When I read what you wrote I see my own suffering reflected. I waited for true love for so long that when I encountered it ,I couldn’t accept he did not seem to feel the same for me as I did for him.

I had thought that true love meant being loved the way you wanted, but ended up learning I had to surrender expecting nothing in return. I had to be an instrument, and I had been that instrument.

To endure this lesson I’ve undergone pain, joy, humiliation and forgiveness.

Now that time has finally healed wounds,that I have payed a very high price, and he seems to love me I can not see the meaning anymore.

My soul is tired and I wonder if it is worth.

Just completed “By the River Piedra I sat down and wept”!

Paolo , And I can see you ‘Pilar”.
True love is to let it go off the grip & not to hold .

Paolo , You have changed my life foever since I stared reading your words 2 years back . Now I live with you every moment every day .

Your quotes are my way to connect to the Holy spirit and see the wonders of our every day gifts showered on us by HIM.

Love You
Paolo

I think one of the greatest reasons that people have for resisting a Call (whether is to be clergy or just to do whatever it is you have the talent to do or – as this book talks about – responding to a true love) is fear of isolation from becoming marked by something that takes you over. I remember someone along the way teaching me that the meaning of the word “consecration” was “to set apart.” There is a long history of interpreting the words used in the Judeo-Christian tradition to express holiness or sanctity to stress the separation or removal from “ordinary” life. But the Latin base “consecrare” literally means “to join with the sacred” – any idea that such involves a removal from something comes through colloquial interpretation, customary ways of thinking that are added on later. And this other definition of what it means to be consecrated – one which focuses on inclusion rather than exclusion of the “impure” – is not some crazy fad of modern times, as so many accuse regarding the “New Age.” I’ve spent the last couple of days looking at hundreds of years’ worth of various theological discussions that argue for a definition of holiness based on solely on the idea of being united with the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, the numinous fire within all things that is derived from the Divine.

This is, for me, what the story is ultimately about: how we respond to the perception of that Light not only from the traditional sources – sacred traditions, places, powers, beings, rituals – but whether we are prepared to recognize it in other unexpected forms, especially in each other, and thus, how we answer the challenge to honor it in every aspect of existence. And to deal with the fear-based part of ourselves that would prefer that Mystery stayed in the zones we create to control it, where it doesn’t have the full power that makes our souls tremble in so much awe. Perhaps we occupy ourselves so much with fear of isolation because we are truly afraid of the opposite – fear of union, and what proceeds from that union.

So, thank you, Mr. Coelho for a good story and a good workout, and many blessings to you in your work.

Ys dear I do believe that true love does come back maybe after 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,20,30,40,50 years may be in next birth but ys it does come back.

Perhaps it was a love story from and through him. But I do not understand if it indeed was ‘love’ that Pillar felt for him.

In the beginning of the book, Pillar came off as someone merely living her life not necessarily content or quenched, but somewhat confined to. A life she felt she sold herself to, in order to build a solid foundation for herself and her future.

When she saw him again, after years had gone by, she was amused, curious, intrigued… At times skeptical, questioning his belief system – comparing it to hers, which she felt was more evolved, enlightened and realistic.

Gradually, she allowed herself to vest in his beliefs. She liked the thought of leaving “The Other” behind. In adopting these beliefs, shedding the other and being with him, she would shed the life she was confined to, and hop on board onto a new life, that offered more meaning and fulfillment.

Did she choose to be with him, because she loved him, or did she choose to be with him in order to hop onto the new life…to his life? The life of much travels and unpredictability and enlightenment. Was she in love with him or the life that being with him would expose her to?

In the Cavern, when he told her that he had given his powers back to be with her, why did she turn around and run? He was still there, he had sacrificed this great gift, to be with her. Yet Pillar turns around and runs the other way. She is disappointed because the image of the life she built collapsed. “Let’s go to Zaragoza–you know the people there, and it’s a good place for us to start. I’ll get a job easily”, he said. This sent Pillars thoughts back to what she knew and wanted to distance herself from. Back to what she did not want to go back to.

…I can however, look at this from a different angle. That Pillar ran from him, because she did not want him to give up his powers and his life, for her. That her running away was in fact the product of piety and not selfishness? In this case, I would see the love story and the parallel between the story her mother would tell her when she was younger, and the story that Pillar wrote, by the river Piedra.

Please let me know.
Thanks

Solo puedo decir…

Gracias Sr. Coelho.

Actually I love this story as it has changed my life and my opinion about lot of things plus I’ve finished it in one day only which was totally an amazing time while reading this one. good choice