rotting inside it”.

“Don’t forget that trunk”, said the Father Abbot to his disciple, when they left. “If you have spiritual treasures in your heart, put them into practice now. Or they will rot away.”

Text commenting on the 1997 Asiatic economic crisis: The brokers bought and sold, convinced that the world would not change, because all they needed to do was to invest more and more and watch their fortunes grow. They didn’t care about the harm they were causing to the currency (Malaysia). Suddenly, 500 billion dollars disappeared out of circulation. When the time came to explain to all those who had lost their savings built up over the years and with much sacrifice, they replied: “it’s the fault of the market.” Actually, they were the market.

Death and Greed: Death and Greed watched the men working feverishly to find diamonds in a river. “I came here to take away some souls,” said Death. “Deliver me a third of these people and I will go away.”

“They belong to me, they are my slaves”, replied Greed. “I have nothing to deliver to you.”

Death then touched the water with his magic rod and poisoned it. Little by little, all who were there began dying.

“Why did you steal all my slaves?” shouted Greed, angrily.

“Because you didn’t want to give me any”, was the answer.

In a speech: because of its inability to produce, the Jewish people are parasites, and their aim is to enslave other peoples. They use greed to manipulate the stupidity of the middle class (Adolf Hitler, preparing the ground for the Holocaust, which cost the lives of six million Jews).

Many centuries before, the Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon used to say: The Lord sent to Man his messengers, called diseases. Eternal Providence put me in charge of caring for their health. Let the love for what I do guide me at every moment. Never let greed, or the thirst for power, or the desire for recognition, blind me and make me forget that a man’s objective is to give the best of what he has to another man.

Advice from the Tao Te King: The five colors blind human eyes. The five notes deafen their ears. The five tastes harm the palate. Races and hunts set off furious and savage passions in the heart.

Goods hard to get cause wounds because of dangerous obstacles. For that reason (…) the wise man rejects the superficial and prefers to dive into the deep.

(next: Lust)

Copyright @ 2007 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 - The seven deadly sins Pride

In this Issue
The seven deadly sins - Pride

The seven cardinal sins were eight, organized at the beginning of Christianity by the Greek monk Evágrio do Ponto, and defining the principal negative inclinations of the human being (it is curious that on Evágrio’s list, the most serious sin is gluttony…). All of them were able to take us to hell. In the 16th century, Pope Gregory made the first changes in the list, including “envy” but merging pride and vanity. In the 17th century the list was rewritten again, and “melancholy” ceased to be a sin, being replaced by “sloth”. Now we have today’s list as a basis on which the next seven columns will be based.
According to the dictionary: Feminine noun, pride comes from the Latin Superbia. It means haughtiness, conceit, arrogance, presumption.
According to the Catholic Church: Self-esteem that goes beyond limits and places itself above love for God. It goes against the First Commandment (You shall have no other gods before Me), and it was this passion that caused the rebellion of the angels and the fall of Lucifer.
In a Zen fable: The grand master of Tofuku noted that the monastery was busy. Novices ran back and forth, employees stood in line to receive someone.
“What’s happening?” he wanted to know.
A soldier came up to the master and gave him a card which said: “Kitagaki, the governor of Kyoto, has just arrived and is asking for an interview.”
“I don’t have anything to discuss with this person”, said the master.
Minutes later, the governor came up, apologized, crossed out what was on the card and delivered it again to the master.
It said: “Kitagaki asks for an interview”.
“Welcome”, said the Zen master of Tofuku.
On an aircraft carrier: “MISSION FULFILLED” (banner on the USS Lincoln on May 1, 2003, when President Bush announced the end of the major military operations in Iraq. On that day, the number of American soldiers dead came to 217. On the day that I am writing this column, the figure has exceeded 2,700)
For Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz: “When someone tries to discover who you are, using secondary things as a way of comparison, he finds a series of empty shells – which depend on each other to make sense.
“It is not correct to define yourself as a friend of Tom, son of Dick, an executive in such a post, doing this or that task”. Because all we will discover through this method are aspects of ourselves – aspects that are usually gloomy and incomplete, of someone who is trying to become visible at the expense of others.
“The only relationship possible is with the Lord; from then on, everything begins to make sense, and we open our eyes to a greater meaning”.
According to St. Augustine: Pride is not grandeur, it is swollen-headedness. What swells seems big, but really it is a disease.
Advice from the Tao Te King: It is better not to fill a vase completely rather than try to carry it if it is full.
When we sharpen a knife too much, its cutting edge will not be preserved.
When gold and jade fill a room, their owners will be unable to keep them safe.
When wealth and honors lead to arrogance, for sure evil will come soon after.
When we do our work and our name begins to become famous, wisdom consists of withdrawing into obscurity as soon as the task ends.

Copyright @ 2007 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 - At Saint George’s Castle

In this issue
- At Saint George’s Castle, September 2006

In my opinion, loneliness is the worst of all evils. Unlike hunger, thirst and illness, which force us to take an attitude when they affect us, loneliness is often masked under an aura of virtue and renunciation.

But today I am alone because I have chosen to be alone.

This is a special day for me; I stroll through the soft European autumn, walk down a wide avenue, pass by people who talk about souls or tobacco shops. I walk through Lisbon; climb up to Saint George’s Castle, look at the Tagus and the Atlantic, and try not to think about anything.

In a short while the sun will be rising in Brazil, the bookstores will be opening, and for the very first time my new book will be held in a reader’s hand. After so many titles published, perhaps you imagine that I am used to it all. But I am not, thank God. I still feel the same excitement and enthusiasm as I did when “The Pilgrimage” was brought out 20 years ago.

I take this notebook from my pocket and begin to write; besides being enthusiastic and excited, do I also feel afraid? I stop, listen to the wind in the trees, reflect for a while, then write: “no, I am not afraid”. At this very moment I am a mixture of the mother giving birth to a baby and a father who finally accepts that his daughter is leaving home to live with her boyfriend.

“Do I think about how the reader is going to react?” I jot down in the notebook. Again I listen to the wind, and back comes the answer: of course I do! After all, I have put the best of myself there, and like anyone else I want my love to be understood. A great Dominican mystic of the 14th century known as Master Eckhart once said: “I am a man, and it is part of human nature to share this with other men.” All that I have looked at, seen and felt on my stroll from the hotel to this castle are attempts to share a little of each of our views of life. The tiles on the facades of the houses, the designs in the Cathedral of Holy Mary Major, the silence of the people at prayer, the man playing his accordion on a hilly street, alien to everything going on around him. Artisans of the past and the present, all trying to say: here is what I think, this is how I am.

Five days ago, autumn began in Europe, although the weather is still warm. But winter will be coming, the cold will probably be implacable, and the trees that at the moment are laden with leaves will sigh in sadness when they fall. They will probably say: “we’ll never be the same again”.

Just as well. Or else, what would be the point of renewal? The next leaves will have their own personality, they will belong to a new summer that is coming and that will never be the same as the summer that has passed.

Living is changing – that is the lesson that the seasons teach us. I too am changed by the new leaves of each new book. Would it be a bit arrogant to say that I do not need to prove anything else to myself? It may not be arrogant, but it is certainly foolish. Although I already have a story to tell my grandchildren, if I have ever any, whoever lives off past successes has lost the meaning of life.

I look again at the Tagus and recall some lines by Fernando Pessoa:

The Tagus takes you out into the world. No-one ever thought about what lies beyond the river in my village. The river in my village does not make you think about anything; when you stand beside it, you’re just standing beside it.

These are the last hours in which the river in my village - my new book – belongs to me alone. And I shall try to stand beside it, without thinking of anything, just looking at Lisbon, listening to the bells, the dogs, the street cries, children laughing and tourists talking. I am like a child, and I am not ashamed to be so excited. I pray to God that He keeps me like that.

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 - The reader has the floor

In this issue
- The reader has the floor

Anabel (Mérida, Spain)

I don’t know if it is all written down, I don’t know if people write their story when they are born, or before, or while they are alive. But I am convinced that everything that happens in our life has a meaning, and that is why each moment has to be lived intensely. Because it is today that enables us to move ahead, break the ties, let life flow in all its freedom, and understand that loving the moment is what makes us happy. Loving what we see, what we touch, what we don’t understand, loving the unknown, what makes us anxious, the deep and the shallow, but loving nevertheless.


Beba (Islamabad, Pakistan)

Life is absolutely temperamental, and it eventually leads us down paths that we were not absolutely certain or enthusiastic about following. But what would become of us without these surprises? I make a toast to all that is absurd and marvelous that we will continue to come across at each step that lies ahead.



Iris (upon arriving at Santiago de Compostela)

When I reached Obradoiro Square, I wondered: why did I have to face so many difficulties? I joined the endless line to kiss the statue of the saint and it all struck me as absurd, except for catching up with some pilgrims that I had met on the way. Yes, it was all absurd, except the joy of having surmounted my limits and feeling a better person. Just as well that I did not walk like the others. Just as well that I decided to stop whenever the sun set, avoiding thinking about whether I was near a shelter or whether there was food available. Just as well that I ate a plate of lentils that upset me and obliged me to sleep at the foot of a mountain, in a place that I would never have known had it not been for that problem.

