“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.
tags technorati : Technorati Paulo Coelho Paulo Coehlo Warrior of Light Warrior of the Light Newsletter
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Molding your own character is a battle at times. The good fight can be getting a grip on life,accepting or challenging the truth, even accepting or testing our limitations or taking on what is sometimes our worst enemy,our own self. Keeping your courage and not descending into the depths of despairbut if in doubt not giving up. Tying a knot when you get to the end of your rope.Hanging in there and Not loosing your faith in life or yourself. Being a veteran of internal battles and wars.
A group of frogs were fooling around,and all of a sudden,two little frogs fell into a deep hole in the ground.
The little frogs in the bottom of the hole, started jumping,trying to get out of the hole,but the other frogs on the top, started shouting down to the two little frogs.its no good, you will never jump out of the hole it is too deep.
so one of the little frogs lied down and died,because he believed what the other frogs had said to him,that he would never be able to jump out of the hole.
But the other little frog,continued to jump with all his might.
And finaly he jumped out of the hole.
The other frogs where astounded,and wounderd how he had managed to jump out of the hole so deep.
little did they know that the little frog was deaf
Hi there…Man i just love your blog, keep the cool posts comin..holy Monday
right tom !
“this is bravery at its highest form, not giving up and never backing down.” temporary ‘backing out’ may be OK but breaking down, no no.
keep the good fight dear wols, it takes courage to persist.
regards
aditya
aditya,
i dont quite know how to respond to this one. if i say, some of the things you said were slightly irrational then i would be a bit of a hippocrite because some of the things i said were also.
but lets not worry about being a hippocrite i will put an opinion forward.
i believe that every single second of the past, every miniscure detail no matter how big or small, all of the past puuled into one makes the present moment and if one moment in history were different then the present would be different also. therefore the the past and present make up the future.
now you are saying that if hitler had won, then he would have gotten away with slaughtering millions of innocent people ???
but you see, it was hitlers fate to lose, you may listen to your soul, but who or what does your soul listen to ??? maybe god, or maybe the whims of fate ???
i believe that people who harm innocent people are “monsterminds” as you put it which is a very good definition. and so as was it there fate to do these acts of evil, so it is there fate to be punished for this act of evil.
i do not beleive that fate controls you, but rather guides you to do what you were meant to do, some of us wander a-stray of the path of good, but because you are not good doesnt mean that you are evil and because you are not evil, does not mean you are good either.
a man called bernard kouchner once said – “i will never stop listening to the voices of those in need”
i follow this, and i sometimes sit and talk to the homeless and ask “what did you want to do with your life?” many are taken aback by this question and they look at themselves and decide to sort themselves out.
my mother did the same and one man she knew was a heavy drug addict, with no home or job, my mother never lost hope in this man and now he has a flat a job and has cut off cold turkey. this is bravery at its highest form, not giving up and never backing down.
Tom !
these r two opposing views – one is that everything happens by divine will and has a divine purpouse, other is that only the present monent is a reality all else illusion, thereby meaning that we are responsible for our actions. u say e.g hitler, now that hitler is defeated and dead we can see his mistakes, had he won, winners write history. anyway when it comes to accepting fate, accepting something that has already happned, it is good to think that everything has a divine purpouse, but when it comes to deciding what do i do today, i better listen to my soul and …. e.g in india we have lot of destitute people who mostly can be found lining up the temples, or asking for alms in the streets. My frinds refrain from giving any money to such people, specially to children, on the thought that helping out will make them dependent and …. But I don’t have anypreconceived botions noble or ignoble ! i look into the eyes of te person asking for help’ when someone is hungry i don’t care if he grows dependent or whatever, i will help, in my little way only.
IRRESPECTIVE OF WHO IS INNOCENT OR WHO IS GUILTY HARMING PEOPLE WHO ARE DEFENSELESS IS SIN AS THE PREPARATORS DISCOVER SONER OR LATER, SOONER THE BETTER.
hello once more warriors,
angie,
people say that there is poverty on the planet. people say that there is not enough food on the earth. but that is not true, there is enough food on the earth to feed all of the people on the earth, but the western world consumes too much of it. if we shared out meals equally with enough calories to keep us going, then everyone would have enough. i believe that the reason why the western world consumes so much is because people do not feel secure. so they become so possesive, they become tunnel visioned. the rich people of this world are not really rich, they moan even when they have more than needed.
the poorer people of the world are not as poor as they think, as they have peace of mind. they do not moan when they do not have enough, and they are grateful when they can get by.
i think if we can evolve more spiritually then we can stop this greediness.
aditya,
death is just another path that we all have to take. in fact we are probably more sure of what will happen in death than in life. this is because so many people have spent there lives pondering death, when they should have been pondering life, for when life comes to an end, they will find out what happens in death anyway! it is life that is unique, life that is different, different for every living being on this planet.
by the way aditya, i dont think that you should name the people who die by an evil persons hand innocent so quickly. since they had not completed there life yet, they may have done something so evil after that incident, like hitler for example. what if he had died in world war 1 he would just have been some innocent soldier fighting for his country who had lost his life. you see, i believe in fate, people dont just die for a reason, people are on this earth until there purpose is fulfilled. that may sound crazy, like if you never complete your purpose then you live forever, but one warrior of light once said “if you wait too long for the perfect moment, it could pass you by” peoples fates are like that, i believe.
those theories that i have put forward may be irrational but they are just examples.
we came from one mystry we call birth and are heading towards another one we call death. no one asked us if we wnated to be born and no one will ask when death comes. in between these two mystries over which we have absolutely no control, we have what we call our life. when we are not in control of the beginning or the end, the apparent control that we think we have over lives must be an illusion no !
“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.” So even God is powerless in front of such a person, what kind of god is he whose blessings cannot reach / breach the ‘foolishness’ of us weaklings.
paulo your warriors have taken your message of silence to their hearts. see as of now 211594 vsitors and just 4 reactions.
and before i too become silent wrt this edition – what do u think should teh world press have a diffrent vocabulary while discribing terrorits, they should not be referred to as masterminds but as monsterminds, anyone who inflicts injury to innocent, defenseless people cannot be serving god, of whatever hue and colour he may be.
If we have a dream we better strive towards it.. !! qutting is not an option !!!???
Man may have develpoed all the means to express himself ,modern inventions to expand our horizons & yet we still feel Limited..this may be due to poverty..but still time & again we have heard of common man overcoming the difficulties & trials in their lives & going beyond their own boundaries..i think this is what the Good Fight is all about..
hope u can come to the Phils…would loe to see you in person..^_^
fascinating stories,
the philosopher who did not know how to swim !!!
wisdom is not always complicated !
in fact wisdom cam be the simplest thing of all, like a snails shell, without it the snail could not survive. i believe that anything practical is wise. wiser than the most revered philosopher because without them we could not live in harmony with the earth.
ha it is this which refills my cup when i am drinking…it is this which makes me think of finding a way to refill it on my own..and it is this which is leading me to the way….
“…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…”
Absolutely magical n so very true!! we dont even understand His blessings