Archive for the 'Stories' Category

Resting vs Acting

Published on July 2, 2009 in Stories. 10 Comments

Paulo Coelho

In the interval of the combat, the warrior rests.
He often spends days on end doing nothing, because his heart needs that.
But his intuition remains alert. He does not commit the capital sin of Sloth, because he knows where that can lead to: the tepid feeling of Sunday afternoons, when time passes – and nothing else.
The warrior calls this “cemetery peace.” He recalls an extract from the Apocalypse: I curse you because you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot! But since you’re tepid, I shall vomit you from my mouth.
A warrior rests and laughs. But he is always attentive and ready to act.

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Pardoning vs Accepting

Published on July 1, 2009 in Stories. 18 Comments

Paulo Coelho

A Warrior of Light always keeps his heart clean of the sentiment of hate. To do so, he needs to pardon.

When he walks to a fight, he never forgets Christ’s words: “love your enemies.”
And the warrior obeys, but always remembers that Christ did not say: “like your enemies.”

The act of pardoning does not oblige him to accept everything. A warrior must not lower his head, otherwise he loses sight of the horizon of his dreams.

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Patience and Speed

Published on June 30, 2009 in Stories. 15 Comments

Paulo Coelho

A Warrior of Light needs patience and speed at the same time.

The two biggest mistakes of a strategy are to act prematurely and to let the opportunity pass by. To avoid making these mistakes, the warrior copes with each situation as if it were unique, and applies no formulas, prescriptions or the opinions of others.

Caliph Moauiyat asked Omar Ben Al-Aas what was the secret of his great political skill: “I have never gotten involved in any matter without first studying the way out; on the other hand, I have never become involved and wanted to get out right away,” was his answer.

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Accepting paradoxes

Published on June 29, 2009 in Stories. 14 Comments

Paulo Coelho

“It’s odd,” the warrior muses to himself. “I have met so many people who, at the first chance they get, try to show the worst of themselves. They hide their interior strength through aggressiveness and disguise the fear of solitude with an air of independence. They don’t believe in their own capacity but are always extolling their virtues to the four winds.”
The warrior reads these messages in many men and women he knows. He is never fooled by appearances and insists on remaining silent when others try to impress him. But he uses the opportunity to correct his flaws – since people are always a good mirror.
A warrior puts to good use every opportunity to teach himself and to admit his own contradictions.

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The Warrior Of Light and Faith

Published on June 26, 2009 in Stories. 33 Comments

Paulo Coelho

The warrior of light, once he has learned how to use a sword, discovers that his equipment is still incomplete – he needs armour.
He sets off in search of this armour and he listens to the advice of various salesmen.
‘Use the breastplate of solitude,’ says one.
‘Use the shield of cynicism’, says another.
‘The best armour is not to get involved in anything,’ says a third.
The warrior, however, ignores them. He calmly goes to his sacred place and puts on the indestructible cloak of faith.
Faith parries all blows. Faith transforms poison into crystalline water.

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The Warrior of Light and Courage

Published on June 25, 2009 in Stories. 14 Comments

Paulo Coelho

The warrior of light knows the value of persistence and of courage.
Often, during combat, he receives blows that he was not expecting. And he realises that, during the war, his enemy is bound to win some of the battles. When this happens, he weeps bitter tears and rests in order to recover his energies a little. But he immediately resumes his battle for his dreams.
The longer he remains away, the more likely he is to feel weak, fearful and intimidated. When a horseman falls off his horse, if he does not remount immediately, he will never have the courage to do so again.

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Epictetus to his disciples

Published on June 22, 2009 in Stories. 31 Comments

Paulo Coelho

Two things can happen when we meet someone: either we become friends, or we try to convince the other person to accept our convictions. The same happens when the ember meets another piece of coal: either it shares its fire with it, or it is suffocated by its size and ends up extinguished.
As we are generally insecure at a first contact, we try indifference, arrogance or excessive humility. The result is that we stop being who we are and things start heading towards a strange world that does not belong to us.

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Kandinsky on painting

Published on June 19, 2009 in Stories. 31 Comments

Paulo Coelho

Painting is an art. And art is a power that should be aimed at developing the soul. If art does not do this job, the abyss that separates us from God is left without a bridge.
The artist owes his talent to God and has to settle this debt. To do this, he has to work hard, know that he is free in his art but not in his commitment to life. Everything he feels and thinks is part of the raw material with which to improve the spiritual atmosphere around him.
Beauty, whether in art or in a woman, cannot be empty; it has to be at the service of humankind and the world.

