Paulo Coelho

Sometimes religions can be very dumb. It is the case of my religion – The Catholic Church. In Brazil, we had this case of a young girl who got pregnant and the priest said – no abortion. Why? Because the canons of the Church – without considering the circumstances – denies abortion. So, I would like to know from you when we need to break the rules. Also, if you could elaborate and give me a list of the times when you broke the rules, I would appreciate.

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.

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.

The boat transports in many traditions celestial bodies across the sky – such as the Sun and the Moon – or the dead to the afterworld.

We frequently find drawings in megalithic tombs (towards the end of Prehistory) depicting the voyage towards the Island of the blessed.

In Scandinavians regions, drawings of boats made during the Bronze Age symbolized another reality, the cosmic revolutions. In Egypt, solar boats were placed next to the Great Pyramid of Giza and were believed to transport the sun across the sky during day time, whilst during the night, these boats would shed light in the kingdom of the dead.

In Christianity, the boat retained basically the symbol of journey, of the crossing of life.

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

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.

Paulo Coelho

The man was identified as a former employee of the company that had built the housing complex, where he had moved to in the early 80s soon after his divorce. He was just over fifty years on the day that all of a sudden, reading the newspaper, he left this world.

His ex-wife never sought for him. It was discovered that the company where he worked had gone bankrupt right after the building had been finished, since no apartment was sold, and so they did not find it odd that the man never turned up for his daily activities. His friends were looked up, and they put his disappearance down to the fact that he had borrowed some money and could not pay it back.

The news ends informing us that the mortal remains were delivered to the ex-wife. I finished reading the article and wondered at the last sentence: the ex-wife was still alive, and for twenty years had not even looked up her husband. What must have gone through her head? That he no longer loved her, that he had decided to remove her for ever from his life. That he had met another woman and disappeared without a trace. That life is like that, once the divorce procedures are over there is no point in carrying on a relationship that has been legally terminated. I imagine what she must have felt upon finding out the fate of the man with whom she had shared a good part of her life.

Then I thought of the dead man in his pajamas, of solitude so utter and abysmal that for twenty years nobody in this whole wide world had realized that he had simply disappeared without leaving a trace. And my conclusion is that worse than feeling hunger and thirst, worse than being jobless, suffering for love, in despair over some defeat – worse than all this is to feel that nobody, absolutely nobody in this world, cares for us.

Let us at this moment say a quiet prayer for this man and let us offer him our thanks for making us reflect on how important our friends are.

Welcome to Share with Friends – Free Texts for a Free Internet

Paulo Coelho

All battles have some use, including those in which we were defeated.
(The Fifth Mountain)

Welcome to Share with Friends – Free Texts for a Free Internet

Your blog yesterday has me thinking and wondering about something…it mentions men closing their eyes to major travesties around the world and some others that are less major, but no less important…and it is true that warriors of light never/should never accept what is unacceptable.

Tell me…should this apply to our own individual battles? To injustice done to ourselves? How do we know when to fight against this injustice, to fight for our truth, and when we should just let them win, walk away beaten and burned? It is unacceptable to me that this wrong was done to me and that truth and light will never win….what to do?

Thank you very much Pilar for this video. Today I will be celebrating with my friends and 24 readers from my social communities (selected on the first come/first served basis) my patron saint, Saint Joseph. We will have a dinner, music, dance, but we will also pray for the sake of the world. This is the English prayer (we will have it in four different languages) that we will pray together at 10:30 PM:

Glorious St. Joseph, model of all who are devoted to labor,

St. Joseph, inspire and guide me for the time to come.

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This blog will resume its normal configuration tomorrow

“All’inizio della vita e, di nuovo, quando diventiamo vecchi, abbiamo bisogno dell’aiuto e dell’affetto degli altri. Purtroppo, tra questi due periodi della vita, quando siamo forti e in grado di occuparci di noi stessi, trascuriamo il valore dell’affettuosití  e della compassione. Poiché anche la nostra vita comincia e finisce con il bisogno di affetto, non sarebbe meglio se praticassimo la compassione e l’amore per gli altri mentre siamo forti e capaci?”

Le parole sopra riportate sono dell’attuale Dalai Lama. E’ davvero molto curioso notare quanto siamo orgogliosi della nostra indipendenza emotiva. Chiaro, non è proprio cosí¬: continuiamo ad aver bisogno degli altri per tutta la vita, ma è una “vergogna” dimostrarlo, e allora preferiamo piangere di nascosto. E quando qualcuno ci chiede aiuto, lo consideriamo debole, incapace di controllare i propri sentimenti.

Esiste una regola non scritta, che afferma che “il mondo è dei forti”, o che “sopravvive solo il pií¹ idoneo”. Se cosí¬ fosse, gli esseri umani non esisterebbero pií¹, perché appartengono a una specie che ha bisogno di essere protetta per un lungo periodo di tempo (alcuni specialisti affermano che siamo in grado di sopravvivere grazie alle nostre forze solo dopo i nove anni di etí , mentre ad una giraffa servono appena da sei a otto mesi, e un’ape è gií  indipendente in meno di cinque minuti).

Ci troviamo in questo mondo. Io, per quanto mi riguarda, continuo e continuerí² sempre a dipendere dagli altri. Dipendo da mia moglie, dai miei amici, dai miei editori. Dipendo persino dai miei nemici, che mi aiutano ad essere sempre allenato nell’uso della spada.

