I read somewhere that by writing this book you tried to realize if people could revolve around eleven minutes and that you don’t believe people today revolve around sex.I remember that many had disagreed in your blog and the truth is I have heard many people saying that in our times it’s all about sex.So what do you answer them?Do you mean by your statement that sex has lost its true meaning?
Indeed, I believe sex has lost it’s true sacred meaning -i.e being closer to the core of live.
But this is more a symptom – rather than a cause – of how today’s society has cut itself from anything that remotely could bring it closer to the Mystery.
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Like you say in the Blaue Sofa; choose to enjoy life, don't sell your time. In the same way it ruins sex to sell it, instead of enjoying it. When is sex a God given gift between two people who love each other, to create new life? When is sex a complete giving oneself to the soul of a partner, to the soul of the universe?
hello!
i have to say i agree with paul that in today’s world sex has indeed lost its true meaning. i’m 23 and this year has been a challenging one for me and i’ve made a lot of changes in my life. one of them was a vow of celibacy for 2008. its the most liberating thing i’ve done and its enabled me to focus on me-who i am, what and where i want to be. the reason i made this promise to myself was that i lost that spiritual connection with sex. it became an entirely physical act.
i also looked around and saw how sex is marketing these days. paris hilton, girls of the playboy mansion, calvin klein ads.
sex sells more than it inspires.
now i’m waiting for a connection. if i cant find that in someone’s eyes and words, i won’t be able to find that in their body. so even when 2009 rolls around i’ll still be waiting for that connection.
i’m glad i happened across this page, thank you xx :)
Dear Paulo Coelho and Aditya, I think the post above is addressed to Paulo Coelho!!??
Not only I am…. a little …[??] short sighted, but an ignorant too! I did not have any idea about J, j, so I translated it to I! But it was a good opportunity for a joke and tease you, my dearest Aditya!
Imagine, a ..MAGICAL Conference of WOL all dressed up in black and .. red boots![we remember dear Paulo Coelho, those bought in Paris!] and .. Rings and Swords and big, big smiles and hugs, but also tears, because of too much Love around.
LOVE,
THELMA
Hi thelma,
U wrote “‘people like paulo and i etc hanging around occassionally!!’ Where do you plan to be the …. ” hey ! baby i never said that ‘i’, i wrote j, J, the capital J the sort of guru of paulo. Of course i want to be with other wols, there is so much fun being a student, in the company of the class students ! all the wols. imagine how it would be, a retreat, one by one chaps are pouring in from say 100 locations around the world, people whom we sort of know ‘thru’ their posts, our idea of them and then them in person, flesh and blood.
why don’t u cut my search for “aphrodite’ or rather be the starting block for me on this and tell me about this “Aphrodite”. i ove jokes specially the ones which makes everyone laugh, but on this, hey ! i am not joking
love
aditya
I read very interesting posts and I realise there are many sensitive people around!!I just wanted to say that in my opinion sex is not a sin.Indeed according to some religions sex without marriage is a sin but I believe it is said only to protect us, to prevent us from what is happening in our times this www(whoever-whenever-wherever).There is nothing bad in having sex with someone you love.It is not a sin quite the contrary I would say it’s a blessing!!
Love,
Lia
Thank you all for the poems and music and love.
Dear Pawmontemayor, well sex is Sacred and we should have it only when we feel love and we are ‘in love’! In my … age, I think it is allowed to … talk about it!! But, no, in my country it is still a taboo! Men also belong to another ‘species’ that it is admissible to go … around, without that being a serious sin. In the contrary, a girl or a wife should keep her .. thoughts and desires ‘in secret’, as you put it, to be …. a …virgin. As I said above in my first comment, religions, society and laws have confused us. After all .. it is mainly Men who made the .. Rules!! I am joking!
Dear ADITYA, I have just realized that you are a Man! A very welcomed idea to have …. a WOL conference in Cyprus, but why ‘people like paulo and i etc hanging around occassionally!!’ Where do you plan to be the …. rest of the time?? Searching after … Aphrodite??? {OF course I am joking}
LOVE,
THELMA
HI Thelma ( Pray that i got it right this time ! ), thanks for your direction, i will look around. I am a good student,( have always been, not necessarily refelcting in my grades though !) will find out !!
a damn interesting idea this a wol conference in cyprus, won’t it be interesting to live for a week say with all these wols around, and people like paulo and j etc hanging around occassionally. imagine the scene !!
Savita, quite expressive, heartfelt, but why are u angry with these men. we men are not as u said anything withoout u, won’t exitance loose its meaning, its’ “USP” if there is no duality. hope u are not angry on men anymore. men are boyz basically, as u know ! some are big boys like buddha, zesus, others too spend their lives trying to grow, in between some people confuse that they are grown, now they know ! they start thinking that they are men, but that is the moment from which they start dying, the real men don’t mind being boys all their lives.
love
aditya
Здравствуйте, Пауло!
