A short story about Buddha – Part 1

February 9, 2009 by

Paulo Coelho

Siddhartha – whose name means “the one whose objective is attained” – was born into a noble family around the year 560 AC. in the city of Kapilavastu in Nepal.

Legend says that at the moment that his mother was making love with his father, she had a vision: six elephants, each one with a lotus flower on his back, were coming in her direction. The next instant, Siddhartha was conceived.

During her pregnancy, Queen Maya, his mother, decided to call the wise men in the kingdom to interpret the vision she had had, and they were unanimous in affirming that the child about to be brought into the world would be a great king or a great priest.

Siddhartha’s childhood and adolescence were very like ours; his parents wanted by all means to protect their son from knowing about the misery of the world. So he led his life confined between the walls of the gigantic palace where his parents lived and where everything seemed perfect and harmonious. He married, had a son and knew only the pleasures and delights of life.

One night, however, when he turned 29, he asked one of the guards to take him into town. The guard objected, for the king could become furious, but Siddhartha was so insistent that the man eventually gave in, and they left the palace together.

The first thing they saw was an old beggar with a sad expression on his face, asking for alms. Further ahead they came across a group of lepers, and right after them a funeral procession passed by. “I have never seen this before!” he must have said to the guard, who may have answered: “Well, that’s old age, and that’s disease, and death.” On their way back to the palace, they came upon a holy man, his hair shorn and wearing only a yellow cloak, who said: “my life was a torment, so I have given everything up so that I don’t have to incarnate as myself and suffer old age and sickness and death all over again.”

The following night, Siddhartha waited until his wife and son had fallen asleep. He entered the room quietly, kissed them both and again asked the guard to escort him out of the palace; there he handed him his sword with the jewel-set hilt, his clothes made with the finest tissues that the human hand could weave, asking him to return them all to his father; then he shaved his head, covered his body with a yellow mantle and set out in search of an answer to the suffering of the world.

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Wizard of Id

February 9, 2009 by

Wizard of Id

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Quote of the Day

February 9, 2009 by

Paulo Coelho

No one lights a lamp in order to hide it behind the door: the purpose of light is to create more light, to open people’s eyes, to reveal the marvels around.
(The Witch of Portobello)

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Today’s Question by the reader : Joshua Wilde

February 9, 2009 by

Hello,

When the subject of gender equality is brought up regarding Santiago’s quest for treasure versus Fatima’s fate of simply waiting for Santiago, how do you respond?

Do you feel it is sexist to give Santiago a Personal Legend involving travel, treasure and adventure while making Fatima’s Personal Legend a man, thereby causing her to simply wait for his return in order to be fulfilled?

It almost sounds like you’re saying women need only the love of men to be fulfilled and to grow spiritually, but men, in addition to needing the love of women, also need to follow their passions…and if that means that women have to wait around forever doing the necessary household chores, so be it.

I suspect that this was not your intended message, so if you would share your thoughts on these themes and what they symbolize to you, it would be much appreciated!

Dear Joshua,

Indeed, when I wrote the story of The Alchemist, I wasn’t thinking on gender terms. It is impossible in my eyes to tell a story having a “politically correct” agenda.

Having said this, even though Fatima portrays the condition of women in traditional cultures, I don’t believe women today are to be confined to the house-wife status at all.

In other books of mine, especially in The Zahir, I show the personal legend of a woman that feels the need to part from her loved one.

I believe there are as many personal legends as there are people in this world. If a woman feels her personal legend is to wait for her love – then it’s valid in my eyes (and not degrading at all). In the other hand if a woman feels her soul is asking for other things, then it’s equally valid. We should all focus in what truly makes us happy.

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Suffering

February 9, 2009 by

Christian, a reader of this blog made a very interesting question: is suffering important for you to get some sort of enlightenment?

In my opinion it isn’t necessary. As a Catholic, the example of Jesus is quite telling: he traveled all his life, having dinners, meeting people and yet we remember him going though “passion” , nailed to the cross in the last days of his life.

The same applies to other avatars of humanity, such as Buddha: they were enjoying life. But for some reason the idea has gone round about suffering as a justification for us to go to heaven, or to sacrifice to others.

All my work is based in sharing the best of life and transmitting your happiness to others.

I would like then to hear your opinion on suffering and this attitude towards the spiritual path.

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Your Space in my Blog: 9th of February 2009

February 9, 2009 by

This space is for you to share your ideas on anything that you consider relevant today.

You can publish here excerpts from your blogs or news and articles in general that you think make a difference to the world today. Try to make a bit of editing on what you post here – try to highlight passages with copy-paste, rather than simply giving links.

Please keep in mind that this blog is currently viewed by 230.000 unique visitors a month, and chances are that many of them are going to read your thoughts.

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Association of the Week: The Balance

February 9, 2009 by

The Balance is not only a zodiac sign but, more generally, the symbol of earthly and heavenly justice.
We find in many ancient religions the notion of a trial in the afterworld in which every soul is weighted according to its good and bad deeds.

In Ancient Egypt, the God Osiris in Ma’at’s presence (the goddess of Justice) would weigh the heart of the dead and then decide of its destination – either towards Aaru (equivalent of Heaven) or remain in the Duat (the equivalent of Hell). The same weighting of earthly actions can be found on Ancient Persia and in Tibet. In Christianity, the balance is the attribute of God, the Father, who shall weigh the deeds of men in the day of the Final Judgment.

The Arabic Alchemy uses the symbol of the Balance in the mind frame of the “Spiritual Alchemy”. The science of the Balance consists then in measuring the “desires of the Soul of the World” and it establishes the proper correspondences between the spiritual world and the manifested world. The balance then marks the equilibrium between light and darkness. Consequently this art also gave rise to the relation between the planets, minerals and the four elements.

Now you take the floor: what do you associate with the Balance?

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