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How to observe the flight of the arrow

Published on June 18, 2009 in Stories. 14 Comments

Paulo Coelho

The arrow is intention projected into space.
Once it is fired, there is nothing left for the archer to do except accompany its path towards the target. From that moment on, the tension necessary for the shot has no more reason to exist.
The archer therefore keeps his eyes fixed on the flight of the arrow, but his heart is at rest and he smiles.
At that moment, if he has trained enough, if he has managed to develop his instinct, if he has maintained his elegance and concentration throughout the whole process of the shot, then he will feel the presence of the universe and hw will see that his action was fair and deserved.
Technique makes both hands always ready, breathing always precise, eyes able to fix on the target. Instinct makes the moment of the shot perfect.
Whoever passes by and sees the archer with his arms open and his eyes following the arrow will fancy that he is stopped. But the allies know that the mind of the one who fired the arrow has changed dimension and is now in contact with the entire universe: the mind goes on working, learning everything of a positive nature that the shot has brought, correcting any mistakes, accepting his qualities, and waiting to see how the target reacts when it is struck.
When the archer stretches the string, he can see the whole world inside his bow. When he accompanies the flight of the arrow, this world comes close to him, caresses him and makes him relish the perfect sensation of having fulfilled his duty.
A Warrior of Light, after fulfilling his duty and transforming his intention into gesture, need fear no more: he has done what he had to do. He has not allowed himself to be petrified by fear, for even if the arrow fails to reach its target, he will have another opportunity, because he has not been a coward.

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The importance of repeating the same thing

Published on June 17, 2009 in Stories. 18 Comments

Paulo Coelho

An action is a thought that manifests itself.
A small gesture denounces us, so we have to make everything perfect, think about the details, learn the technique so that it becomes intuitive. Intuition has nothing to do with routine but rather with a state of spirit that lies beyond technique.
So, after practicing a lot, we no longer think about all the necessary movements: they become part of our very existence. But for this to happen, you have to train and repeat.
And as if that were not enough, you have to repeat and train.
Watch a good blacksmith working the steel. To the untrained eye he is repeating the same hammer blows over and over again.
But those who know the importance of training know that each time the hammer is raised and then lowered, the intensity of the blow is different. The hand repeats the same gesture but as it approaches the iron it knows whether to touch it harder or softer.
Look at the windmill. Whoever sees its vanes just once imagines that it always turns with the same speed, always repeating the same movement. But those who know windmills know that they are conditioned to the wind and change their direction whenever necessary.
The hand of the ironsmith was trained after the gesture of hammering was repeated thousands of times. Windmill vanes can move fast after the wind has blown a lot and polished their gears. The archer lets many an arrow pass far from the target because he knows that he will only learn the importance of the bow, posture, the string and the target after he repeats his gestures thousands of times without being afraid of making a mistake.
Until he reaches the moment when he no longer needs to think about what he doing. From then on the archer becomes his bow, his arrow and his target.

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At the end of the black tunnel – Part 2

Published on June 16, 2009 in Stories. 19 Comments

Paulo Coelho

[...]

“The worst of it was that I saw Sorin wearing orange overalls and with his head shaven, in a video that was delivered to Al-Jazeera (the Arab channel based in Qatar),” says Cristina. “This was a sign that his execution would take place quite soon.”
“I asked God for only one thing: to die with a bullet in the heart. I had already seen videos of prisoners being decapitated; I asked, begged to be shot,” adds Sorin.
Andrea gives him a kiss. He smiles, asks if I want to stay in that restaurant or if we should go to the only karaoke in Sibiu. I prefer to interrupt the conversation at that point – it was better to go and sing together. Our group gets up, I try to pay the bill but it was “on the house” in homage to the local hero, he who had survived in spite of everything.
On the way to the discotheque, I think about the black tunnel: without wanting to romanticize a dramatic situation, I fell that this happens to everyone. When we are faced with something that really threatens us, it is impossible to look around, although this is the correct and safer procedure. We can’t see clearly, use logic, gather information that can help us and those who try to get us out of that situation. In love and in war we are human, thank God.
We reach the karaoke, drink some more, sing Elvis, Madonna and Ray Charles. Ours is an interesting group: Lacrima, who was abandoned by her mother when she was only two months old. Leonardo, who has just got over a depression that lasted two years. Cristina Topescu, who recently overcame difficult moments. Sorin and his 55 days in captivity, and Andrea, who almost lost the person she loved. And me, with scars all over my body and soul.
And even so we drank, sang and celebrated life. To have friends like these gives me more than hope, it makes me understand that the true survivors will never be victims to their torturers, because they manage to keep alive the most important thing in human beings: joy.
And where there is joy after tragedy, there will always be an example to be followed.

