By Paulo Coelho
‘I’ve always wanted to know if I was capable of loving my wife as much as you love yours,’ said the journalist Keichiro to my publisher Satoshi Gungi over supper one night.
‘There is nothing else but love,’ came the reply. ‘It is love that keeps the world turning and the stars in their spheres.’
‘I know. But how can I know if my love is big enough?’
‘Ask yourself if you give yourself fully or if you flee from your emotions, but do not ask yourself if your love is big enough, because love is neither big nor small, it is simply love. You cannot measure a feeling the way you measure a road. If you do that, you will start comparing your love with what others tell you of theirs or with your own expectations of love. That way, you will always be listening to some story, rather than following your own path.’
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Cuando estés separado de tu amor sabras cuanto lo amas, cuando pasa el tiempo y no te olvidas sabras cuanto lo amas, cuando veas que a pesar de la separación estás en conexión con tu amor sabras que no habrá nada que haga que ese amor se termine, mas bien irá a mas. El amor si hay que medirlo, su medida serÃa: la intensidad, su profundidad: mas allá del corazón.
Un beso Paulo buena pregunta.
Solo sabiendo que serÃas capaz de hacer por el amor sabras que hará el amor por ti.
“Measuring love”
Total acceptance and living in the now is what has kept my marriage loving for nearly 20 years. No image, prestige, expectations, but allowing the other and oneself to be who we are on a daily basis. No chains, no ‘musts’, no attempts at mindreading. Re-discovering each other every single day. :)
In my experience, love is an attitude. Within marriage, it can mean or translate as the freedom to still be your own individual in progress, enriched by the union, not decimated or restricted by image or expectations infringing on the right to hold autonomous views. Love has no single formula as sold by the media. Love sets free, strengthens, supports, listens, caresses, comforts, enjoys, has sympathy, yet accepts nothing but your well-being and fulfillment. The new model of marriage these days is called the spiritual marriage - it is the new in-thing to have - where both partners share an interest in the spiritual aspect of themselves. Perhaps it is easier to ‘love’ someone on the same ‘page’ than it is for a bohemian to love a broker from Wall Street? But we are not what we do, we are more than that, and that is where the allowing (freedom) can cloud our preconceived views of who we can ‘love’. Like, who will we accept for the job to be loved by us? Are we not funny?
Engraçado você comentar isso. Constantemente eu penso sobre isso quando falo: “te amo muito…” Te amo e pronto…rs… Amar já é o suficiente. Já é “grande o bastante”. Mas é estranho. Por muito tempo senti falata de liberdade de abraçar os outros, amigos. As pessoas não se tocam. E só percebo o quanto isso me tolhia. Eu acho que eu sou aberta pras pessoas. No teatro (que finalmente, depois de anos querendo, consegui frequentar aulas) percebi que as pessoas se sentem a vontade comigo. E um colega me disse algo que me deixou feliz: Mariana, você se entrega… É verdade, eu me entrego à tudo (de bom). Sabe, eu não acho que demostrar o que eu sinto me enfraquece de forma nenhuma. E acho tão estranho por que ao mesmo tempo em que sou extremamente confiante em mim, não o sou. Ou melhor, eu me amo profundamente e acho que sou um excelente ser humano. Tenho defeitos mas me entendo (sem ser permissiva)…rs… No entanto ainda não consegui descobrir algo no qual eu seja realmente boa…sabe? Talento nato… talvez não tenha… que triste… Será que todo mundo tem algum talento? Eu sei que consigo contagiar as pessoas com minha alegraia e entusisamos quando estou trabalhanod em grupo e tal… no entando não descobri ainda nada em que posso utlizar isso…se éque esse é meu dom. Mas não é possivel que eu não tenha nenhum talento. Eu queria ser excelente em alguma coisa… queria mesmo. Acho que sou inteligente e tenho um bom entendimento das coisa…mas no fundo me sinto um pouco disperdiçada… tenho que pensar mais a respeito. Quero ler seu livro a Bruxa d eportobelo. Apesar de ter estudado em colégio católicos e ter uma mãe super beata eu nunca gostei da foma como as mulheres são tratadas nessa religião. Eu gosto de ser mulher e não vejo motivo nenhum pra me sentir mal ou carregar todas as culpas do mundo por isso. Não entendo como mulheres podem ser católicas: Eva é a pecadora, Marioa Madalena eidem… Maria é a única que se slava… Eu sei que não é bem assim. Mas é quase isso. Dêm Graças a Deus pois algumas mulheres foram salvas…rs… Bem, te deixo em paz. Acho que seu blog foi meu diario hoje. Um abraço, Mariana
Forgive me, I would like to add a comment re: allowing love to come forward in the first place requires trust and communication either verbal or non-verbal. Trust, more than love, is what many seem to struggle with, in order to avoid pain. With a functioning communication we breed trust and thus give room for love. I imagine we can handle a lot more than we think if we are communicated with in a respectful way on a foundation of trust, even if the message is that the love is now transformed into friendship or a need for solitude. Being generous through honest and open communication and by inspiring trust as in encouraging and giving time to dialogue rather than presenting a monologue and mere announcing of a decision, I feel is a fuller definition of love in a close relationship. Not giving up the respect for one another because we feel we ‘know’ each other, when in fact we are maybe just ‘used to’ being around each other. So, trust. Can maybe affect the love we allow to flow fro and to us. Loving without expecting anything in return requires a different level of awareness, one that takes nothing personally, even in a state of intimacy.
