By Paulo Coelho
For The Bali Times

At the beginning of the Christian era, a group of monks decided to retreat to the Sceta monastery in Alexandria. Their stories have survived to this day in a work called Verba Seniorum (The word of the Ancients), and some have already been transcribed in this column. Below are some texts that make us reflect on the quest for what is impossible: perfection.

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By Paulo Coelho
For The Bali Times

In one of my books (The Zahir), I try to understand why people are so afraid of changing. When I was right in the middle of writing the text, I came across an odd interview with a woman who had just written a book on – guess what? - love.

The journalist asks whether the only way a human being can become happy is to find their beloved. The woman says no:

“Love changes, and nobody understands that. The idea that love leads to happiness is a modern invention, dating from the late 17th century. From that time on, people have learned to believe that love should last forever and that marriage is the best way to exercise love. In the past there was not so much optimism about the longevity of passion.

“Romeo and Juliet isn’t a happy story; it’s a tragedy. In the last few decades, expectation has grown a lot regarding marriage being the path towards personal accomplishment. Disappointment and dissatisfaction have also grown at the same time.”

According to the magical practices of the witchdoctors in the North of Mexico, there is always an event in our lives that is responsible for our having stopped making progress. A trauma, a particularly bitter defeat, disappointment in love, even a victory that we fail to quite understand, ends up making us act cowardly and incapable of moving ahead. The witchdoctor, trying to connect with the occult powers, first of all needs to get rid of this “accommodating point.” To do so, he has to review our life and discover where this point lies.

When I was young, I was always fighting, always hitting the others, because I was the oldest in the gang. One day my cousin gave me a beating. That convinced me that I would never again manage to win a fight, and I began to avoid any physical confrontation, even though this meant that I was often taken for a coward, and let myself be humiliated in front of girlfriends and companions. Until one day, when I was 22, I ended up unwillingly getting into a fight in a nightclub in Rio de Janeiro. I got beaten up, but the “accommodating point” went away. Nowadays I no longer fight, not out of cowardice but rather because it’s a terrible way of expressing oneself.

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By Paulo Coelho
For The Bali Times

Standing above the little town of Tarifa is an old fort built by the Moors. I remember sitting here with my wife, Christina, in 1982, and for the first time looking at a continent from across a narrow stretch of water: Africa. At that time I could not dream that such a lazy moment in the late afternoon would inspire a scene in my best-known book, The Alchemist. Nor could I have dreamed that the story that follows, heard in the car, would serve as an excellent example for all of us who are searching for some balance between discipline and compassion.

A merchant sent his son to learn the Secret of Happiness from the wisest of men. The young man wandered through the desert for 40 days until he reached a beautiful castle at the top of a mountain. There lived the sage that the young man was looking for.

However, instead of finding a holy man, our hero entered a room and saw a great deal of activity; merchants coming and going, people chatting in the corners, a small orchestra playing sweet melodies and there was a table laden with the most delectable dishes of that part of the world.

The wise man talked to everybody, and the young man had to wait for two hours until it was time for his audience.

With considerable patience, he listened attentively to the reason for the boy’s visit, but told him that at that moment he did not have the time to explain to him the Secret of Happiness.

He suggested that the young man take a stroll around his palace and come back in two hours’ time.

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By Paulo Coelho

For The Bali Times

Saint Teresa and the Jesuit

Just when she is rejected by everyone as crazy or possessed by the devil, Saint Teresa of Avila meets the Jesuit Francisco de Borja:

“I can’t pray alone,” she says. “I need to seek the memory of the Creator in the fields, in water, or in the flowers. Prayer is a hard task for me, like drawing water from a well. At first I manage to draw just a few drops, and these soothe the dryness of my soul. But little by little the bucket fills up, and I have increasingly less work to water these spiritual fields. Finally the moment arrives when this water turns into rain, and the Creator waters my soul, without me doing any work at all.”

“Well, don’t forget to read this book of the Creation,” answers Francisco de Borja. “There, in nature, is where the Father has written his best lines.”

Herrigel and the Zen master

“When my bow is stretched, a moment arrives when, if I don’t fire the arrow immediately, I feel that I am going to lose my breath,” the German Eugen Herrigel says to his master.

“As long as you try to provoke the moment of firing the arrow, you won’t learn the great art,” answers the master. “The hand that stretches the bow must open like a child’s hand opens. What sometimes hinders the precision of the shot is the archer’s overactive will. He thinks: “what I fail to do will not be done,” and that’s not quite how things work. Man should always act, but he must also let other forces of the Universe act in their own due time.”