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At the end of the black tunnel – Part 1

Published on June 15, 2009 in Stories. 17 Comments

Paulo Coelho

“I saw only a tunnel.”
In the bar in Sibiu, in Transylvania, Sorin looks deep into my eyes. He carries on speaking.
“I saw a black tunnel with a man at the end of it, making signs at me.”
I wait. We have all the time in the world and I remember that when I was in the same situation I saw a tunnel too, except this one led to a hotel in Rio de Janeiro, the Glória Hotel. I looked at that hotel, expected the worse and thought to myself: “it’s not fair, I’m only 26 years old!” Fair or not, in the early morning of 27 May 1974 I stood before death and could not see what was happening beside me. Just the tunnel and the hotel. But my story does not matter, it serves only to say that I understand perfectly well what Sorin is telling me in a bar lost in the middle of the Carpates Mountains.
“I saw only a tunnel, with a man pointing a gun at me and telling me to get out of the car.”
Sorin Miscoci’s Calvary began on 28 March 2005, near Baghdad. He had been designated to spend a week there at the request of a Rumanian TV station and ended up being kidnapped for 55 days.
“Later on, when they freed me, the American security agents asked me how many people were there. And I told them: one. They laughed and said that just wasn’t possible. It was the psychologist who helped me, explaining that in situations like this, nothing in the surroundings has any importance. All you see is the focus of the crisis, what is threatening you, and you simply forget the rest.
Sorin has just got married to Andrea, who strokes his hand. We have been traveling together for three days and we will continue for another week crossing the Carpates Mountains. I knew his story, but waited until he was in his home town before asking him the details. Cristina Topescu, an old friend who worked as a journalist in the same TV as Sorin, was also at the table. She says that when the time came to mobilize the country, few colleagues came forward to speak to the President of the Republic, for fear of losing their jobs.

[...]

The rest of this story will be posted here tomorrow.

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Lao Tsu, China – 6th century B.C.

Published on June 12, 2009 in Stories. 25 Comments

Paulo Coelho

Based on my message earlier this week – about the different languages of God – I would like to share with you this week some of the prayers that point in the same direction:

“For there to be peace in the world, the nations must live in peace.
For there to be peace among nations, cities must not rise up against one another.
For there to be peace in the cities, neighbors must get on well with one another.
For there to be peace among neighbors, harmony must reign in the home.
For there to be harmony at home, it must be found in your own heart.”

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Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 7;7-8

Published on June 11, 2009 in Stories. 39 Comments

Paulo Coelho

Based on my message earlier this week – about the different languages of God – I would like to share with you this week some of the prayers that point in the same direction:

“Ask, and it shall be given you;
seek and you shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
For every one that asks receives;
and he that seeks finds:
And to him that knocks,
it shall be opened.”

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Prophet Mohammed, 7th century

Published on June 10, 2009 in Stories. 25 Comments

Paulo Coelho

Based on my message earlier this week – about the different languages of God – I would like to share with you this week some of the prayers that point in the same direction:

“Oh Allah! I come to you because you know all, even what is hidden.

If what I am doing is good for me and my religion, for my life now and later, then let the task be easy and blessed.

If what I am doing now is bad for me and my religion, for my life now and later, then keep me far from this task.”

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Dhammapada (attributed to Buddha)

Published on June 9, 2009 in Stories. 18 Comments

Paulo Coelho

Based on my message of yesterday – about the different languages of God – I would like to share with you this week some of the prayers that point in the same direction:

“Instead of a thousand words,
Better just one,
One that brings peace.
Instead of a thousand verses,
Better just one,
One that shows beauty.
Instead of a thousand songs,
Better just one,
One that spreads joy.”

