I just wanted to say thank you!

As i am 25 year with lot of question in mind and U r 60 year old with solution for almost every question then also i started with Paulo . Because when i read your books , i felt u r my best friend so i called U by your name directly instead of saying ‘Dear Sir / Respected Sir’ .

I started reading your books , not because your are great, nation changing writer but for increasing my english vocabulary (I am from small villeage of India named ‘Wadala Bahiroba from ahmednager district in Maharashtra state’). As i started reading your books , i felt that you are writing very simialar to Vivekanand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Vivekananda) And OSHO(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh)which are my problem solver friend’s.

I write above , just to say Thank You .

Dear Linnea
even if it is cold and dark, you live in a wonderful country. Please try to get the best the night can offer
love
Paulo

Gabriela,
I’m curious. Where is this villiage of yours? I also live in South Africa, but in a city and nowhere I’ve been is like the way you’ve described. I would so so so much like to go there, seeing that one does not always have the time and money to travel the world. At least then, I can travel this beautiful country of ours and see the amazing places it has to offer.
Kind Regards

I understand you are on a trip now, do you consider going to Southeast Asia? :)

I’m sort of reading your blog backwards :D

The story your reader sent you was beautiful.

~katrina

I am an ardent reader of your books and whatever you pen.It has always been an experience to walk alongwith you through your words,no matter wherever you are. The words of wisdom and the pure human emotions which you narrate in the Warrior of light is really inspiring and thought provoking. I will be with you along this journey through this blog.

Good Luck and kind regards.

Shaji.

Thanks to you I have a new friend in South Africa. And although we may never be in contact again after your pilgrimage, I know I’ll never lose her (although I do hope to find a way to contact her personally without having to post my email address. I’d appreciate some help with this). This service to others, favoring this exchange between your dedicated readers may be one of the particularly significant aspects of your pilgrimage. It certainly has made it more significant to me.

Unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to ask you one question I had. Well, probably you’ll have a couple of minutes to answer it here. There is my question:

“You have met many different people throughout your life, and what still amases you in them (in both positive and negative ways)?”

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, experience and being a guide of something beautiful….

~Jane~

Kind regards,
Patricia

When streets are crowded and loud
Watch for the lonely eyes
Don’t speak to those aloud
Just melt the greyish ice
Just look at soul, not pupils
Send warmth to that who’s lost
And smile with your wrinkles
And there’s no need for most…

Wish you all the best!

I came to Italy to do the unthinkable…I was (and am still) in love with a wonderful man even though I spoke very little Italian and didn’t even know how to cook (that is scandalous in a small town in Italy!). I have two sons who are my pride and joy. I enjoy the beauty of the sea which is 3 kms from my home, and if I look out my kitchen window I feel like I can almost touch the snow capped mountains which are only 30 kms away. All of these things are a comfort for my soul, but at times I am overcome by that aching feeling that I think will never go away no matter how hard I try.

It seems like I have worked so hard to overcome my hardships, but then something new happens and the pain starts over again. My two brothers were also abused, although it did not last as long as my experience. But one of my brothers, the most sensitive and fragile one didn’t make it, and he took his life ten years ago. About a month ago my parents found out about our childhood trauma and now are trying to cope with the devastating news.

These events are simply the effect of the evil things that happened many many years ago. It’s like a ball of yarn that is being unraveled. Sometimes you find little knots, which are not too hard to work out, and and sometimes it just all gets tangled up. You have to have the patience and constance to sit there and untangle everything. And you have to do it alone, because you can’t talk to others about it all the time!

But it is also true that I have had many gifts and many opportunities and I have never wasted them. It has never crossed my mind to solve the problem the way my brother did. I choose the way of the warrior, and I go on even though I am wounded. Some days I feel as though my wounds have made me stronger, more sensitive to others and their needs, and more capable of giving. And sometimes, like when I hear any kind of horrible news about children, I feel like it happened to me and I realize that I need that same word of comfort I have given so readily to someone else before.

I do things to try to put my sadness aside. I have organized Italian language courses for immigrants who have come to try to find a better life in Italy. I feel a kinship with anyone who has left their home and family to follow their destiny. These activities and the friendships that have come from them give me strength. It may seem like I am helping them but in reality they are helping me!

I have learned that a gesture of love has the same power as a gesture of abuse. When I first came to Italy there was a little old woman (her name was Alfia) who took me to her heart. She used to secretly let me call my family from her house and would invite me often for afternoon tea. I’ll never forget her kindness. A couple of years ago a Polish girl named Aneta came to me for help. We’ve become friends and are still very close even though she now lives in another city. My friendship with Aneta is a reflection and a result of the kindness I received from Alfia. The power of Alfia’s love lives on, even though she passed away a few years ago. The power of my love will live on because Aneta knows that one day, she may be in the position to do the same for someone else. This gives me hope.