Just as well that I overslept and ending up having to spend the night under a star-filled sky. Just as well that I began walking when I felt like it and stopped when I wanted to, without anyone telling me is that was right or wrong. Just as well that I was alone, and so the moon treated me in a very special way. Just as well that I took the wrong turn four hundred times and ended up knowing places that nobody knew. On one of these detours I spent the whole day sitting in front of the door of a convent thinking about my vocation

It was because of so many absurd things and so many “just as well’s” that the whole thing was fun. Because before this my life had a goal, and from now on I will go on walking just for the pleasure of walking.



Maximiliano (Veracruz, Mexico)

Before a storm everything is silent and calm, although we can feel the smell of raindrops. Some days ago I was with a friend and his sister in Porto de Tuxpam. It was Carnival, everyone was having a good time, and right at the climax of the party the sky became filled with clouds, then lightning fell closer and closer, and the rain started. Everyone ran for shelter.

All of a sudden, as if there had been some mysterious communication among the people, we all returned to the street and discovered that the storm only contributed to the world being more fertile and the climate milder. Joy returned, although nobody quite understood why they were so joyful.

One of the most sublime moments that anyone can experience is to live through a storm.

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 - From friend to friend

In this issue
- From friend to friend

I learned from my niece that my new book “The Witch of Portobello”, even before it was printed, was already circulating in its full version on the Internet. I was intrigued: how could that have happened?

My next step, naturally, was to look in all the search mechanisms where the manuscript could be found. The result was: nowhere. Even so, my niece showed me the original. I imagined that it had been sent by one of the five persons to whom I usually show my texts prior to publication. But that would mean casting suspicion on people whom I love; furthermore, I have been sending my unpublished manuscripts to them for years, and nothing has ever, let us say, “leaked out” to the public at large. Nor could it have leaked out via the editors, since they have not the least interest in releasing for free something that is their source of income.

I decided to leave the matter alone. After all, the Internet is a way of making culture truly democratic. But I insisted that my 24-year-old niece tell me where she had managed to obtain the manuscript. After much reluctance, she revealed to me a universe that I, who have been navigating on the Web for ten years, was utterly unaware of and that is absolutely impossible to control (as I shall explain at the end, although I feel that a lot of the people reading this newsletter know what I am talking about).

So, seeing that it was no use fighting against the impossible, I asked to visit this gigantic web. In other words, for four hours I became a “pirate” of myself. My niece insists that there is nothing wrong, that this is Internet culture, that this is what is changing the world, not the demonstrations against globalization in world forums.

What is the Internet culture? According to her, you have basic rights to information and pleasure. If you have money to buy a book, go ahead and buy it – it is much nicer to read in print. But if you don’t have money, your rights continue – and you have to find a way to exercise them.

How? There is a strange zone on the network called “Peer 2 Peer”. I looked for a translation (in a free dictionary on the Internet), and this means something like “from friend to friend”.

How did it start? My niece has the answer on the point of her tongue. At first it was just wanting to chat with others. Then came the need to chat with several people at the same time. But chatting isn’t enough – we have to share the music, the book or the film that we love. When there was no law against it, this information was exchanged freely. Finally, when the entertainment industry caught on and the repression began, the young people on the Internet always managed to keep one step ahead, and so the thing continues.

The concept has changed too: it used to be sharing something you admired with friends, now it is offering everyone something you feel should be shared.

The mechanism works more or less like this: I buy a book, and I like it, so I make a digital photocopy of its pages and put it in my computer, and at the same time I open a tunnel for anyone to come in here and take it. On my side, I enter this tunnel and go to the computers of others to take anything that interests me (usually music and films). Little by little this material is stocked all over the world, and nobody manages any more to prevent it being copied.

Then she showed me that in just one of the many “Peer 2 Peer” sites I have 325 works, in several languages, in hundreds or thousands of computers. I confess that I felt most honored by this proof that readers are truly the essential instrument for publicizing a work, even if this is not done by conventional means.

Of course, I am not going to show anyone how to get there – that involves a series of legal mechanisms that could complicate my life. Nor is it any use digitizing the expression in the search mechanisms: they won’t teach you the ropes. But if you have someone at home aged under 18, they are bound to have already a collection of songs that came from there. Ask your son, grandson or nephew.

But please don’t tell them that I have just discovered this now: they will think that I am too old, and I’ll lose a reader.

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 - Organizing the quest

In this issue
- Dialogues with the Master – Organizing the quest

Here I continue to transcribe extracts of the notes I took between 1982 and 1986 on my conversations with J., my friend and master in the Regnus Agnus Mundi (RAM) tradition. I remember that I was always asking for advice on any decision I had to take. J. usually remained silent for a while before speaking:

“People who are part of our daily life can give us important hints on decisions we need to take. But for this purpose all that is needed is a sharp eye and an attentive ear, because those who have ready solutions are usually suspect.

“It’s very dangerous to ask for advice. It’s very risky to lend advice, if we have a minimum sense of responsibility towards the other person. If they need help, it’s best to see how others resolve – or don’t resolve – their problems. Our angel often uses someone’s lips to tell us something, but this answer comes casually, usually at a moment when we do not let our worries overshadow the miracle of life. Let our angel speak the way he is used to, which is at the moment he deems necessary. Advice is just theory; living is always very different.”

Then he told me an interesting story:

Master Kais was walking in the desert with his disciples when he came across a hermit who had lived there for years. The disciples began to shower him with questions on the universe – but they eventually discovered that the man did not have all the wisdom that he seemed to possess. When they mentioned this to Kais, he answered:

“Never consult a worried man, no matter how good an advisor he may be; don’t ask a pride man for help, however intelligent he may seem. Because worries and vanity obscure knowledge. Above all, distrust those who live in solitude; usually they are not there because they have renounced everything but rather because they have never known how to live with others. What wisdom can we expect from that type of person?”

J. left for the airport and I was left to reflect on our conversation. I was in need of help, because I always made the same mistakes over and over again. My life revolved around old problems, and every now and then I was confronted with situations that had crossed my path so many times before. That depressed me. It made me feel that I was incapable of making any progress. I decided to go into a café that I still frequent today, just to sit and observe everything around me. I saw nothing new, absolutely nothing, and began to feel abandoned.

I decided to look at a newspaper that someone had left on a nearby table, and began to leaf through it at random. I discovered a review of an old book by Gurdjieff that had just been republished; the critic used an extract from the book:

Conscious faith is freedom.
Instinctive faith is slavery.
Mechanical faith is madness.
Conscious hope is strength.
Emotional hope is cowardice.
Mechanical hope is sickness.
Conscious love arouses love.
Emotional love arouses the unexpected.
Mechanical love arouses hate.

There lay the answer: the same elements (faith, hope and love) with their nuances, always leading to different consequences. I began to be aware that repeated experiences serve a purpose: they teach you what you have not yet learned. From that day on, I have always sought for a different solution to each repeated struggle – and little by little I found my path.

When we met again, I asked what I should do to organize a little my spiritual quest, which seemed to be leading nowhere. Here is what he answered:

“Don’t try to be coherent all the time; discover the joy of being a surprise to yourself. Being coherent is having always to wear a tie that matches your socks. It means being obliged to keep tomorrow the same opinions you have today. What about the world, which is always in movement? As long as it doesn’t harm anyone, change your opinion now and again, and contradict yourself without feeling ashamed - you have a right to that! It doesn’t matter what the others may think – because they are going to think that way no matter what.”

“But we are talking about faith.”

“Exactly! Go on doing what you do, but try to put love in every gesture: that will be enough to organize your quest. Usually we do not lend value to the things we do every day, but those are the things that change the world around us. We think that faith is a task for giants, but just read a few pages of the biography of any holy man and you will discover an absolutely ordinary person – except for the fact that they were determined to share the very best of themselves with others.

“Many emotions move the human heart when it decides to dedicate itself to the spiritual path. This may be a “noble” reason – like faith, love of our neighbor, or charity. Or it may be just a whim, the fear of loneliness, curiosity, or the fear of death. None of that matters. The true spiritual path is stronger than the reasons that led us to it and little by little it imposes itself with love, discipline and dignity. A moment arrives when we look backwards, remember the beginning of our journey, and laugh at ourselves. We have managed to grow, although we traveled the path for reasons that were very futile.”

“How do I know at least that I am traveling this path with love and dignity?”

“God uses loneliness to teach us about living together. Sometimes he uses anger so that we can understand the infinite value of peace. At other times he uses tedium, when he wants to show us the importance of adventure and leaving things behind.

“God uses silence to teach us about the responsibility of what we say. At times he uses fatigue so that we can understand the value of waking up. At other times he uses sickness to show us the importance of health.

“God uses fire to teach us about water. Sometimes he uses earth so that we can understand the value of air. And at times he uses death when he wants to show us the importance of life.”

“And what do we do about the feeling of guilt that we all share?”

“At one of the most tragic moments of the Crucifixion, one of the thieves noticed that the man dying beside him was the Son of God. ‘Lord, remember me when You are in Heaven’, said the thief. ‘In truth, today you shall be with me in Heaven’, answered Jesus, turning a bandit into the first saint of the Catholic Church: Saint Dimas.

