Paulo Coelho

By Paulo Coelho

The warrior of Light behaves like a child.
(Manual of the Warrior of Light)

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Carlos Castaneda also wrote of sorcery. Is there any similarity between your ideas and his?
 
Castaneda played a major role in my youth. As for the ideas, I tend to believe that the universal knowledge is accessible to anybody through faith. Castaneda concentrated his work on a more specific path.

By Paulo Coelho

The Warrior of Light unwittingly takes a false step and plunges into the abyss.
(Manual of the Warrior of Light)

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By Paulo Coelho

 
In The Book of the Ghost, Alejandro Dolina links the history of sand with one of the creation myths of the Arab people.
 
According to this myth, as soon as the world had been made, one of the angels pointed out to the Almighty that he had forgotten to put any sand on Earth, a grave omission, given that human beings would be deprived for ever of being able to walk along the seashore, massaging their weary feet and being in direct contact with the ground.
 
Worse, river beds would always be rough and rocky, architects would be unable to make use of this indispensable material, and the footprints of lovers would be invisible. Eager to remedy this oversight, God despatched the Archangel Gabriel with a huge bag of sand so that he could spread it wherever it was needed.
 
Gabriel created the beaches and the riverbeds, then made his way back to Heaven, carrying with him the surplus sand, but the Enemy – always watchful, always keen to spoil the Almighty’s work – made a hole in the bag, which burst, spilling all its contents. This happened in a place now known as Arabia, and nearly the whole region was transformed into a vast desert.
 
Distraught, Gabriel went to ask the Lord’s forgiveness for having allowed the Enemy to creep up on him unawares. And God, in His infinite wisdom, decided to recompense the Arab people for his messenger’s unwitting mistake.
 
He created for them a heaven full of stars, such as exists nowhere else in the world, so that they would always be gazing skywards.
 
He created the turban which, beneath the desert sun, is of far more value than a crown.
 
He created the tent, so that people could move from place to place and thus always have new landscapes around them, without any of the irritating duties involved in the upkeep of a palace.
 
He taught the people to forge the best steel for swords. He created the camel. He developed the finest breed of horses.
 
And he gave them something more precious than all these things together, he gave them the word, the true gold of the Arabs. While other peoples were shaping metals and gemstones, the Arab people were learning to shape the word.
 
There the poet became priest, judge, doctor and chief of the Bedouin. His verses have the power to provoke joy, sadness, yearning. They can unleash vengeance and war, bring together lovers or reproduce the songs of the birds.
 
And Alejandro Dolina concludes:
 
‘God’s mistakes, like those of great artists or of true lovers, unleash so many happy compensations that sometimes it is almost worth wishing they would happen.’

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According to Zodiac, you are a Virgo, born on AUGUST 24th, which is exactly the day and month when your literary idol, Jorge Luis Borges, had been born. Do you see in this coincidence any symbol, any factor determining you from the hour of your birth to become a writer?
 
Although I respect astrology, I think that it suggests, not determines what will you be. As for Borges, I discovered his birthday date long after I’ve start dreaming of becoming a writer. I do believe that you have a personal destiny to fulfill & you will find it out, regardless of the circumstances.

By Paulo Coelho

Sometimes Evil pursues the Warrior of Light, and when it does, he calmly invites it into his tent.
(Manual of the Warrior of Light)

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By Paulo Coelho

The yogi Paltrul Rinpoche heard about a hermit who was reputed to be a saint and who lived in the mountains. He went to meet him.
 
‘Where have you come from?’ asked the hermit.
 
‘I come from where my back is pointing and I am going towards where my face is turned,’ replied Rinpoche. ‘A wise man should know that.’
 
‘What a foolish, pseudo-philosophical answer,’ muttered the hermit.
 
‘And what do you do, sir?’
 
‘I have been meditating for the last twenty years on perfecting patience. I am close to being considered a saint.’
 
‘People already think you are a saint,’ remarked Rinpoche. ‘You’ve managed to deceive them all!’
 
The hermit leaped angrily to his feet.
 
‘How dare you come here bothering a man in search of sainthood?’ he cried.
 
‘You’ve got a long way to go yet,’ said Rinpoche. ‘If a silly joke can make you lose the patience for which you’ve been searching for so long, then the last twenty years have been a complete waste of time!’

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Dear Readers,
 
Here’s the action of sandbashing!
 
Love,
Paulo

By Paulo Coelho

Whenever the Warrior of Light draws his sword, he uses it.
 
(Manual of the Warrior of Light)

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By Paulo Coelho

 
An archer was out walking near a Hindu monastery known for the austerity of its teachings when he saw the monks in the garden, drinking and having fun.
 
‘How cynical you seekers after God’s path are,’ he said out loud. ‘You claim to place great importance on discipline and then get drunk on the quiet.’
 
‘If you were to shoot a hundred arrows one after the other, what would happen to your bow?’ asked the oldest of the monks.
 
‘My bow would break,’ replied the archer.
 
‘If someone forces himself to go beyond his own limits, then he will break his will,’ said the monk. ‘If you do not balance work with rest, you will lose your enthusiasm, drain yourself of energy and not achieve very much at all.’

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Your stories almost never take place in Brazil, which makes some critics not to include your writings in the cannon of Brazilian literature. How do you view this attitude? Do you like to see yourself as a Brazilian writer?
 
On the contrary, my work is being used in schools all over Brazil, and any text book that deals with post 1990 Brazilian literature will certainly make reference to one of my texts. One thing is to write about Brazil and quite another is to see the world through the eyes of a Brazilian – and that is totally present on each line that I write. Nobody ever thought that Hemingway was a Spanish writer, nor that Henry Miller was French, even though both authors have written about countries other than the United States.

 
Dear Readers,
 
This week I’ll be taking you on my sandbashing experience across the desert in Dubai.
 
Love
Paulo

By Paulo Coelho

A Warrior of Light knows that an angel and a devil are both competing for his sword hand.
(Manual of the Warrior of Light)

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You may know that Romania is a country with a small GDP, inhabited by people that lack optimism or plans for their future. Your literary and philosophic message seems particularly well suited for such a community of people. What can you add for a country with a situation like ours?
 
By seen the career of my books worldwide, from US to Ukraine, from Brazil to Japan, the only conclusion that I can reach is: we are warriors of the light, regardless the GDP or the political and cultural differences. The only thing is that, in the past, we thought we were alone, but now a book, or a music, or a film, can help us to identify who belongs to our tribe. We are the ones who dare do be different, who pay the price of our dreams, who may be defeated but who never see ourselves as a victim of the circumstances; we are the navigators heading to the unknown sea. And this has nothing to do with countries, but with souls.

What is for you a warrior of the light?
Love,
Paulo