Certo, ci sono dei momenti in cui questo fuoco soffia in un’altra direzione, ma io mi domando sempre: dove sono gli altri? Mi sono forse isolato troppo? Come qualunque persona sana, ho bisogno anche di solitudine, di momenti di riflessione.

Ma questo non puí² diventare un vizio.

L’indipendenza emotiva non conduce assolutamente da nessuna parte – se non ad una ipotetica forza, il cui unico e inutile obiettivo è impressionare gli altri.

La dipendenza emotiva, a sua volta, è come un falí² che accendiamo.

All’inizio, i rapporti sono difficili. Proprio come accade con il fuoco, è necessario adattarsi al fumo sgradevole – che rende difficile la respirazione e fa lacrimare. Eppure, una volta che il fuoco ha preso, il fumo svanisce e le fiamme illuminano tutto cií² che c’è intorno -diffondendo calore e calma. E talvolta facendo anche saltare qualche pezzetto di brace che ci brucia. Ma è questo che rende interessante un rapporto, non è vero?

Ho iniziato questo testo citando le parole di un premio Nobel per la Pace sull’importanza dei rapporti umani. Concludo con quelle del Professor Albert Schweitzer, medi­co e missionario, che ha ricevuto lo stesso Nobel nel 1952.

“Tutti conosciamo una malattia diffusa nell’Africa Centrale chiamata malattia del sonno. Cií² che dobbiamo sapere è che esiste una malattia simile che colpisce l’anima – e che è molto pericolosa, perché si instaura senza essere notata. Quando dovessi notare il minimo segno di indifferenza e di mancanza di entusiasmo nei confronti nel tuo simile, stai allerta!”

“L’unica maniera di cautelarsi contro questa malattia è capire che l’anima soffre, e soffre molto, quando la obblighiamo a vivere in modo superficiale. L’anima ama le cose belle e profonde”.

« Au début de notre vie et de nouveau quand nous vieillissons, l’aide des autres nous est indispensable. Malheureusement, entre ces deux périodes de notre vie, quand nous sommes forts et capables de prendre soin de nous-míªmes, nous négligeons la valeur de l’affection et de la compassion. Comme notre vie commence et finit avec la nécessité de l’affection, ne vaudrait-il pas mieux pratiquer la compassion et l’amour pour les autres pendant que nous en avons la force ? »

Les mots qui précèdent sont de l’actuel Dalaí¯-Lama. Il est vraiment très curieux de constater que nous sommes fiers de notre indépendance émotionnelle. Bien sí»r, ce n’est pas tout í  fait vrai ; nous avons besoin des autres toute notre vie, mais il est « honteux » de le manifester, alors nous préférons pleurer en cachette. Et quand quelqu’un nous appelle í  l’aide, cette personne est considérée comme faible, incapable de contrí´ler ses sentiments.

Il existe une règle non écrite, affirmant que « le monde appartient aux forts », seul « survit le plus apte ». Si c’était vrai, les íªtres humains n’existeraient plus, parce qu’ils font partie d’une espèce qui a besoin d’íªtre protégée durant une longue période (les spécialistes disent que nous ne sommes capables de survivre par nous-míªmes qu’après l’í¢ge de neuf ans, alors que la girafe met seulement six í  huit mois et qu’une abeille est déjí  indépendante en moins de cinq minutes.

Nous sommes dans ce monde. Pour ma part, je continue, et je continuerai toujours, í  dépendre des autres. Je dépends de ma femme, de mes amis, de mes éditeurs. Je dépends míªme de mes ennemis, qui m’aident í  conserver mon adresse dans le maniement de l’épée.

Évidemment, il y a des moments oí¹ ce feu souffle dans une autre direction, mais je me demande toujours oí¹ sont les autres. Me serais-je trop isolé ? Comme toute personne saine, j’ai aussi besoin de solitude, de moments de réflexion.

Mais je ne peux pas m’en rendre malade.

L’indépendance émotionnelle ne mène absolument nulle part, sauf í  une prétendue forteresse, dont l’unique et inutile objectif est d’impressionner les autres.

La dépendance émotionnelle, quant í  elle, est un feu que nous allumons.

Au début les relations sont difficiles. De míªme que le feu oblige í  supporter la fumée désagréable, qui rend la respiration difficile et arrache des larmes. Mais, une fois le feu allumé, la fumée disparaí®t et les flammes illuminent tout alentour, répandant chaleur et calme. Éventuellement une braise s’échappe et nous brí»le, mais c’est ce qui rend une relation intéressante, n’est-ce pas ?

J’ai commencé cette colonne en citant un Prix Nobel de la Paix au sujet de l’importance des relations humaines. Je termine avec le professeur Albert Schweitzer, médecin et missionnaire, qui a reí§u le míªme prix Nobel, en 1952.

« Nous connaissons tous en Afrique la maladie du sommeil. Ce que nous devons savoir, c’est qu’il existe une maladie semblable qui attaque l’í¢me, et qui est très dangereuse, parce qu’elle s’installe sans qu’on s’en aperí§oive. Quand vous notez le moindre signe d’indifférence et d’absence d’enthousiasme envers votre semblable, soyez en alerte !

« La seule manière de nous prémunir de cette maladie est de comprendre que l’í¢me souffre, et souffre beaucoup, quand nous l’obligeons í  vivre superficiellement. L’í¢me aime les choses belles et profondes. »