“We don’t know why Dimas was condemned to death. The Bible tells us that he confessed his guilt and that he was crucified for the crimes he had committed. Let us suppose that he did something cruel, awful enough to end his life in that fashion; yet, even so, in his final minutes of life, he was redeemed – and glorified – by an act of faith.

“Remember this example when for some reason you feel unable to continue on your path.”

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 – 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

Paulo Coelho's Warrior of the Light - My unforgettable character

In this issue
My unforgettable character

When I was a child I used to read a magazine that my parents subscribed to, which had a section called “My unforgettable character” for common people to talk about other common people who had influenced their lives. Of course, at that age (nine or ten), I also had already created my influential personality. On the other hand, I was certain that over the years this model would change, so I decided not to write to the magazine and submit my opinion (today I wonder how in those days they would have received the collaboration of someone my age).

Time has passed by. I have met many interesting people who have helped me at difficult moments and inspired me and shown me paths that had to be traveled. However, the great myths of childhood have always proved more powerful; they go through periods of devaluation, contestation and oblivion, but they remain, appearing on necessary occasions with their values, examples and attitudes.

My unforgettable character was called José, my grandfather’s youngest brother. He never married, worked as an engineer for may years, and when he retired he decided to live in Araruama, a city near Rio de Janeiro. That is where the whole family went to spend the summer holidays with the children. Uncle José was a bachelor, so he probably did not have much patience with that invasion, but that was the only moment when he could share a little of his loneliness with his grandnephews and nieces. He was also an inventor, and to accommodate us he decided to build a house where the rooms only appeared during the summer! He pressed a button and the walls descended from the roof, the beds and cupboards emerged from the outer walls, and there we had four bedrooms to lodge the newly-arrived! When Carnival was over, the walls were raised, the furniture went back inside the outer walls and the house was once more a big empty shed where he kept material for his workshop.

He built cars. Not just that, but he made a special vehicle to take the family to Araruama Lake – a mixture of jeep and train on tires. We went swimming, lived close to nature, spent the whole day playing, and I always wondered: “But why does he live here all alone? He has money, he could live in Rio!” He told stories of his trips to the United States, where he had worked in coal mines and ventured to places never visited before. The family used to say: “It’s all lies”. He was always dressed as a mechanic, and all the relatives commented: “He should get himself some decent clothes”. As soon as television came to Brazil, he bought a set and put it on the sidewalk so that the whole street could see the programs.

He taught me to love things done with the heart. He showed me the importance of doing what you wanted to do, regardless of what the others said. He sheltered me when as a rebellious adolescent I had problems with my parents. One day he told me: “I invented the hydramatic (the automatic gear shift in a car). I went to Detroit, got in touch with General Motors; they offered me US$ 10,000 on the spot or one dollar for every car sold with this new system. I took the ten thousand and lived the most fantastic years of my life.”

The family used to say: “Uncle José is always inventing things, don’t believe him.” And although I felt deep admiration for his adventures, for his style of life, for his generosity, I did not believe that story. I told journalist Fernando Morais about it only because Uncle José was my unforgettable character.

Fernando decided to do some checking and here is what he came up with (the text has been edited, because it is part of a long article):

“The first automatic gear shift was invented by the Sturtevant brothers from Boston in 1904. The system did not work satisfactorily because of a problem with weight. But it was the invention of Brazilians Fernando Iehly de Lemos and José Braz Araripe, sold to GM in 1932, that contributed to the development of the hydramatic system launched by GM in 1939.”

With millions of hydramatic cars being turned out every year, the family who never believed in anything and thought that Uncle José dressed badly could have inherited an incalculable fortune. How good it is to know that he enjoyed some happy years spending his ten thousand dollars!

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 - Stories about arrogance

In this issue
- Stories about arrogance

The arrogance of power

The master and his disciple were talking at a street corner when an old woman came up to them:
"Get away from my window!" shouted the old lady. "You are disturbing the customers". The master apologized and crossed over to the other sidewalk.
They went on talking until an officer came up to them and said: "We need you to move away from this sidewalk. The count will be passing by here in a few moments".
"Let him use the other side of the street", answered the master, without moving. Then he turned to his disciple and told him: "Don’t forget: never be arrogant to the humble. And never be humble to the arrogant."

The arrogance of sanctity

The Zen monk spent ten years meditating in his cave, trying to find out the path to the Truth. While he was praying one afternoon, a monkey came up to him. The monk tried to concentrate, but the monkey drew closer and seized the monk’s sandal.
“Damned monkey!” said the hermit. “Why have you come to disturb my prayers?”
“I’m hungry,” said the monkey.
“Go away! You are disturbing my communicating with God!”
“How can you talk to God if you cannot manage to communicate with humble creatures like me?” said the monkey.
And the monk apologized, feeling ashamed.

The arrogance of force

The village was threatened by a tribe of barbarians. The inhabitants were abandoning their houses and fleeing to a safer place. At the end of a year they had all left – except a group of Jesuits.
The army of barbarians entered the city without any resistance and held a great feast to commemorate the victory. In the middle of the dinner a priest appeared.
“You came in here and drove out peace. I beg you to leave at once.”
"Why haven’t you fled yet?" shouted the chief of the barbarians. "Don’t you see that I can run you through with my sword without blinking an eye?"
The priest answered calmly:
"Don’t you see that I can be run through by a sword without blinking an eye?"
Surprised by such serenity before death, the chief of the barbarians and his tribe abandoned the place the next day.

The arrogance of envy

In the Syrian desert, Satan told his disciples: "Human beings are always more concerned about wishing evil on others than doing good to themselves".
And to demonstrate what he was saying, he decided to test two men who were resting nearby.
"I have come to make your wishes come true", he said to one of them. "Whatever you want will be given to you. Your friend will receive the same thing – except double".
The man remained in silence for a long while, and then he finally said: "My friend is content because he will have double, no matter what my wish is. But I have prepared a trap for him: my wish is that you make me blind in one eye".

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 - On immortality

In this issue
- On immortality

How do human beings respond to changes?

Badly. Always very badly. One of the most widespread myths in the whole world – the myth of the vampire – reflects this idea.

What is a vampire? It is someone who at a certain moment in their existence becomes immortal. In other words, after that moment their body will no longer follow the normal course of nature; they will become forever young, and they can live as long as they like without having to deal with problems caused by growing old.

The vampire’s only diet is a little blood every day, and their only care with their skin is to avoid sunlight – but after all, this is a very small price to pay to enjoy all the possibilities of eternal life.

Except for one thing: vampires stop in time, while the world carries on changing. Everything that they were always used to begins to change, and even though they have all the time in the world to adapt to these changes, they desire immortality precisely because they were happy with the world in which they lived. They are not interested in accompanying these changes.

Let us imagine a human being who becomes a vampire right at the finals of the 1986 World Cup. He could smoke on airplanes, did not need to puzzle over picking what channel to watch on the television – the choice was so limited. He had an actress for a sex symbol, understood all about carburetors and fought for his socialist ideal, convinced that the Soviet Union would soon have more capable governors, and the yearnings of the people (called the proletariat) would at last be respected.

One fine day he falls in love with a 22-year-old sociology student. He admires her beauty, her enthusiasm, her idealism. He suggests transforming her into a vampire, but she refuses – she has seen too many horror films. She is in love too and does not want to lose him, but she sets one single condition for going ahead with their relationship: he must never suck her blood. The vampire has no choice but to keep his word. They get married in the registry office to avoid mortal crucifixes.

Twenty years roll by - in fact fly by, because another four World Cups have taken place. The former university student is now 42 years old, working in a bank (unemployment problems) or else writing useless Master’s and Ph.D. theses and dissertations merely to justify her life as a professional student. Carburetors have disappeared from the face of the earth. In horror he leafs through a magazine and sees his old sex-symbol actress transformed into a hybrid product made of plastic, Botox and silicone, her face coated with tons of makeup. He feels guilty for having 200 TV channels and only watches the same ones as long ago.

The Soviet Union has collapsed. He was obliged to abandon his beloved cigarettes (although it did not affect his health, don’t forget that vampires are immortal), because smoking became impossible, either because of laws or because of the way people looked at him in restaurants. And worst of all: everyone is talking about chat, Internet, iPod, rave and so on. The vampire tries to keep up to date, but everything seems absolutely complicated, irritating and senseless. He looks at the computer as if he were looking at a clove of garlic – with a mixture of horror and impotence. He will never be able to manage one of those, although he has tried several times.

His friends are retired, spend their days playing cards – they also do not know how to deal with computers, but they do not mind, the group has grown old together, they all have the same interests and can share experiences.

The vampire stays young. Immortal. Now he is faced with eternal depression. He attempts suicide, going out in the sunlight or looking at crucifixes, only to discover that these were myths created by the Church and cause him no harm at all.

He is left with one consolation: there is still one political figure that he knows all about (because all the other governors across the world have changed).

But Fidel Castro will also pass. And then nothing, absolutely nothing, will remain of the world that the vampire once loved so much.

