Paulo Coelho’s Blog

By Paulo Coelho

The mystic Ramakrishna began his dedication to the spiritual life when he was sixteen. At first, he used to weep bitterly because, despite his devotion to the work at the temple, he seemed to be getting nowhere.

Later, when he was famous, a friend asked him about that period of his life. Ramakrishna replied:

‘If a thief were to spend the night in a room with only a thin wall separating him from another room full of gold, do you think he would be able to sleep? He would lie awake all night, scheming. When I was young, I desired God as ardently as a thief would desire that gold, and it took me a long time to learn that the greatest virtue in the spiritual search is patience.’

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By Paulo Coelho

I said to a friend:

‘It’s odd that proverb, “An old monkey never puts his hand in the pot”.’

‘Yes, but it has its own logic,’ he replied. ‘In India, hunters make a small hole in a coconut, put a banana inside and bury the whole thing. A monkey finds the coconut, puts his hand in the hole to grab the banana, but then can’t get it out because his closed hand is too big for the hole. Instead of letting go of the banana, the monkey stays there wrestling with the impossible and gets caught.’

The same thing happens in our own lives. The need to have a particular thing - often something small and useless - ends up making us prisoners of that need.

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Wise King Weng asked to visit the palace prison. And he began listening to the prisoners’ complaints.

‘I’m innocent,’ said a man accused of murder. ‘I’m here simply because I wanted to give my wife a fright, but I accidentally killed her.’

‘I was accused of taking a bribe,’ said another, ‘but all I did was accept a gift.’

All the prisoners declared their innocence to King Weng, until one of them, a young man of only twenty or so, said:

‘I’m guilty. I wounded my brother in a fight and I deserve to be punished. This place has made me reflect on the pain I caused.’

‘Remove this criminal from the prison immediately!’ cried King Weng. ‘He’ll end up corrupting all these entirely innocent men.’

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A Persian king asked Saadi of Shiraz:

‘On your wanderings through the cities of my kingdom, do you think of me and of my works?’

‘Your Majesty, I think of you whenever I forget to think of God,’ was the wise man’s answer.

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Epictetus (55 A.D.-135 A.D.) was born a slave and became one of the great philosophers of Rome. He was expelled from the city in 94 A.D. and it was while in exile that he came up with a way of teaching his followers. Here is an extract from his Art of Living.

‘Two things may happen when we meet someone: either we become friends or we try to convince that person to accept our beliefs. The same thing happens when a hot coal meets another piece of coal: it either shares its fire with it or is overwhelmed by the other’s size and is extinguished.

But, since, generally speaking, we feel insecure when we first meet someone, we are more likely to affect indifference, arrogance or excessive humility. The result is that we cease being who we are, and matters move into a strange world that does not belong to us.

In order to avoid this happening, make your good feelings immediately apparent. Arrogance may only be a banal mask for cowardice, but it prevents important things from flourishing in your life.’

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