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The languages that God speaks

Published on June 8, 2009 in Stories. 32 Comments

Paulo Coelho

A Spanish missionary was visiting an island when he came across three Aztec priests.

“How do you pray?” asked the priest.

“We have only one prayer, “ answered one of the Aztecs. “We say: “God, You are three, we are three. Have mercy on us.”

“Beautiful prayer,” said the missionary. “But it is not exactly the prayer that God hears. I shall teach you a much better one.”

The priest taught them a Catholic prayer and went on his way to spread the Gospel among others. Years later, on the ship taking him back to Spain, he stopped at that island once more. From the deck he saw the three holy men on the beach – and waved farewell to them.

At that moment the three began to walk on the water towards him.

“Father! Father!” shouted one of them, approaching the ship. “Teach us again the prayer that God hears, because we can’t remember it!”

“It doesn’t matter,” said the missionary, seeing the miracle. And he asked God to forgive him for not understanding before that He spoke all languages.

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To be like a river flowing – Part 2

Published on June 5, 2009 in Stories. 21 Comments

Paulo Coelho

[...]

F] We are one. We were born in a place that was meant for us, which will always keep us supplied with enough water so that when confronted with obstacles or depression we have the necessary patience or strength to move forward. We begin our course in a soft and fragile manner, where even a simple leaf can stop us. Nevertheless, as we respect the mystery of the source that gave us life, and trust in His eternal wisdom, little by little we gain all that we need to pursue our path.

G] Although we are one, soon we shall be many. As we travel on, the waters of other springs come closer, because that is the best path to follow. Then we are no longer just one, but many – and there comes a moment when we feel lost. However, as the Bible says, “all rivers flow to the sea.” It is impossible to remain in our solitude, no matter how romantic that may seem. When we accept the inevitable encounter with other springs, we eventually understand that this makes us much stronger, we get around obstacles or fill in the hollows in far less time and with greater ease.

H] We are a means of transportation. Of leaves, boats, ideas. May our waters always be generous, may be always be able to carry ahead everything or everyone that needs our help.

I] We are a source of inspiration. And so, let us leave the final words to the Brazilian poet, Manuel Bandeira:

“To be like a river that flows
silent through the night,
not fearing the darkness and
reflecting any stars high in the sky.

And if the sky is filled with clouds,
the clouds are water like the river, so
without remorse reflect them too

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To be like a river flowing – Part1

Published on June 4, 2009 in Stories. 36 Comments

Paulo Coelho

“A river never passes the same place twice,” says a philosopher. “Life is like a river,” says another philosopher, and we draw the conclusion that this is the metaphor that comes closest to the meaning of life. Consequently, it is always good to remember during all the year to come:

A] We are always doing things for the first time. While we move between our source (birth) to our destination (death), the landscape will always be new. We should face these novelties with joy, not with fear – because it is useless to fear what cannot be avoided. A river never stops running.

B] In a valley we walk slower. When everything around us becomes easier, the waters grow calm, we become more open, fuller and more generous.

C] Our banks are always fertile. Vegetation only grows where there is water. Whoever comes into contact with us needs to understand that we are there to give the thirsty something to drink.

D] Stones should be avoided. It is obvious that water is stronger than granite, but it takes time for this to happen. It is no good letting yourself be overcome by stronger obstacles, or trying to fight against them – that is a useless waste of energy. It is best to understand where the way out is, and then move forward.

E] Hollows call for patience. All of a sudden the river enters a sort of hole and stops running as joyfully as before. At such moments the only way out is to count on the help of time. When the right moment comes the hollow fills up and the water can flow ahead. In the place of the ugly, lifeless hole there now stands a lake that others can contemplate with joy.

[...]

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The rest of this text will be posted here tomorrow

Condemned to death

Published on June 3, 2009 in Stories. 21 Comments

Paulo Coelho

The group went down the street: the soldiers were escorting a man condemned to the gallows.

- That man was no good commented a disciple with Awas-el Salam. – Once I gave him a silver coin to help him to get out of his misery and he did nothing important.

- Perhaps he is no good, but he may now be going to the gallows because of you. Maybe he used the money you gave him to buy a dagger, which he ended up using in the crime committed. In that case, your hands are also bloodied. Instead of trying to support him with love and kindness, you preferred to give him alms and rid yourself of your obligation.

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