Ken Kesey and our condition

“What do you think of the human race?” asks a friend who has just graduated in sociology.

“I think it’s strange – so alike and yet so different! We are capable of working together, of building the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, the cathedrals of Europe and the temples of Peru. We can compose unforgettable music, work in hospitals, create new computer programs. But at some moment all this loses its meaning, and we feel alone, as if we were part of another world, different from the one we have helped to build.

“At times, when others need our help, we grow desperate because this prevents us from enjoying life. At other times, when nobody needs us, we feel useless.

“But that’s the way we are. We are complex human beings. Why despair?”

Buddha and the power of thought

“We are what we think.

All that we are comes from our thoughts.

Through thought we construct and destroy the world.

Thought follows us like a cart follows the pair of oxen.

We are what we think.

Your imagination can cause you more harm than your worst enemy.

But once you control your thoughts, no one can help you as much as they can – not even your father or mother.”

© Translated by James Mulholland

www.paulocoelhoblog.com

By Paulo Coelho

For The Bali Times

The Latin root of the word “responsibility” reveals its meaning: the capacity to respond, to react.

A responsible warrior was capable of observing and training. He was even capable of being “irresponsible”: sometimes he let himself be carried away by the situation, and did not react.

But he learned his lessons; he took an attitude, listened to some advice and was humble enough to accept help.

A responsible warrior is not the one who places the weight of the world on his shoulders, but rather he who manages to deal with the challenges of the present moment.

Of course, at times he gets scared when faced with important decisions.

“This is too big for you,” says a friend.

“Go ahead; be brave,” says another.

And his doubts grow all the more intense.

After a few days of anguish, he retires to the corner of his tent, where he usually sits to meditate and pray. He sees himself in the future. He sees the people who will be benefited and hurt by his attitude. He does not want to cause pointless suffering, but neither does he want to abandon the path.

The warrior then lets the decision manifest itself. If he needs to say yes, he will say it with courage. If he has to say no, he will say it without cowardice. When the warrior assumes responsibility, he keeps his word.

Those who make promises they fail to keep lose self-respect and feel ashamed of their acts. The lives of such people consist in running away. They spend far more energy dishonoring their word than the Warrior of Light uses to keep his promises.

Sometimes, too, he takes on a silly responsibility that will end up in jeopardy. He does not repeat that particular attitude – but even so he honors his word and pays the price for being impulsive.

Of course, he ends up hearing unfavorable opinions. But before he takes heed of anything, he always tries to find out whether the person giving these opinions has ever done work better than his. Generally speaking, those who criticize have never fulfilled their own dream; only the winners are tolerant and generous.

Why do they criticize?

Because for every step the warrior moves forward, the critic remains one step behind. It is hard for him to accept that others are attaining something that he thought was unattainable.

This does not mean that he takes the wrong steps: he will make many mistakes, and that does not matter. Making mistakes is part of the path; correcting mistakes is part of his responsibility.

In order to make fewer mistakes, the warrior rests from time to time and feels happy with the simple things of life. He knows that strings that are always tight eventually become out of tune. Horses that keep on jumping over hurdles eventually break a leg. Bows that bend every day do not fire their arrows with the same strength.

© Translated by James Mulholland

www.paulocoelhoblog.com

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By Paulo Coelho

For The Bali Times

Although the word is a bit on the strong side, the truth is that all of us have known a creep in our lives (the dictionary defines the term as “an individual without any character, dignity or spirit”). He is the kind of person who tries to stand out more when we are adolescents, when we are fighting to affirm our identities, our dreams, our place in the world. We are filled with doubts about what to do, and all of a sudden here comes the creep: always the leader, the one who thinks he is the best-looking, the most intelligent, the most able to face the challenges that lie ahead.

To remain in this position, he attacks our self-esteem: he wants us to think we are ugly, dull, without any future, and that we should imitate him and his way of leading the guys on the block (or in the building, or the condominium). In the case of boys, normally he imposes himself by brute force or by his “smart” attitudes, as if he knew more than everybody else. In the case of girls, the creep is always the one who seems to attract the looks of all the guys, get invited to all the parties, always be the most elegant.

Creeps (both male and female) look at us with a certain air of superiority and try to dictate the rules of the group. We naturally feel intimidated at such conduct, unsure of what to do, and end up letting the creep guide us for some time. Although we do not know it, we are giving the creep the power that he neither has nor deserves, and this will be the only moment in his life that his ephemeral light will manage to shine. But that is all part of our apprenticeship, since that is the way we develop our defenses in the future.