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 - strategy

In this issue
- The Warrior of Light and strategy

A sword can last a short time, but the warrior has to last a long time. That is why he must not let himself be fooled by his own capacity and so be taken by surprise. To each thing he gives the true value that it deserves.
Often, when he is faced with serious matters, the devil whispers in his ear: "Do not bother about that, that’s not serious."
Other times, when he is faced with trivial matters, the devil whispers: "You need to spend all your energy on solving this situation.”
The warrior does not listen to what the devil is saying. He is the master of his sword.

Pay attention to your allies

A warrior does not associate with anyone who wishes him harm. Nor is he seen in the company of those who want to "console" him.
He avoids whoever is only at his side in moments of defeat. These false friends want to prove that weakness has its rewards. They always bear bad news. They always try to destroy the warrior’s trust, under the disguise of "solidarity".
When they see him injured they break into tears, but deep in their hearts they are happy because the warrior has lost a battle. They fail to understand that this is a part of combat.
A warrior’s true companions are at his side at each and every moment, in times both difficult and easy.

Negotiating with the enemy

When the moment of combat draws near, the Warrior of Light is prepared for any circumstance. He analyzes each possibility and asks himself: "What would I do if I had to fight against myself?"
This is how he discovers his weak points.
At this moment the adversary approaches, carrying a bag filled with promises, agreements and negotiations. He has tempting proposals and easy alternatives to offer.
The warrior analyzes each of these proposals; he also seeks an agreement, but without losing his dignity. If he avoids combat, it is not because he was seduced – but rather because he decided that this was the best strategy.
A Warrior of Light does not accept presents from the enemy.

On the defense and on the attack

The warrior is careful with people who think they can control the world, determine their own steps, and are certain that they know the right path. They are always so confident in their own capacity of decision that they do not realize the irony with which fate writes everyone’s life.
The Warrior of Light has dreams. His dreams carry him forward. But he never commits the mistake of thinking that the road is easy and the door wide.
He knows that the Universe works like alchemy: solve et coagula, say the masters. ”Concentrate and disperse your energy according to the situation.”
There are moments to act and moments to accept.

In the face of defeat

The Warrior of Light knows how to lose. He does not hold defeat as something indifferent, using phrases like "well, it wasn’t all that important", or "to tell the truth, I did not really want that".
He accepts defeat as a defeat; he does not try to change it into a victory or an experience. He suffers the pain of his wounds, the indifference of his friends and the loneliness of loss. At such moments he says to himself: "I fought for something, and I failed to get it. I lost the first battle.”
This phrase will give him strength. He is aware that nobody wins all the time – but the courageous always win in the end.

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

Subscribe to this blog's feed

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 - The blind man and Everest

In this issue
- The blind man and Everest

Little by little we seem to grow used to the same metaphors for life. Some time ago I wrote in this column the “Manual for climbing mountains”, and out of the blue I meet a reader in Hamburg who decides to share his experience with me about climbing in life. He discovered what hotel I am in, and has some criticism to make of my page in the Internet. After making some harsh comments, he asks:
“Do you mind if I take a photo with my girlfriend?”
Of course I don’t. He picks up his cellular, presses a button, says nothing, and his girlfriend turns up a minute later.
After the photo is taken comes the next question, this one more intriguing:
“Can a blind man climb Mount Everest?”
“I don’t think so,” I answer.
“Why don’t you answer ‘perhaps’?”
I am almost certain that I am in the company of a “compulsive optimist.” One thing is the whole universe conspiring for our dreams to become true, quite another is to place yourself in front of absolutely unnecessary challenges, which can lead to death or unpredictable failure.
I explain that I have to leave for an appointment, but the reader does not give up.
“The blind can climb Everest, the highest mountain in the world (8,848 meters). Not only can they do it, but I happen to know of at least one blind person who did it. His name is Erik Weihenmayer. Can your appointment wait?”
Since he gave me a name, there could an interesting story here. My appointment can wait, of course.
“In 2001, Weihenmayer managed the feat. Meanwhile, people complain that they cannot afford a better car, more elegant clothes, and a salary that matches their abilities.”
“Are you sure?”
“Look it up in the Internet. But what fascinates me is that Weihenmayer knew exactly what he wanted: he changed his life into what he thought it should be. He had the courage to risk everything to have the universe conspire in his favor.”
I agree. The reader goes on, as if my attitude is no longer of any interest to him:
“If you know what you want in life, then you have all you need to manage to make your dream come true. Didn’t you yourself say that?”
Of course. But there are limits, such as blind people climbing the highest mountain on earth.
“And if people have no dreams, what are they supposed to do?”
“Think about something that they would like to be doing, and then take the first step,” I answer. “Without being afraid of making a mistake. Without fear of offending those who ‘worry’ about their behavior.”
“That’s it!” said the reader, for the first time identifying my ideas clearly. “So we realize that to reach what we want we have to run risks. Don’t you say that in your books?”
Not only do I say it, but I also try to keep my word. But we are interrupted in our conversation; it is time for the appointment that has brought me to Hamburg. I thank him for his attention, ask him to send me suggestions for my page on the Internet, we take another picture and then say goodbye.
At three o’clock in the morning, returning from that event, I reach into my pocket for the key to my room and discover the piece of paper where he had jotted down the blind man’s name. Even knowing that I have to travel to Cairo in a couple of hours, I turn on the computer, and there it is:
“On 25 May 2001, at the age of 32, Erik Weihenmayer became the first blind person to reach the top of the highest mountain in the world. A former high-school teacher, he received the ESPN and IDEA prize for his courage in overcoming the limits that his physical condition permitted. Besides Everest, Erik Weihenmayer has climbed the other seven highest mountains in the world, including Aconcagua in Argentina and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania”.
If you don’t believe it, look it up.

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

Subscribe to this blog's feed

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 Issue #125

In this issue
- On the Road to Santiago, 1986

“This cloud has to come to an end”, I thought while struggling to discover the yellow marks on the stones and trees along the Road. For nearly half an hour the visibility had been close to zero, and I went on singing to chase away the fear while waiting for something extraordinary to happen. Shrouded in the fog, all alone in that unreal atmosphere, once again I began to see the Road to Santiago as if it were a film, right at the moment when you see the hero doing what nobody would do, while in the audience you think that these things only happen in the cinema. But there I was, living this situation in real life. The forest was growing quieter and quieter and the fog was beginning to clear up. Maybe it was coming to an end, but that light confused my eyes and painted everything around me in mysterious and terrifying colors.
All of a sudden, like in a magic trick, the fog lifted completely. And there in front of me, driven into the top of the mountain, was the Cross.
I looked around, saw the sea of clouds from which I had emerged, and another sea of clouds way above my head. Between these two oceans, the peaks of the highest mountains and Cebreiro peak with the Cross. I felt a great urge to pray.
Despite the desire, I did not manage to say anything. A hundred meters beneath me, a village with fifteen houses and a small church began to turn on its lights. At least I had somewhere to spend the night. A stray lamb climbed the hill and placed itself between me and the cross. It looked at me, somewhat afraid. For a long time I stared at the nearly black sky, the cross and the white lamb at the foot of the cross.
“Lord”, I finally said. “I am not nailed to that cross, nor do I see You there. This cross is empty and so it shall remain for ever, because the time of Death has passed. This cross was the symbol of the infinite power that we all have, nailed and killed by man. Now this Power is born again to life, because I have walked the path of common people and in them I have found Your own secret. You too walked the path of common people. You came to teach all that we were capable of, and we did not want to accept this. You showed us that Power and Glory were in everyone’s reach, and this sudden vision of our capacity was too much for us. We crucified You not because we are ungrateful to the son of God but because we were very afraid to accept our own capacity. With time and tradition, You again became just a distant divinity, and we returned to our destiny as men.
“There is no sin in being happy. Half a dozen exercises and an attentive ear are enough to make a man realize his most impossible dreams”.
The lamb rose and I followed it. I already knew where it was leading me, and despite the clouds the world had grown transparent for me. Even though I was not seeing the Milky Way in the sky, I was certain that it existed and showed everyone the Road to Santiago. I followed the lamb, which was heading in the direction of the small village – also called Cebreiro, like the mountain. A miracle had taken place there once – the miracle of changing what you do into what you believe. The secret of my sword and the strange Road to Santiago.
As I climbed down the mountain I recalled the story. A peasant from a nearby village came up to hear Mass in Cebreiro one day amid a heavy storm. That Mass was celebrated by a monk of little faith who within himself disdained the peasant’s sacrifice. But at the moment of the Consecration, the host transformed into the body of Christ and the wine became his blood. The relics are still there, kept in that small chapel, a greater treasure than all the wealth of the Vatican.
I went to the small chapel built by the peasant and the monk who had begun to believe in what he did. No-one knew who they were. Two nameless headstones in the cemetery nearby mark the place where their bones are buried. But it is impossible to know which is the monk’s grave and which is the peasant’s. Because, in order to for there to be a miracle, the two forces had to fight the Good Fight.
Since then, whenever I am faced with an important challenge, I remember the story of the miracle of Cebreiro. Faith sometimes has to be provoked before it can manifest itself.
And this year I am celebrating the twentieth anniversary of my pilgrimage - which changed my life. Next week, on the 25th of July, we commemorate Santiago de Compostela Day. If you can, offer up a prayer in homage to the saint.