When I read Paulo’s post, I thought to myself “Paulo, a man who many people consider a maestro (and I am among these people), sometimes feels lost and lonely like me”. And I felt like I had to reach out to him. I’m happy to have found a friend in South Africa who reached out to him too. And to me. Many thanks Paulo and Gabriela.

Leendert

I was somehow surprised reading your post. And then the Sunlight bursted out through my windows in front of the Room, lightened the entire room with Sunlight. I smiled, you are just like us. :-) You tech us an important lesson. You do not have to be a world famous writer to experience what you experience. Both in the magical events as in the common human events, we are all the same. Maybe one has more means then others, which is nice, but as you say, like traveling, you find your same self in every single town. In my humble opinion, this is why you feel every town is the same, temporarily! I know you are sharing only a phase with us, yes?
I think there are 4 Me’s in Me, And No I think I am not a mental case. :-) 4 Archetypes that have been created during the first 18 years of my life, it took me 33 years to understand this. Then I have identified the 5th archetype as my sacred voice connecting my inner and outer universe. the 6th archetype is also outer and represented in you and everybody else (we are all one) and NR 7 is the Big Boss :-) The God in me and you and everything else there is in this universe and beyond. I have known this theory for all my life, but I was not accepted and very isolated. Now I have started writing and all this comes out? 7 Archetypes who, when traveling in ONE Body experience many things on every corner of the street in every person I see or meet, I feel Love. Every stone of every town is different! Every Bird……..aaaah I write about it on my blog. I thought this thought would be somewhat amazing for you. I honor and respect you deeply, reading the Alchemist changed my life, Thank you for that. :-)

Leendert Hendrik
The Netherlands

I am fueled by fury. I want to scream for you to wake and step out of self pity. I want to shout for you to stop and see your place of privledge. I want to remind you to appreciate the life you have achieved.

From a platform of wealth, success, adoration and love of thousands, you speak, as I read, of doubt in yourself and of the monotomy of life.

I want to yell for you to turn and acknowledge the guts that push you to be yourself, the study, the painfull testings, the celebrations and intitiations of integration that pour from you into your gift of storytelling.

To-day I felt angry that while you can choose to go anywhere in the world, at any time and at every place know people are ready to embrace you, I cannot and so the truth emerges. I who dream of adventure and study in Wisdom Schools cannot leave the prison of Sydney and while I have groomed my natural abilty to make every day an adventure I am tired and while I have comfortably arrived at responding to the outer world I am reacting to my inner world which has no anchor in Creation, God or whatever we call this ultimate Mystery.

Compassion creeps through my pain and I return to see you as not only all of the above credits but also a man who walks The Path as we all do.

Paulo as you well know this world has many gifts and I have spent much of to-day observing. In Australia it is Mother’s Day and I realised the Spiritual Mother of women around me sits behind the outer and Physical mother. I saw angry children giving gifts but without quality of time and I was aware of children giving time but without Spirit.

To-night I feel exhausted. I long to sleep on the Earth with the Stars to blanket and illuminate my Soul…again I will sleep early and use my creative imagination to pull the stars past the multi buildings around me, the trains, planes and beyond the people who drink and do drugs, in the park opposite. I will strive to close down on my pain and the many voices of the collective I hear.

To-night I will return to the Sun and reach across the Earth and see the Vortex and Lights of the Souls on the Path and again touch the basic instinct of life purpose beyond myself.

While writing this a radio programe on CS Lewis & Tolkein has been broadcast. Again I am reminded of the multiple arenas of vulnerablity within the reality of Spiritual Enquiry. Paulo, you are the Storyteller of Now and again I return to respect for your courage and honestly to be yourself.

Blessings Sweet Soul of Spirit….walk gently Christine

I saw you in my country, Iran a few years ago. I am a physicist and work on the quantization of spacetime. What comes to your mind immediately after read the jargon “quantization of spacetime”?

By the way, a few years ago I initiated building a webpage for an Iranian scholar from who I learnt and learn many things from the persian literature to the principles of sufism. You may like to have a look on it and let me know your points, if you feel to do so … (http://www.geocities.com/ansari213/elahi.htm)

Best Regards
Mohammad

hope you had a great time with people in BiblioGlobus today, as i know you give hope to someone every single minute in the world.

was thinking how to make you feel the warmth and depth of my thinking when i contemplate about you, but then realized i am not alone in these; these slight mental connections are the most important in our world, only friends and the thought in time can cheer up the stranger soul in travel and remind him of the reason, he is making the path.

being sad means the feeling of the strings of life in different cities, pulsation of million hearts and the mixture of wishes and thoughts, desires and tragedies..
how can a person find the sence of living in hectic of the days, routines and opinions?
how can one struggle for what he or she belives in, when this notion of time is compressing from day to day?
how can one get brave enough to get going if the dream is already calling and the Universe is calling for action?
i feel the calling, but when sharing – realize there is no one to understand this feeling, in this moments i become sad. my heart is smiling anyway, but i feel alone as i know we always walk this path on our own through lifetime.
i need to find my zahir
Tass

You are standing at the begining of the road of your mortal life
Where there are so many obscure and hidden ways
You are to choose and find.
Where fate will take you by the hand
And guide you through eternity and time,
And remember that sometimes it won’t be so kind,
Leading you through corridors and labyrinths of human mind
Which keeps on wandering in the universe
In search of another newborn life.
On this road you’ll be a witness of the struggle
Between your commonn sense and feelings.
And it doesn’t matter who’ll be a winner,
You’ll find yourself again trapped in an invisible pitfall.
Where no one has to make a choice
Since it was made for you so long ago.