And so we grow up. Little by little each of us makes his choices, the group of adolescents splits up and the creep disappears, although we still preserve his image of beauty, wisdom, leadership, elegance, strength and superiority.

During this important rite of passage called adolescence, all of us have our fundamental values tested – except the creep. While we suffer from feeling neglected, insecure and fragile, he sails smoothly by: after all, he is our leader! He does not have to endure all those endless difficult hours the rest of us spend on rainy afternoons and lying awake at nights.

One fine day, when we are already adults, we think about getting together with our friends from adolescence. We organize a party, usually in a restaurant – where everyone shows up with their husbands and wives. Nothing better than to sit down at a good meal, with good wine, and remember a little the years that made us all that we are today.

The creep shows up – generally married like the rest of us. We are all interested in what has become of his/her life; there is still a certain fascination and awe about an attitude so full of self-confidence. Where did that person go whom we secretly envied and admired?

The first surprise is that the creep went nowhere. Or rather, he may have taken a couple of successful steps, but soon life proved implacable towards his arrogance – the adult world is quite different from the one we live in when we are young.

But the creep still has one refuge: his adolescent gang. And since he thinks that the world has not moved forward, he wants to relive his moments of glory. When dinner starts, it seems that we have all been transported back, but soon we realize that he was just an instrument to enable us to grow. After a couple of drinks, we see the creep at bay, trying to prove a strength that no longer exists, feeling that we still believe that he is the leader of us all.

We smile, exchange kind words with everyone, pay the bill and leave with the impression that the creep has made the wrong choice. We think: “Everything in that person should have worked out right, and it didn’t.”

All of us have known a creep or two in our lives. And that’s just as well.

© Translated by James Mulholland

www.paulocoelhoblog.com

By Paulo Coelho
For The Bali Times

I had proposed to publish here, once a year, texts by Carlos Castañeda, an anthropologist who influenced my generation with his tales of meetings with Mexican sorcerers. For lack of space, I have not done so since 2004. Today I woke up thinking: Castañeda, despite all his critics and all his work that later on seemed so disorderly to me, should not be forgotten. So here we present some of his reflections.

Intention is the important thing: for the old sorcerers of Mexico, intention (intento) is a force that intervenes in all aspects of time and space. To be able to use and manipulate this force calls for impeccable behavior. A warrior’s final goal is to be able to lift his head above the rut where he is confined, look around him and change what he wants. To do so he needs to have discipline and pay attention all the time.

Nothing is easy: nothing in this world is given as a present: everything has to be learned with a great deal of effort. A man who seeks knowledge must have the same behavior as a soldier going to war: absolutely attentive, afraid, respectful and utterly confident. If he follows these recommendations, he may lose the odd battle but he will never cry over his fate.

Fear is natural: fear of the freedom that knowledge brings us is absolutely natural; however, no matter how terrible the apprenticeship may be, it is worse to live without wisdom.

Irritation is unnecessary: becoming irritated with others means giving them the power to interfere in our lives. It is imperative to overcome this feeling. By no means should the acts of others distract us from our only alternative in life: coming in touch with the infinite.

The end is an ally: when things begin to get confused, a warrior thinks about his death and immediately his spirit returns to him. Death is everywhere. Think of the headlights of a car following us along a winding road; sometimes we lose sight of it, sometimes it appears to be too close, sometimes the headlights go out. But this imaginary car never stops (and one day catches up with us). The very idea of death gives men the necessary detachment to go ahead despite all their tribulations. A man who knows that death is approaching every day tries everything, but without feeling anxiety.

The present is unique: a warrior knows how to wait, because he knows what he is waiting for. And while he waits, he wants nothing, and in this way anything he receives – however small – is a blessing. The common man worries too much about loving others, or being loved by them. A warrior knows what he wants - that is all in his life and that is where he concentrates all his energy. The common man spends the present acting as winner or loser, and depending on the results he becomes persecutor or victim. The warrior, on the other hand, worries only about his acts, which will lead him to the objective he has traced for himself.

Intention is transparent: intention (intento) is not a thought, nor an object, nor a desire. It is what makes a man triumph in his objectives and lifts him up from the ground even when he has delivered himself up to defeat. Intention is stronger than man.

It is always the last battle: the warrior’s spirit does not complain about anything, because he was not born to win or lose. He was born to fight, and each battle is the last that he is waging on the face of the Earth. That is why the warrior always leaves his spirit free, and when he gives himself to combat, knowing that his intention is transparent, he laughs and enjoys himself.

© Translated by James Mulholland

www.paulocoelhoblog.com