Я хотела задать Вам вопрос по книги “Брида”. Скажите, все что там написано – это вымысел? Или на самом деле у каждого человека есть своя Иная Часть. Если есть, то как ее можно найти? Ведь обычным людям не постигнуть Традиции, о которых там написано. Подскажите, пожалуйста, как можно найти свою Иную Часть?!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hTHWxApSRxc&feature=related
I love you because you are beautiful, I love you because you are YOU!
Have a nice week.
LOVE,
THELMA
Dear Savita – there is a Hindi song in praise of women; I will try to translate a few lines….
Keep bearing sorrow like the earth,
Keep burning like the sun,
To hide the shame of the world,
Quietly keep walking on fire.
You have never seen any happiness,
Death has lost its battle with your womb,
You are great like God,
But they call you a poor woman.
Peace and love to all.
Nelson
Broken Rib – Superb Savita, simply superb. God Bless You.
Nelson.
Hey! All I can say is, Sex is sacred. It’s a God given gift to married people. Only for the MARRIED ones. Virginity is sacred. You guys don’t see the real meaning of it. Your so liberated. Why? Is it really accepted in your age, in your country? You didn’y even respect the tepmle of the Lord, your body! Shame on you guys who take sex as a lustful thing.
Look what I`ve just found on youtube. I song about sex:)Enjoy it, I don´t know the meaning of it, it´s sung in the romani language, but enjoy the music instead of Goran Bregovic…
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=O1p01iC3ues&feature=related
Good night
Tina
A great poem, to all great women. Thank you Savita!!!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=z0W212af1uk
Dear Hildegarde,
The hymn is very beautiful. I don’t remember ever having read it – though I probably have if it is in the Nag Hammadi. I didn’t read it in “Eleven Minnutes,” because I haven’t gotten to “Eleven Minutes” yet. I read “The Alchemist” years ago, but only recently re-discovered Paulo’s books. Anyway, when I read the hymn to Isis, it reminded me of something, something that I couldn’t quite remember word for word, but which I knew reflected a similar sentiment. And so, I started shuffling though old files on my computer, scanning documents, until I unearthed this poem I wrote several years ago (a diatribe addressed, in a sense, to all men):
BROKEN RIB
It is said that I am your rib, the corn on the bottom of your foot. It is said that I am an open wound to your psyche that can never heal — the originator of sin — the heel of the bread, the heel of the foot. A cornerstone overturned. It is said that my sex and my scent and the slickness within me, the way that I promise to please, the tightness of my squeeze, is the source of all rot, the pot of all sin, the narrowness of the tomb you will one day be trapped within. It is said that if a rib is broken, it is difficult to breathe. It is said that every breath is a sword that passes through you. It is said that the rib resembles the bow, without which the arrow is just another impotent intent. It is said that in his sleep he spilled seed in sin. It is said that in his dreams of her the earth took form, four founts sprung forth to water the garden. It is said that she is the mother of all that was born. It is said that she is the rib, but also the skull, the jawbone, the femur and the hip. It is said that the spine resembles a snake or a ladder, each vertebrae a pathway leading back to the garden gate.
Yes, I am the snake that slithers within the foliage. I am the foliage itself. I am everything that you are not, being that you are essential spirit, everything which is incorporeal. I am very very real. I am your deepest fears. The hiiisssss that seeps into your dreams at night, the river that flows as ice through your veins. I am the hoarfrost on the windowpane of your old age, the sneeze, the disease, every rip in the fabric that threatens to tear you apart from yourself. I am the fabric itself. I am the blood of the womb that gave you form; the tomb in which the worm burrows deep and ravenous. I am hunger and thirst and the sweat of everyman’s brow. I am the dirt between your toes, the dirt that nourishes all that grows and is harvested and is devoured. I am the foot and the hand and the mouth. I am the whites of your eyes. Without me, you are blind. Without me, you were not born, you will not die. Without me, you are mist and smoke, no, not even that, not even air or wind, not motion nor impulse toward. Without me, you are nothing—the whim to which God forgot to lend form.
Savita Vega
Reading, just now,our Paul’s from Austria, comment {it seems we were writing simultaneously!] I could not resist the temptation to come back and say : Paul is a .. rare example, of what I have said above, but just to ,, prove the .. canon!!
I love you too, Paul with the beautiful soul, the Cloud dweller!![You deserve the... title!]
LOVE,
THELMA x !!!
