By Paulo Coelho For The Bali Times About Changing A holy man gathered his friends. “I am old,” he said. “And wise,” answered one of his friends. “We have always seen you pray through all these years. What do you talk about with God?” “In the beginning I had the enthusiasm of youth. I used [...]

By Paulo Coelho For The Bali Times On a cold January morning, a man placed himself at the entrance of a subway station in Washington and began to play the violin. For 45 minutes passersby listened to six compositions of J.S. Bach. As it was rush hour – it is estimated that thousands of people [...]

By Paulo Coelho For The Bali Times Robert Fisk, maybe most famous war correspondent today, told me one day that as he returned from the Iran-Iraq front by train, one of the soldiers had asked him: “Did you like the war? It’s great, isn’t it?” Journalists who risk their lives to cover armed conflicts around [...]

By Paulo Coelho For The Bali Times The ceremonial of tea In Japan, I took part in the “tea ceremony.” We entered a small room. We admired the teapot. The tea was served, and that was it. However, everything was done in a unique ceremonial fashion, in which a quotidian practice became a moment of [...]

By Paulo Coelho For The Bali Times I have told Sufi stories in many of these columns and some of them featured their main character, Nasrudin – the fool that is always able to be more intelligent than the wise men, surprising readers with his actions. Today I would like to set these stories aside [...]

By Paulo Coelho For The Bali Times And what about the bad disciples? A disciple asked Firoz: – The mere presence of a master causes all sorts of curious people to gather round, to discover something beneficial. Can’t this be a hindrance and negative? Can’t this divert the master from his path, or cause him [...]

By Paulo Coelho For The Bali Times Once when I was waiting for my Polish editor at a railroad station and had absolutely nothing to do, I tried to imagine what the distance was between the rails. I decided to ask one of the station workers: “They are 143.5 centimetres apart.” I found the answer [...]

By Paulo Coelho For The Bali Times Bernard Shaw is right. He claimed that people take a morbid pleasure in complaining every day about the conditions in which they live. I agree with him: true men and women are those who create ideal conditions.” “How?” “Thousands of years ago a Chinese man wrote about this: [...]

By Paulo Coelho For The Bali Times The cracked pitcher An Indian legend tells of a man who used to carry water every day to his village, using two large pitchers tied on either end of a piece of wood, which he placed across his shoulders. One of the pitchers was older than the other [...]

By Paulo Coelho For The Bali Times What is written A blind man was begging on the road to Mecca when a pious Muslim came over and asked whether the people were giving generously – as the Koran commands. The man showed him his little tin, which was almost empty. The traveller said: “Let me [...]

By Paulo Coelho For The Bali Times What is written A blind man was begging on the road to Mecca when a pious Muslim came over and asked whether the people were giving generously – as the Koran commands. The man showed him his little tin, which was almost empty. The traveller said: “Let me [...]

By Paulo Coelho For The Bali Times The following notes were written during a conversation with J. in 1986. Since we need to change our attitude towards sex, what is the first step?” “I’ve already told you: surrender oneself. People think that before they allow themselves any pleasure, they must resolve all their problems, and [...]