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

Subscribe to this blog's feed

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 - Human nature

In this issue
- Human nature

Every day, bombarded by acts of cruelty, we ask ourselves: how can men be capable of so much evil? The example stretches from Rio de Janeiro, where a journalist friend (Tim Lopes) was barbarously tortured to death, all the way to the Abu Graib prison in Iraq where young American men and women who always behaved in exemplary fashion in their own small provincial communities back home end up behaving like monsters.
In 1971, professors from Stanford University in the United States created a sort of simulated prison in the basement of the Psychology Department. Using no special criterion, they chose 12 students as guards and another 12 as prisoners, all from the same social background, middle class, strict upbringing, dignified moral values. For two weeks the “prison guards” would be given total power over the “prisoners”.
The experience had to be interrupted after a week: after a few days the “guards” began to reveal a form of behavior that became increasingly sadistic and abnormal, committing barbarities never before suspected. Today, over 30 years later, the two groups still need psychological counseling.
The idealizer of the Stanford experience, Philip Zimbardo, told the Herald Tribune: “I was not surprised at the photos of the Abu Graib prison in Iraq. This is not a group of rotten apples placed in a basket of fresh fruit, but exactly the opposite: when faced with the possibility of absolute power, people of good sentiments lose all notion of limits and let the most primitive instincts be released.
Another interesting study was carried out by Stanley Milgram for Yale University. A group of students was chosen to study “punishment techniques”. They stayed on one side of a glass with a machine for electrical shocks, while on the other side of the glass a student had to give the right answers to certain questions. Every time he made a mistake, the students were to apply a shock, progressively increasing the voltage, even knowing that after a certain point they could kill their fellow student.
The machine for shocks was false and the “student” was an actor, but the students in the experience did not know that. To everyone’s surprise, 65% of the “interrogators” reached what would have been the mortal dose.
In short, when we are faced with situations that allow us total and absolute control over someone else, none of us can be certain that we will not overstep the limits. But only those who have undergone this type of experience (and, unfortunately, I remember certain attitudes during my youth that would include me in this group) know that at a certain moment we completely lose control and move beyond reason.
If this is human nature, what are we to do? An old story that takes place in the Pyrenees – possibly a legend – tells how a certain monk called Savin, who came to collect donations in gold for the chapel he wanted to build, passed by the house of one of the most feared bandits in the region. Since he had nowhere to spend the night, he asked if he could stay there.
The bandit, surprised at the monk’s courage, decided to test him, and asked:
“You have come here to provoke me. You want me to kill you and steal your money and make you a martyr. If the most beautiful prostitute in town came through that door right now, would you be able to think she wasn’t beautiful and seductive?”
“No. But I would be able to control myself.”
“And if a monk came in with gold to build a chapel, would you be able to look at that gold as if it were stones?”
“No. But I would be able to control myself.”
Savin and the assassin had the same instincts — good and evil fought for them, just as they fight for every soul on the face of the Earth. When the evildoer saw that the monk was just like him, he also understood that he was just like Savin, and became converted.
We have good and evil before us, and it is all a matter of control.
Nothing more than that.

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

Subscribe to this blog's feed

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 - small stories

In this issue
- Small stories

In the tavern
Rabbi Wolf entered a bar by chance. Some people were drinking, others were playing cards, and the atmosphere seemed heavy. The rabbi left without saying a word.
A young man followed him out: “I know that you didn’t like what you saw in there,” he said. “That’s a place for sinners.”
“No, I liked what I saw,” Wolf answered. “Those are men learning to lose everything. When they have lived the experience of losing, all that will remain is for them is to return to God. And from that moment on, what excellent servants they will make!”

Ten percent
“To be like me is very simple,” said the richest man in Babylonia. “All you have to understand is that a tenth of what you earn is yours.”
“That makes no sense,” answered the young man. “All that I earn is mine.”
“Don’t you pay the tailor? Don’t you pay the baker every day? You can’t live even for a day without spending. You pay everybody except yourself. From now on, pay yourself a tenth of your salary. Don’t forget that the paths of wealth are magical and strange; if you take good care of that tenth, one day it will reward all your efforts.”

Beyond the port
A hermit from the monastery of Sceta came up to Abbot Theodore:
“I know exactly what the objective of life is. I know what God asks of man, and I know the best way to serve Him. And even so, I am unable to do all that I should be doing to serve the Lord.”
“You know that there exists a city on the other side of the ocean,” replied Theodore. “But you haven’t found the ship yet, you still haven't packed your bags on board, and you haven’t crossed the sea. Why keep talking about what it is like and how we should walk down the streets? Put into practice what you’re saying and the path will reveal itself to you.”

At heaven’s door
When Don Enrique died he went straight to heaven. He knocked hard on the door and a voice asked: “Who’s there?”
“It’s Don Enrique Fernandez of Valdivieso.”
“Well go away, there’s no room here for two,” said the voice. And so Don Enrique was sent to Purgatory. Some time later, he very timidly returned to heaven.
“Who is it?” asked the voice. “It’s me,” answered Don Enrique.
“There’s no room here for two,” repeated the voice.
Don Enrique went back to Purgatory. One day he went back to knock on heaven’s door.
“Who is it?” asked the voice. “A small part of God,” he answered.
And heaven’s door opened to him.

Rigor and compassion
In the heart of winter the samurai presented himself to the Zen master.
“I am dying of cold and hunger and I have no way of supporting myself.”
Filled with pity, the master went to the statue of Yakushi-Buda, removed the gold chain that adorned the neck and handed it to the samurai.
The other pupils complained: "sacrilege!"
"Why sacrilege?" asked the master. "You have heard tell of David, who ate the bread from the tabernacle when he was hungry. Christ cured on the Sabbath whenever that was necessary. All I did was put the spirit of Buddha into action: now love and compassion can do their work."

Wrong questions
What is wisdom
A Sufi story tells us of a man who lived in Turkey who heard of a great master who lived in Persia who held the secret of wisdom.
Without hesitating, he sold his things, took leave of his family and went off in search of this secret. After years of traveling he managed to arrive at a cabin where the great master lived. Filled with awe, he drew closer and waited for the wise man to return from his morning stroll.
“I come from Turkey,” he said as soon as the wise man turned up. “I have made this long journey just to ask one question.”
“That’s fine. You can ask just one question.”
“I have to be clear in what I am going to ask; may I ask you in Turkish?”
“You may, “ said the wise man. “And I have already asked your only question. Anything else you want to know, you ask your heart. You don’t have to travel so far to discover that it is the best counselor of all.”
And he shut the door.

Why God did not help us
Master and disciple are walking through the deserts of Arabia. The Master uses each moment of the journey to teach his disciple about faith.
“Entrust your things to God,” he said. “Because He never abandons His children.”
When they camped down at night, the Master asked the disciple to tie the horses to a nearby rock. The disciple went over to the rock, but then remembered what he had learned that afternoon. “The Master must be testing me. The truth is that I should entrust the horses to God." And he left the horses loose.
In the morning he discovered that the animals had run off. Indignant, he sought out the Master.
“You know nothing about God! Yesterday I learned that I should trust blindly in Providence, so I gave the horses to Him to guard, and the animals have disappeared!”
“God wanted to look after the horses,” answered the Master. “But at that moment he needed your hands to tie them up and you did not lend them to Him.”

It’s raining and can I go out?
An old Buddhist story goes like this: a man is passing through a village under a heavy storm when all of a sudden he sees a house catching fire. Drawing closer, he sees another man – (the fable uses the beautiful image "with fire to the eyelashes ") – crying in his direction: “Is it raining?”
The traveler is surprised.
“Your house is catching fire!” he says.
“I need to know if it’s raining or not. My mother told me that the rain can give us pneumonia.”
Zao Chi comments on the fable: "wise is the man who manages to change the situation when he is forced to do so. Foolish is the man who does not trust the hand of God, only the answers of his fellow humans."

What is the first step?
A man decided to visit a hermit who lived near the monastery of Sceta.
“What is the first step of one who aims to follow the spiritual path?” he asked.
The hermit took him to a well and asked him to look at his reflection in the water. The man obeyed, but the hermit began to throw small stones, making ripples on the surface.
“I won’t be able to see my face right if you keep throwing stones.”
“Just as it is impossible to see your face in troubled waters, so it is impossible to seek God if your mind is anxious about the search,” said the monk. “Don’t ask questions, just move forward with faith. This will always be the first and most important step of all.

