By Paulo Coelho
An abbot met his favourite student and enquired after his spiritual progress. The student replied that he was managing to devote every moment of his day to God.
‘Now all you need to do is to forgive your enemies.’
The young man was shocked:
‘But I don’t need to! I’m not angry with my enemies!’
‘Do you think God is angry with you?’
‘Of course not!’
‘And yet you still ask Him for His forgiveness, don’t you? Do the same with your enemies, even if you don’t hate them. By forgiving someone, you are washing and perfuming your own soul.’
Welcome to Share with Friends - Free Texts for a Free Internet
Dear Paulo,
Not easy thing to do (to forgive), but…..
- it’ll make us feel better if we do so.
I think that everything comes back to us,
whether it’s a smile or bad thoughts
or any grudges we keep inside ourselves.
So if we want to feel good we should let it go -
forgive, forget and move on.
If we try to be nice and smile…….
who knows maybe it’ll do some magic
and this person could change into our friend?????
……Just hoping,dreaming - as I always do.
Also God said we should love our enemies as well as friends,
isn’t He/She?
Hello Paulo,
I loved the Alchemist. A few weeks back I had written a review of the book in my blog. I received the following comment from a person named Valentina
Dear Archana, Paulo Coelho got wind of your blog and wants to post this article on his blog.
Paulo Coelho’s blog
In case you have any restrictions, do not hesitate to write me on my email : valentinawol@gmail.com
Have a wonderful day!
I have been looking forward to seeing my post here, ever since.
Hi ! Friends !! Paulo !
forgiving is soul cleansing, even when we are not in a position to retaliate !! hmmm..
today I saw something very interesting, there was a photograph of a woman suicide bomber in HT, with a caption “face of terror”. The body from stomach up ( rest was blown away) was lying in sitting position, against some wall, face serene & intact, face of a woman probably in late 30s or early 40s, in the explosion her cloths too were ripped aprt, some kind soul has put a inadequate piece of cloth to cover her chest. eyes shut !! I was immesnely saddened to see !! in the accompanying news report, it said the woman had blown herself up near some security garrison, and “fortunately there were no casulaties”
have we become so insensitive not to see that there was at least one casulty, the woman herself ! do we not treat these ‘terrorists’ as humans ! however astray they may have gone ! whatever may be the complusion of this particular lady, I shed a tear.
Is it better to forgive or forget?
Le escribo porque he leído su columna en la revista el Semanal que hacia referencia a cuentos sobre animales, sobre animales va mi pregunta.
Hace 15 días falleció mi gato Mofli, un gato de 16 años (96 en humano), me gustaria saber que piensa sobre la muerte de un animal.
Nosotros le echamos mucho de menos y la pasamos mal po su ausencia.
Maria Ruiz Molpeceres (Cantabria) Castro Urdiales
Forgiving others is also forgiving yourself. And forgiving the world. And in that way you’re also forgiven. Which creates a balance of one’s life.
Cheers! :)
One must consciously forgive, it’s not enough just to put something out of your mind and pretend it’s or they are not there. Forgiveness is perhaps the most important conscious act we are capable of. It frees both us, and those who are to be forgiven. We should consciously use this capability, and for sure, if we all did, the world would be a much nicer place to live in.
Love to all, Paul
Should the forgiveness be out loud and to the person who wronged you? What if they feel no remorse for what they did?
I’d like to forgive someone, but they showed no remorse for the hurtful acts they did, and it was simpler to shut them out of my life rather than keep them in my life and risk hurt again because they had no remorse. But each day I miss that person more and more, and pray often that one day he’d come in and say I’m sorry. I’d welcome him with open arms. But if there was no remorse, I don’t know if I could forgive him.
Any advice?
Sometimes, I think that one needs a little distance to be able to forgive.
It is much easier to forgive when one has seen at least some of the various consequences from that particular act, not just the bad ones.
There are always both positive and negative consequences from every act, if we are willing to see them.