Dear Hildegarde, we, women, are nearer to what eros is! Who will ‘teach’ men the “SECRET? And in order to be willing to ..learn, they must recognise their lack of knowledge first. They must feel that they are ‘half’ and incomplete first. They must understand that to love them, we do not need them to ‘prove’ to us that they are… clever, strong, warriors..
Dear T.K. how can two souls become one?? I think by trancending the world of separateness, the material world. By opening our souls to love and by forgetting our Ego and ‘I’ and be able to think and act us ONE. To be able to ‘read’ our beloved’s thoughts and ‘accept’ him/her as he/she is. To love by opening ourselves to Love, the Sun, because, I think, we are afraid to ‘lose’ our self-contentment. To feel and say to another human being, I need you, but not for this ELEVEN MINUTES, the act! And this is a two-ways-road. To give and receive mutually!
A romantic .. post!
LOVE,
THELMA
I think today in my opinon -sex has lost its sacredness -tenderness ,in modern day fast busy life we live ,many marriages -relationships everyone is in a hurry for work,family ,paying the bills stressing and rushing -forgetting to just talk -connect with one another -touch hearts ,have more romantic dinners -experiement ,play and have fun with one another -remembering that you are in a relationship together to share -love -live -listen and above all else honor ,it costs nothing to shower the one u love with candles -bubble bath -back rub -its all in the details -do it all with love in your heart-soul-mind body .Blessings Tania
the mystery is still there. how can 2 souls become one? how is it possible? and yet it occurs, but no one dares focus on the union outside of some sacred ritual performed by a priest or judge in front of witnesses. the mystery has been solved, just no one cares to investigate the culprits involvement.
Dear Aditya, if you go to Google and make a search for Aphrodite, the Greek Goodess of Love, in Wikipedia, you can find the difference of Urania Aphrodite, meanining Celestial and Pandemos, which is of all people. As you know Aphrodite was born from the sea of Cyprus, my island!! I will be happy to see you all here in Cyprus!
LOVE,
THELMA
what is the diffrence between the two, the profane, now a days supposeddly commonplace sex and the divine or sacread sex ?
Osho used “Sex to superconsiousness” no waoder people who were neck deep in sex thronged to him, just the other day i reda a quote from ceaser “people tend to eaily beielive that which they want to beleive”
would someone like say paulo, or any one else who knows or thinks / hopes that s/he knows diffrence write more elaborately on the subject. eleven minues was about various kind os sex being practised now a days ?
love
aditya
Dear Sasha,
I do not know where you are comming from. You have written, that most of the men in your country are only interested in sex and not in love and feelings.
Please do not come to this conclusion. After some (or many) experiences you should not come to this generalisation or prejudice.
Disappointment is part of our life – but after every disappointment you will get a new chance.
Meeting a man/woman we should every time see again the “individuality” of this person , we should not compare, and should not transfer former bad experiences.
And … think of Paulo´s quote of the Day “The warrier of the light is a believer.”
Nothing is allowed to be a mystery anymore…
everything must be explained in scientifical terms
and if it can not be explained – than it simply does
not excist! (para-psychology, ghosts etc.)
Do you stop during your walks through Paris and bend
down – if so only for 10 seconds – to smell on the roses?
(this time of the year more by the flower-merchants
than along the streets ;-)
i think that today sex is something we r used too in our societies in all countries around the world.
for example m lebanese nd m only 18 yrs old but yet,i was asked for sex from 3 different males….
offcourse i disagreeddddddddddddddd
dear lisa m just readin the book 11 min nd i think that today people lost the true meaning of sex.moreover as we know everyone have tendency among everything but the tendency toward sex is not activated EXCEPT for people who follow their pleasure!
SEX is something sacred that i think all the traditions and religions(MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS) consider sex as a big sin.and although people pass over these word in their holy books,and know that it is a big sin,yet they practice sexuality in their regular life without marriage.
i think that GOD put thhis tendency in human beings in order to give them the power of reproductivity and continuity of human species which r governed by the rule of “MARRIAGE”.
thus no sex before marriage and not pleasure before marriage and even people should know that this sin that they practice and find it something pleasurable and great,will last in their lifetime,but will give them a big punishment and take them to hell,in their afterlife which is emortal…
:)
this past 3 months i passed through a lot in LOVE subject.. and i realize that at least for most of the men in my country everything is about sex. For me sex is an act that involve two people and that show how magical a human can be.. but now i’m feeling that no one is interested in anything else but feeling pleasure or or in doing a mark on the list of girls of boys someone has been with.
thinking about sex. there are two ways.
first one, ego way: i do only that what i need. its like physical action
second one, spiritual way: we are in love, we want make happy each other, we know ourselves
Not sure how I planted that last post in this section! I’m like Paul now – Am I going crazy? That was intended to be a response to the quote of the day. Ah well, maybe it applies to sacred sex too.