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

Subscribe to this blog's feed

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 - The man who followed his dreams

In this issue
- The man who followed his dreams

I was born in the Saint Joseph maternity in Rio de Janeiro. As it was a quite complicated childbirth, my mother consecrated me to the saint, praying to him to help me live. José became a reference in my life, and every year since 1987 - the year following my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela - I throw a party in his honor on March 19. I invite friends and hard-working, honest people, and before dinner we pray for all those who try to maintain their dignity in their actions. We also pray for those who are jobless and have no prospects for the future.
In the short introduction I give before the prayer, I usually recall that four of the five times that the word “dream” appears in the New Testament refer to Joseph the carpenter. In all the cases, an angel is always trying to convince him to do exactly the opposite of what he was planning to do.
The angel asks him not to abandon his wife, although she is pregnant. He could say things like “what are the neighbors to think?” But he returns home and believes in the revealed word.
The angel sends him to Egypt. And his answer could have been: “but I’m already established here as a carpenter, I have my clientele, I can’t just leave everything now.” Nevertheless he packs his things and sets out for the unknown.
The angel asks him to return from Egypt. And again Joseph could have thought: “now that I have managed to establish a new life for myself and have a family to support?”
Contrary to what common sense dictates, Joseph follows his dreams. He knows that he has a destiny to fulfill, the destiny of almost all men on this planet: to protect and support his family. Like millions of anonymous Josephs, he tries to see to the task, even having to do things that are far beyond his comprehension.
Later on, both his wife and one of his sons become the great references of Christianity. The third pillar of the family, the workman, is only remembered in the Nativity scenes at the end of the year, or by those who have a special devotion for him, as is my case, and as is the case of Leonardo Boff, whose book on the carpenter contains an introduction I wrote.
Here I reproduce part of a text by the writer Carlos Heitor Cony (I hope it really is his, because I discovered it on the Internet!): “Now and again people find it strange that a confirmed agnostic like me, who does not accept the idea of a philosophical, moral or religious God, should be a devotee of some saints in our traditional calendar. God is too distant a concept or entity for my resources and even for my needs. As for the saints, because they were earthly beings with the same clay foundations that I was made of, they deserve more than my admiration. They really deserve my devotion.
“Saint Joseph is one of them. The Gospels do not register a single word of his, only gestures, and just one explicit reference: "vir justus" – a just man. Since he was a carpenter and not a judge, it can be deduced that Joseph was above all a good man. A good carpenter, a good husband, a good father to a boy who would divide the history of the world.”
Beautiful words by Cony. And often I read aberrations such as: “Jesus went to India to learn from the masters of the Himalayas.” For me, every man can change the task he is given by life into something sacred, and Jesus learned while the just man Joseph taught him to make tables, chairs and beds.
In my imagination I like to think that the table where Christ consecrated the bread and wine was made by Joseph – because there was the hand of an anonymous carpenter who earned his living with the sweat of his brow, and precisely because of that allowed miracles to take place.

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

Subscribe to this blog's feed

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 - I am not happy

In this issue
- I am not happy

A comment that is very often heard in interviews is: “ ... and now that you are a happy person ...”, which provokes the immediate reaction: “Did I say I was happy?”
I am not happy, and the quest for happiness as a principal objective is not part of my world. Of course, ever since I can remember, I have done what I felt like doing. That is why I was admitted three times to a psychiatric clinic, spent a few terrifying days in the dungeons of Brazil’s military dictatorship, and just as quickly lost and won friends and girlfriends. I walked down paths that, if I could turn back, I might avoid today, yet something always pushed me forward, and it certainly was not the quest for happiness. What interests me in life is curiosity, challenges, the good fight with its victories and defeats. I bear many a scar, but I also carry with me moments that never would have happened if I had not dared beyond my limits. I confront my fears and moments of loneliness, and I think that a happy person never goes through this.
But that is of the least importance: I am content. And contentedness is not exactly a synonym of happiness, which to me seems like a dull Sunday afternoon without any challenges, just rest that in a couple of hours grows into tedium, the same evening television programs, the prospect of Monday waiting with its routine.
I mention all this because I was surprised by the long leading article in one of the most prestigious magazines in the United States that is normally dedicated to political matters. The theme was: “The science of happiness: is it in our genetic system?” Aside from the usual things (tables of happier or less happy countries, sociological studies on man’s search for a meaning to life, eight steps to finding harmony), the article includes some interesting observations that for the very first time made me see that I am not alone in my ideas:
A] - countries where income is under US$ 10,000 a year are countries where the majority of the population is unhappy. However, it was discovered that from that figure upwards, monetary difference is not all that important. A scientific study conducted on the 400 richest persons in the United States shows that they are only slightly happier than those who earn US$ 20,000. The logical consequence: of course, poverty is something unacceptable, but the old saying that “money does not bring happiness” is being proved in laboratories.
B] – happiness is just another of the tricks that our genetic system plays on us to carry out its only role, which is the survival of the species. So, to force us to eat or make love, it is necessary to add an element called “pleasure”.
C] - however happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have. This is also a subtle manifestation of the instinct of survival: at the moment when everyone feels completely happy, no-one will dare to do anything different and the world will stop evolving.
D] therefore, both on the physical plane (eating, making love) and on the emotional plane (always wanting something we do not have), the evolution of humanity has dictated one important and fundamental rule: happiness cannot last. It will always be made of moments, so we can never get comfortable in an armchair and just contemplate the world.
Conclusion: better forget this idea of seeking happiness at any cost and look for more interesting things like unknown seas, strangers, provocative thoughts, risky experiences. Only in this way will we live our human condition to the full and contribute to a more harmonious civilization at peace with other cultures. Of course, everything has a price, but it is worth paying.

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

Download this issue as a free e-book (PDF) from the Smink Works Books site

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

Subscribe to this blog's feed

Paulo Coelho's Warrior of the Light - The basement secrets

In this issue
- The basement secrets

Once a year I go to the Benedictine abbey at Melk in Austria to attend the Waldzell Meetings – an initiative of Gundula Schatz and Andreas Salcher. There we remain in a sort of retreat for a whole weekend together with Nobel prize-winners, scientists, journalists, two dozen young people and some guests. We cook, stroll through the gardens of the monumental setting (which inspired Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose”) and talk informally about the present and the future of our civilization. The men sleep in the cloisters of the monastery and the women in hotels nearby.
The 2005 meeting was all that could be expected, especially the impassioned discussions and the moments of joy and confrontation. Almost all the guests went back to their countries on Sunday evening, but because on the next day the organizers and I were to take part in the opening of the Austrian legislation of the Road to Santiago, we had to spend the night in the abbey. Father Martin invited us to have dinner in his “secret place”.
Full of excitement, we went down to the basement of the old building. An old door opened and we found ourselves in a gigantic hall where there was everything or practically everything that had been gathered over centuries and that Martin refused to throw out. Old type-writers, skis, World War II helmets, old tools, books no longer in circulation, and – bottles of wine! Dozens, hundreds of dust-covered bottles of wine, the best of which were selected by Abbot Burkhard as dinner proceeded. I consider Burkhard to be one of my spiritual mentors, although we have never exchanged more than two phrases (he only speaks German). His eyes express goodness, his smile shows immense compassion. I remember that he was once assigned to introduce me at a lecture, and to the dismay of all he chose a quotation from my book “Eleven Minutes” (which deals with sex and prostitution).
While I ate, I was fully aware that I was experiencing a unique moment in a unique place. All of a sudden I realized something important: everything in that basement was tidily arranged, made sense, was part of the past, yet made up the history of the present.
And I wondered: what in my past is tidily arranged, but I don’t use any more? My experiences are part of each day, they are not in the basement, they are still active and helping me. So to speak of experience would be wrong thinking. What would the right answer be?
My mistakes.
Yes. Looking at the basement at Melk Abbey, and understanding that not everything that is no longer used should be discarded, I realized that in the basement of my own soul lay my mistakes; one day they helped me to find the way, but after I became aware of them, they no longer have any utility. Nevertheless, they need to accompany me so that I don’t forget that because of them I slipped and fell and nearly did not have the strength to rise again.
That night, on returning to my cell in the cloisters, I made a list. Here are two examples:
A] The arrogance of youth. Whenever I was a rebel, in search of a new path, this was positive. But whenever I was arrogant, thinking that those older than me knew nothing, I missed learning so much.
[B] Forgetting friends. I have had many ups and downs. But on my first “high” I thought that I had changed my life and decided to surround myself with new people. Of course, at the next down, the newcomers all disappeared, and I could not resort to my old companions again. Ever since then I have tried to treasure friendship as something that does not change with time.
The list is enormous, but the space for the column is limited. However, although my mistakes have taught me all that I needed to learn from them, it is important that they remain in the basement of my soul. In that way, when occasionally I go down there to find the wine of wisdom, I can contemplate them and accept that they are part of my history, the foundations of what I am today, and that I need to bear them, however tidily arranged (or resolved) they may be.
Otherwise I run the risk of repeating everything all over again.