Here is another poem in Russian which I’ve just translated into English.

Whatever we do and wherever we go
On this earth we are always lonely and alone.
Still looking for the answer to the question
Why we came into this world.
Apparently the answer lurks deep within our souls
But not everyone is allowed to find the key
To the mysterious and invisible door
Which lead us through eternity and immortality of our souls.
And one day you’ll open that door and realize
Your body belongs to you no more.
And it doesn’t matter what you’ll read in your own thoughts
The answer will remain unfound and untold.
Cause whatever we do and wherever we go
On this earth we are always lonely and alone.

Чтобы мы не делали, и куда бы мы не шли
Чтобы мы не делали, и куда бы мы не шли,
Все равно в этой жизни мы остаемся одни.
Так и не найдя ответ на вопрос,
А для чего ж в этот мир мы пришли?
Быть может, ответ запрятан где-то глубоко в нашей души,
И не каждому суждено найти ключ от той тайной двери,
Которая ведет нас сквозь вселенной, и бессмертия души.
И однажды, открыв эту дверь, ты поймешь,
Что тело больше не принадлежит тебе – и это не ложь.
И не стоит даже верить тому, что в мыслях ты своих прочтешь.
Ответ ты так никогда и не найдешь,
Ведь чтобы мы не делали, и куда бы мы не шли,
Все равно в этой жизни мы остаемся одни.

P.S. WISH YOU ALL THE BEST!!!

This story of one of your readers is truly beauful, the poor man facing the challenge and succeeds. That again is a proof that many people love you, in whatever country of the world. It may seem strange, that someone in your position can feel lonely, but I know the phenomenon that you think that no one understands you. After a while, someone suddely opens your eyes. For me, this person has been you.

i came across your book The Alchemist when i needed it the most, and as so many others i also have journied with you since, with so many of us traveling with you in mind you are never alone. i left many many best friends and family behind when i moved to spain from england, near enough i know but far away it feels most days, but i know they think of me and i feel better for that feeling.

i followed my heart to this county four years ago and it led me to the man who is now my husband, i was happy already and not looking shall we say, but he and i complete eachother.

i am not good with words, and when i read yours they are always answers to questions i have when i need them most. thank you. all my friends no of you through me and my own blog of my not so far flung travels always quotes your words, i dont want anyone to miss out on not knowing you.

vaya con dios

marian

Even we who are at home wonder what the hell we are doing here and want to be elsewhere. Is there ever any rest for the soul? Too many possibilities, too many places to be . . . advances in transportation, or small world sydrome . . . blessing or a curse?

I always like to say,

“No matter where you go . . . There you are.”

Sincerely,
Scarlett Erb
Perry, GA, USA

As a child I watched the sky and felt the pull of the planets. I believe I even heard their sound. This experience was strong and came at the same time of each year, always two weeks before my birthday.
At this time I developed high fevers. It was in the late 40′s and early 50′s, pre antibiotics and the doctors did not know what it was. Each year my parents were warned I may die and for a week I hung in never-land.

The memory of this has never left me. I called it and still know it as the Alice in Wonderland Feeling. One minute I was suspended in space drifting in joy past Jupiter and Saturn. The feeling of being totally alive pulsed through me, then without warning I was flung back and hurled down into a crushing and suffociating cell. Agony ate my entire body. I remember screaming to be held so to feel safe yet the touch of a cotton sheet felt like hot spears and I screamed not to be touched.

I oscilated between being too big or too small and all sound pierced my body. I felt I was totally alone. Only the sky gave me comfort. I first experienced this when my father took me to lie under the night sky. I remember falling into myself and everything deep inside me went quiet.
To place a child with fever on damp grass in Autumn did not make sense but my father knew what to do. He, his mother and grandmother all experienced that same big/little fevers.

Paulo like you I love the outer life. I naturally enjoy meeting strangers and hearing their stories. I am inspired by what I see around me and would love to be able to walk as a pilgrim but my finance does not support this so I content myself with ‘travelling’ everyday and exploring my surrounds as if for the first time. I can step inside my little apartment holding joy and with this richness I am never sure…I so want to ‘go home’ in both worlds.

walking gently… Christine