No conosco mucho del amor pero si me identifico con lo que dice Rosa de los Vientos.
But about meassuring love, it just cant be meassured. Trying to meassure would just rise questions as big as how was God created and such, Love just happens, when and why I’ll probably never know. All i know is love is beautiful.
Dearest Paulo
You can never measure love, nor should you compare it in any manner. Love is love- nothing more or nothing less, simply said, and as much as we may love in different ways, and we feel love in different ways, it still is love. That’s one of the reasons why i don’t like the term, “true love.” All love is true, for if it were false, it would not be love. However i do not deny the feeling to exist- the feeling that you’ve found a soulmate, and that somewhere inside of you, you feel completed, even if you did not realise there was a space to be filled. i know there are times we experience a love so intense and breath taking, we see it above the rest- this does not mean the other forms of love we have experienced are less in any way. It just means that they are different, and great in their own ways.
Thank you for being
Yajna
Love is a raibow, you cannot find the start line or the end.
Love is God said christ, not because God is love, but for us who don’t have much clue about God, closet that comes to IT is love. Like God love too is immesurable; from a scientific point of view worse is that like God, love too is undefinable; from a personal point of view undefinable, yes, but expereincable very much; both love and thru love God.
when we are in love - we focus too much on the ‘object’ of love; sometime we should spend exploring our own self, enjoying being in love, then it grows. ‘object’ will go away, someday, but HER gift of love will live on. One who cannot love her/himself has not yet ‘understood’ love.
Love is the emperor of all virtues.Lets fill the days with love so we all become a master. Love gives us the wings to fly and love is the most healing force in the world. Nothing goes deeper than love. Love just like life can’t be measured..
love to all
As a young adult, loving is always the most beautiful thing though it entails a lot of broken dreams and hopes.
Bleast to you people who found what is beautiful, learning from it and manage to keep it wonderfully shining! :)
‘There is nothing else but love,’
YES
Thank you for your sign which brought me back on the mainroad.
Love
Hildegarde
Inspiring dear Paulo, inspiring–as always!
Love you:)
yayyy, i want to love!
There is no such thing as more or less love. There is only love. One thing I was able to tell, was when love became conscious: the moment when confusion became certainty. A single moment that chained and freed my heart completely. The rest that follows is destiny, either the one we accept or the one we build.
I think the love is then big enough, (whereby big and small there is not, as you already determined.) if you in it at home feel can. Also at home feel if you an opinion with your Partner/in are not. But I think this at home, am also the process - growth - the development, which in the love adjusts itself. If no process takes place, it is also soon with the love past. No humans can in the long run be only beautiful and are ” always everything; Peace, joy, pancake”. That gives it only in these nice romantic films, where everything guaranties itself finds. But it is what you call the big love? I think, no. I experienced it, the big love. It is that, where we make mega big development steps or open simply only our heart. Primarily us, the partner and also the world. The world was grey before and afterwards is multicolored and bright and during it is indescribably.
And the big love is not a guarantor for the eternity, sometimes lasts it only a few years and sometimes live-long. Then the next big /small love comes and again we will learn our heart still more to open.
El amor solo es una trampa. un mecanismo para continuar la procreasion de los seres humanos.
una ilusion eso es y nada mas. que ilusos los que todavia creen en el. masoquistas.
Dear Paulo,
THERE IS NOTHING ELSE BUT LOVE.Since I was a child,I have felt this and this was,is and will be my road.LOVE is cannot be measured.Yes ,it is true because LOVE is given to others without any expectation,any restriction or any award.For me,LOVE cannot be expressed by words,only by actions.LOVE is given,only is given…
LOVE is obvious in the eyes even between strangers.
Lately,I have felt so much -REALLY SO MUCH- love from people that I knew THANKS TO YOU.
I do not want to give names but I would like just to thank them for this and you for them.
I pray every day for you and for them.I pray the LOVE you and they shared return to you all in the same special way you offered it to me.
For me,LOVE conquers all and it makes LIFE worth living.
Thank you ,dear Paulo,for this post.
MUCH RESPECT,
Chrissa
Friends, Just to add on to what Aditya said..
Someone once told me, that its in each other we see ourselves, and it is ourselves that we begin to love. He was right in many many ways.
Lots of love
Yajna