In the recess of the heart
Days after I wrote the above text and sent it off to Austria, I received a letter from Abbot Dr. Burkhard Ellegast, OSB. Here are some of his reflections:
“We often wonder: how did that ever happen to me? All of a sudden I found myself surrounded by people who were willing to reflect on the meaning of life. What could I tell those people, if all that had happened in my existence was to join a convent when I was still young, and then later on be assigned to direct this abbey for 26 years?
“I think that people looked to me as if I had an answer to everything. But all that I decided to do was talk a little about myself. To say that my faith is capable of keeping me alive and eager to carry on, despite the moments of pessimism. Then I explained my motto: if I ever take the wrong step and get dragged down, it will never be done discreetly. Everyone will hear me shouting and kicking and waving flags so that I can serve as an alert for those who come after me.
“Because of this motto, I know that I will hardly lead others with me in my mistakes and so I manage to dominate my fear and risk sailing my boat into unknown waters. Of course I know that if I begin to drown, no matter how loud I cry out, I can still hold up my hand and ask: God, please help me! I am quite sure I will be heard, and that a new path will open up for me.
“In his article, Paulo Coelho comments that he was surprised to see that I introduced him with a quotation from his book “Eleven Minutes”. I read an extract from the diary of the main character, where she tells the story of a pretty bird that used to visit her. She admired it so much that one day she decided to keep it in a cage so that she would always have its song and beauty by her side. As the days went by, she grew used to her new companion and lost the fascination of waiting for that free soul to visit her from time to time, without any obligation. As for the bird, it could not sing in captivity and eventually died. Only then did she realize that love needs freedom to express all its enchantment – although freedom implies risks.
“We tend to look for captivity because we are used to seeing freedom as something that has no limits or responsibility. And for that reason we end up trying to enslave everything we love – as if egoism were the only way to keep our world in balance. Love places no limits; it widens our horizons, we can see clearly what is outside and we can see even more clearly the dark places in our heart.
“Though I don’t speak English, I was able to understand all that Coelho’s eyes and gestures were saying. I also remember when he asked me, through somebody in the audience, what he should do now. And I answered: keep on looking. “And when you find it, even so keep on looking, with enthusiasm and curiosity. In spite of all the mistakes that may be made, love is stronger, it lets the bird fly free, and each step will be not just a move forward, but will contain a whole new path.”

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

Subscribe to this blog's feed

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 - More stories of friends and strangers

In this issue
- More stories of friends and strangers

The Dutch girl in the club
In 1982, although I had a good job in a recording company and earned a lot of money from song lyrics, I was also very unhappy. Worse still: because life was good to me, I also felt guilty. So I decided to throw it all up and travel the world until I found a meaning to existence.
On these wanderings I lived for a while in Amsterdam in Holland, which was the symbol of complete and utter freedom in all senses. There I frequented the Kosmos – a sort of club where people gathered with whom I felt an affinity.
One night a Dutch girl asked me what Brazil was like.
I began to tell her about our problems: the hard repression of the military regime, the social inequality, the misery, the violence.
“But you live in the best place on Earth,” I added. “What’s it like to wake up every morning in Paradise?”
The Dutch girl was quiet for a long time before answering:
“Horrible. Everything is so right here, there is no challenge left, no emotion. I wish we had your problems – then I would feel again like a part of humanity.”

With the eyes of the soul
At the age of 80 the Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges went to visit Mexico. His editor told me that after several days of lectures, conferences and tributes, Borges asked for an afternoon off to visit the Aztec pyramids in Yucatán.
The editor explained that it was a very tiring journey that meant going by taxi, plane and jeep. Borges was not dissuaded and they ended up arranging everything so that he could go to Uxmal.
He arrived almost at nightfall, after an exhausting day. He sat down in front of a 10th century pyramid and stayed there for a half hour without saying anything. At last he rose and thanked those accompanying him: "thank you for this afternoon and this unforgettable landscape."
As we know, Borges was blind. But that did not prevent his soul from understanding what was all around him.

A chapel in the Pyrenees
Right after the launching of "The Alchemist" I had to spend some time outside Brazil. But as the book had just come out, and my editor at the time was not very enthusiastic, I was always worried about what was happening in my country.
One fine day, in a hermitage in the Pyrenees, I came upon a text engraved on a wall. Sure that that message had been left there for me, I copied it in my travel notebook and began to repeat those sentences every morning. Little by little, peace of mind returned and I was finally able to enjoy the journey.
Here is what was written in the little chapel:
"If you were really a child, a true child, instead of worrying about what you can’t do, you would contemplate Creation in silence. And you would become used to looking calmly at the world, nature, history and the sky.
"If you really were a child, at this moment you would be singing Hallelujah for the things before you. Then – free from tensions, fears and useless questions – you would use this time to wait with curiosity and patience for the things in which you invested so much love to bear fruit." (Carlos Caretto, Italian hermit).

At a market in Rio
A priest from Copacabana Church was waiting patiently for his turn to buy meat in the supermarket when a woman tried to skip the line.
Then there began a festival of verbal attacks from the other customers, which the woman answered with the same vehemence.
When the atmosphere grew unbearable, someone cried out:
"Hey, missus, God loves you."
"It was impressive," said the priest. "At a moment when everyone was thinking of hate, someone spoke of love. There and then the agitation vanished as if by magic. The woman walked back to her proper place in line and the customers apologized for reacting so aggressively."

It’s never too late
Joyce is an Australian photographer specialized in wild life.
"When I turned 60 I felt that life was over for me," she says. My children were grown up and my grandchildren no longer paid much attention to me. One day I decided to accompany my son to the central desert in Australia. We camped, and since there was nothing to do and no-one nearby, I decided to get drunk for the first time in my life. After the second glass I grabbed a video camera and began to film. I filmed the sky, the tent, everything I felt like filming. But I was so drunk that I fell on the ground with the camera. I lay there for a few instants and noticed a line of ants walking beside me. It was as if I could hear their steps, as if that was part of a world that I had never noticed. I filmed the ants walking, and I discovered my vocation."
When we had this chat some years ago, Joyce was 71 years old.

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

Subscribe to this blog's feed

Selected Warrior of the Light issues are available as PDF downloads from the Smink Works Books site

Paulo Coelho's Warrior of the Light - Accepting paradoxes

In this issue
- Accepting paradoxes

"It’s odd," the warrior muses to himself. "I have met so many people who, at the first chance they get, try to show the worst of themselves. They hide their interior strength through aggressiveness and disguise the fear of solitude with an air of independence. They don’t believe in their own capacity but are always extolling their virtues to the four winds.”
The warrior reads these messages in many men and women he knows. He is never fooled by appearances and insists on remaining silent when others try to impress him. But he uses the opportunity to correct his flaws – since people are always a good mirror.
A warrior puts to good use every opportunity to teach himself and to admit his own contradictions.

Patience and Speed
A Warrior of Light needs patience and speed at the same time. The two biggest mistakes of a strategy are to act prematurely and to let the opportunity pass by. To avoid making these mistakes, the warrior copes with each situation as if it were unique, and applies no formulas, prescriptions or the opinions of others.
Caliph Moauiyat asked Omar Ben Al-Aas what was the secret of his great political skill: “I have never gotten involved in any matter without first studying the way out; on the other hand, I have never become involved and wanted to get out right away,” was his answer.

Pardoning x Accepting
A Warrior of Light always keeps his heart clean of the sentiment of hate. To do so, he needs to pardon.
When he walks to a fight, he never forgets Christ’s words: "love your enemies."
And the warrior obeys, but always remembers that Christ did not say: “like your enemies.”
The act of pardoning does not oblige him to accept everything. A warrior must not lower his head, otherwise he loses sight of the horizon of his dreams.

Resting x Acting
In the interval of the combat, the warrior rests.
He often spends days on end doing nothing, because his heart needs that.
But his intuition remains alert. He does not commit the capital sin of Sloth, because he knows where that can lead to: the tepid feeling of Sunday afternoons, when time passes – and nothing else.
The warrior calls this "cemetery peace." He recalls an extract from the Apocalypse: I curse you because you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot! But since you’re tepid, I shall vomit you from my mouth.
A warrior rests and laughs. But he is always attentive and ready to act.

Angel x Devil
A warrior knows that an angel and a devil dispute the hand that holds the sword.
The devil says: "you are going to fail. You are going to miss the right moment. You are afraid."
The angel says: "you are going to fail. You are going to miss the right moment. You are afraid."
The warrior is surprised. Both of them say the same thing.
Then the devil continues: "let me help you."
And the angel says: "I’ll help you."
That is when the warrior notices the difference. The words are the same, but the allies are different.
So he dedicates his victory to God. And with the confidence of the brave he chooses the hand of his angel.

Believing in signs
The Warrior of Light knows the importance of his intuition.
In the midst of battle he has no time to think about the enemy’s blows – so he uses his instinct and obeys his angel. In times of peace he deciphers the signs that God sends him.
People say: "he’s crazy."
Or else: "he lives in a world of fantasy."
Or even: "how can he trust things that have no logic?"
But the warrior knows that intuition is the alphabet of God, and continues listening to the wind and talking to the stars.

Believing in love
For the warrior, there is no such thing as impossible love. He does not let himself be intimidated by silence, indifference or rejection. He knows that behind the mask of ice that people wear there exists a heart of fire.
That is why the warrior risks more than others. He seeks tirelessly for someone’s love - even if this means often hearing the word "no", returning home defeated and feeling rejected in both body and soul.
A warrior does not let himself become scared when he seeks what he needs. Without love he is nothing.

Believing in negotiation
A Warrior of Light cannot always choose his battle field. Sometimes he is caught by surprise in the midst of combats he did not desire, but there is no use in fleeing, because these combats will follow him.
So at the moment when the conflict is almost inevitable, the warrior talks with his adversary. Without showing fear or cowardice, he tries to find out why the other wants the fight, what reasons made him leave his village and seek him out for a duel. Without unsheathing his sword, the warrior convinces him that that combat is not his.
A Warrior of Light listens to what his adversary has to say. And only fights if it is necessary. But if there is no alternative he thinks neither of victory or defeat: he takes the combat all the way to the end.