I simple agree with everyone´s opinion, its unfortunately true that sex has lost its sacred meaning. I loved the last answer:”For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who disbelieve, no amount of proof is sufficient.”
This is something those people should keep in mind who are still aware of how sacred it is and indeed it is a blessing to each one of us.
I have lot of contacts with young and some of them who read that book prefered it mst of all !
Is it maybe sign that younger part of society is moving in right direction again ?
For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who disbelieve, no amount of proof is sufficient.
- Loyola
I think that Sex is the movement of the Universe! The Sacred Marriage. The dream of the Soul to reach Light.
It is the power of Eros that gives meaning to our lives! Eros and Passion and Beauty and Divine Love that drive us to the Stars, to Ecstasy! The opening of our Soul to another human being and our need to feel ‘One’ and not … half. It is also the need for every species for reproduction.For the kingdom of animals or plants it is simple..
For us, humans, that we possess sentiments and mind, it has become very complicated. Religions, laws and society have confused us.
I believe in the fairy tale of ‘Sleeping Beauty’! The one, romantic love and the union of Soul and Body. The Ideal, the Utopian world and Uranian Aphrodite!
LOVE,
THELMA
I agree that sex has lost the meaning it is intended to have! Sex is Sacred and through it you are suposed to be One with all Creation!!! Also in Sacred sex both participants give themselves to pleasure the other, this is when giving and receiving becomes one and the same.
I feel however that people are awakening little by little to this truth!!!
You have to go back in time very far, if you want to find a society where sex was still sacred and close to Mistery. I think also today it is above all a matter of your personal attitude towards life how you regard sex.
A wonderful book: “The Red Thread of Passion” (1999, Shambhala).
The preface starts out: “I found that sex and spirituality – two parts of my life that had always been in conflict – were becoming one thing.” Sex should be that. It should be that or be nothing at all, because otherwise it is like potato chips – all artificial flavors, salt and fat with no lasting nutritional value whatsoever. You are hungry, so you eat, and thirty minutes later you are hungry again. There is never lasting fulfillment. As much as this is pleasure of the body, it is torment of the spirit.
But then I think, at least I BELIEVE in the possibility of something greater, a kind of sex that is transcendent of mere lust. A kind of union that takes us beyond….
I don’t know – I think this has to be between two very special people, because you cannot get there alone.
Or, as Georg Feurstein puts it in the preface to “Sacred Sexuality” (another fine book), “sexual malaise…is rooted in a deeper, spiritual dilemma: the obscuration of the sacred dimension in modern times…. There is another, more rewarding, challenging and creative option to contemporary sex as performance. That option is sexuality as a transformative vehicle of higher growth: sacred sexuality…. Sex can be a window onto the ultimate reality, whose presence can make us whole. traditional cultures, which do not recognize our modern separation between sacred and profane, have always considered sexuality as an aspect of the greater mysteries of existence.”
I must have missed the part where there was the discussion about whether life today revolves around sex or not – that must have been before I discovered Paulo’s blog. I don’t know about for other people; I can only speak for myself. I’ve been married twice, lived with more then one lover, had one affair that culminated in the birth of my beautiful daughter, and now I’m forty-one. I’ve reached a point in my life where my life does not revolve around sex – not because I’m tired of sex, or bored of sex, but because I do believe that something more exists – some higher approach – and I’m settling for nothing less. If sex cannot enter that sacred dimension, then me entering into a sexual relationship with someone at this point in my life, would be like me knowingly tying a ball and chain to my foot while trying to swim. My life has become about this Search, this greater Journey that we each are on. If sex can’t address that Journey, if it fails to enter into my life as a relevant element of this Search, then, no, I’m not interested.
Still, I believe…. (it is possible)
I think many of us should learn again how to live sexuality,but ,I think if we use respect towards our person and towards the partner ,we are near to the right way of using sex.It is said that women rarely have sex with a man that she not love,but man are more willing to a relation based on pure flesh pleasure.I dont know the true,but I am pritty sure would be for the best that both men and women try to have sex with partners that are also involved in an romance affair.I am afraid I am not able to explain it very well,I am not borned yesterday,maybe I am a dreamer and too romantic,still
I think love and sex is better to be lived in same time,not separated.We dont have to follow all patterns we see in tv or else,but use our own mind.
Like you say in the Blaue Sofa; choose to enjoy life, don’t sell your time. In the same way it ruins sex to sell it, instead of enjoying it. When is sex a God given gift between two people who love each other, to create new life? When is sex a complete giving oneself to the soul of a partner, to the soul of the universe?
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