Believing in perseverance
The Warrior of Light never forgets the old advice about accepting trials and criticism humbly.
Injustice happens. He also suddenly finds himself involved in situations that he did not deserve, at moments that he has no means to defend himself.
At such times the warrior remains silent. He does not waste energy on words, because they can do nothing; it is better to use his strength to resist, be patient and know that Someone is watching. Someone who saw unjust suffering and cannot accept that.
This Someone gives the warrior what he needs most: time. Sooner or later everything will once again work in his favor.
A Warrior of Light is wise; he does not comment on his defeats.

Believing the Personal Legend
A Warrior of Light assumes his Personal legend entirely – his reason for living. His companions remark: "his faith is admirable!"
The warrior is proud for a few minutes and then ashamed of what he hears, because he does not possess the faith that he displays.
At this moment his angel whispers to him: "you are only an instrument of the light. There is no reason to feel proud of yourself or to feel guilty; there is only reason to fulfill your destiny."
And the Warrior of Light, aware that he is an instrument, feels calmer and more secure.

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

Subscribe to this blog's feed

Selected Warrior of the Light issues are available as PDF downloads from the Smink Works Books site

Paulo Coelho's Warrior of the Light - At the end of the black tunnel

In this issue
- At the end of the black tunnel

“I saw only a tunnel.”
In the bar in Sibiu, in Transylvania, Sorin looks deep into my eyes. He carries on speaking.
“I saw a black tunnel with a man at the end of it, making signs at me.”
I wait. We have all the time in the world and I remember that when I was in the same situation I saw a tunnel too, except this one led to a hotel in Rio de Janeiro, the Glória Hotel. I looked at that hotel, expected the worse and thought to myself: “it’s not fair, I’m only 26 years old!” Fair or not, in the early morning of 27 May 1974 I stood before death and could not see what was happening beside me. Just the tunnel and the hotel. But my story does not matter, it serves only to say that I understand perfectly well what Sorin is telling me in a bar lost in the middle of the Carpates Mountains.
“I saw only a tunnel, with a man pointing a gun at me and telling me to get out of the car.”
Sorin Miscoci’s Calvary began on 28 March 2005, near Baghdad. He had been designated to spend a week there at the request of a Rumanian TV station and ended up being kidnapped for 55 days.
“Later on, when they freed me, the American security agents asked me how many people were there. And I told them: one. They laughed and said that just wasn’t possible. It was the psychologist who helped me, explaining that in situations like this, nothing in the surroundings has any importance. All you see is the focus of the crisis, what is threatening you, and you simply forget the rest.
Sorin has just got married to Andrea, who strokes his hand. We have been traveling together for three days and we will continue for another week crossing the Carpates Mountains. I knew his story, but waited until he was in his home town before asking him the details. Cristina Topescu, an old friend who worked as a journalist in the same TV as Sorin, was also at the table. She says that when the time came to mobilize the country, few colleagues came forward to speak to the President of the Republic, for fear of losing their jobs.
“The worst of it was that I saw Sorin wearing orange overalls and with his head shaven, in a video that was delivered to Al-Jazeera (the Arab channel based in Qatar),” says Cristina. “This was a sign that his execution would take place quite soon.”
“I asked God for only one thing: to die with a bullet in the heart. I had already seen videos of prisoners being decapitated; I asked, begged to be shot,” adds Sorin.
Andrea gives him a kiss. He smiles, asks if I want to stay in that restaurant or if we should go to the only karaoke in Sibiu. I prefer to interrupt the conversation at that point - it was better to go and sing together. Our group gets up, I try to pay the bill but it was “on the house” in homage to the local hero, he who had survived in spite of everything.
On the way to the discotheque, I think about the black tunnel: without wanting to romanticize a dramatic situation, I fell that this happens to everyone. When we are faced with something that really threatens us, it is impossible to look around, although this is the correct and safer procedure. We can’t see clearly, use logic, gather information that can help us and those who try to get us out of that situation. In love and in war we are human, thank God.
We reach the karaoke, drink some more, sing Elvis, Madonna and Ray Charles. Ours is an interesting group: Lacrima, who was abandoned by her mother when she was only two months old. Leonardo, who has just got over a depression that lasted two years. Cristina Topescu, who recently overcame difficult moments. Sorin and his 55 days in captivity, and Andrea, who almost lost the person she loved. And me, with scars all over my body and soul.
And even so we drank, sang and celebrated life. To have friends like these gives me more than hope, it makes me understand that the true survivors will never be victims to their torturers, because they manage to keep alive the most important thing in human beings: joy.
And where there is joy after tragedy, there will always be an example to be followed.

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

Subscribe to this blog's feed

Selected Warrior of the Light issues are available as PDF downloads from the Smink Works Books site

Paulo Coelho's Warrior of the Light - Stories about apprenticeship

In this issue
- Stories about apprenticeship

Learning to take care of oneself
- For years I have sought enlightenment – said the disciple. – I feel I am near it and want to know how to take the next step.
- A man who knows how to seek God knows also how to take care of himself. How do you support yourself? – asked the master.
- That is just a detail. I have rich parents who help me along my spiritual path. Because of that, I can dedicate myself entirely to sacred things.
- Very well – said the master. – I will explain to you the next step: look at the sun for half a minute.
The disciple obeyed.
When he had finished, the master asked him describe the landscape around him.
- I can’t. The sun’s brightness dazzled my eyes.
- A man who looks fixedly at the sun ends up blind. A man who only looks for Light, and shifts his responsibilities onto the shoulders of others, never finds what he is seeking – was the master’s comment.

Making the field fertile
The Zen master entrusted the disciple with looking after the rice paddy. In the first year, the disciple watched to make sure that the necessary water was never missing; the rice grew strong and the harvest was good.
In the second year, he had the idea of adding a little fertiliser, the rice grew fast and the harvest was bigger.
In the third year, he used more fertiliser. The harvest was still bigger, but the rice sprouted small and lacklustre.
- If you continue increasing the amount of manure, you will have nothing worth having next year – said the master.
“You strengthen someone when you help a little. But you weaken someone if you help a lot.”

The way of the tiger
The man was walking through the forest when he saw a crippled fox.
"How does she feed herself?" he thought.
At that moment, a tiger approached with an animal in its jaws. It satisfied its hunger and left what remained for the fox.
"If God helps the fox then he will help me too”, he thought. He returned to his house, locked the door and waited for Heaven to send him food.
Nothing happened. When he was getting too weak to go out and work, an angel appeared.
- Why did you decide to imitate the lame fox? - asked the angel. – Get up, take your tools and follow the way of the tiger!

Would anyone know the difference
A father took his two boys to play mini-golf. At the ticket office he wanted to know the price.
- Five coins for adults, three for those over six years. Under six years entry is free.
- One of them is three, the other seven. I’ll pay for the oldest.
- You are silly – said the ticket seller. You could have saved three coins, saying that the oldest was under six; I would never have known the difference.
- That may be, but the boys would know. And they would remember the bad example for ever.

Condemned to death
The group went down the street: the soldiers were escorting a man condemned to the gallows.
- That man was no good commented a disciple with Awas-el Salam. – Once I gave him a silver coin to help him to get out of his misery and he did nothing important.
- Perhaps he is no good, but he may now be going to the gallows because of you. Maybe he used the money you gave him to buy a dagger, which he ended up using in the crime committed. In that case, your hands are also bloodied. Instead of trying to support him with love and kindness, you preferred to give him alms and rid yourself of your obligation.

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

Subscribe to this blog's feed

Selected Warrior of the Light issues are available as PDF downloads from the Smink Works Books site

Warrior of the Light - A Place in Paradise

Warrior of the Light - Issue 110
Christmas Story: A Place in Paradise
By Paulo Coelho

Paulo's latest edition of Warrior of the Light tells a heart-warming Christmas story about how a miracle in one poor family's life happened not quite the way you would expect.

The full issue is now available for download from the Smink Works Books site

Warrior of the Light - Crises and their booby traps

Warrior of the Light Issue 109
Crises and their booby traps
by Paulo Coelho

Sobering advice from Paulo on being aware, how to act and communicate properly in the face of a crisis. He says it is most important to ask for help - don't be afraid to be vulnerable.

The full issue is now available for download from the Smink Works Books site

Warrior of the Light - Warrior of the light and his demons

Warrior of the Light Issue 108
Warrior of the Light and his demons
By Paulo Coelho

Paulo's latest musings consider how the 'warrior of the light' can be besieged by his own fears, paranoias and even actions. It is a positive and encouraging missive that will strike a chord with people attempting to improving themselves - we all take wrong steps and doubt ourselves; but it all seems so much better if we know others are going through the same thing.

The practical advice is particularly resonant. "The warrior when talking about his brother’s attitudes, imagines that he is present, listening to what he says. Thus, he develops the art of prudence and dignity," Paulo writes.

The full issue is now available for download from the Smink Works Books site

Warrior of the Light: Manual for Climbing Mountains

Warrior of the Light Issue 90
Manual for Climbing Mountains
By Paulo Coelho

This is a wonderful practical and allegorical guide to taking on challenges in life.

A PDF download of this issue is now available from the Smink Works Books site.