Like the Flowing River: Thoughts and Reflections

by Paulo Coelho

  How many of us, in our own lives, ever dare to ask: why do I behave in such and such a way? In what we do, how far are we, too, using futile ‘cats’ that we do not have the courage to get rid of because we were told that the ‘cats’ were important in order to keep everything running smoothly?

  Why do we not find a different way of behaving?

  I Can’t Get In

  Near Olite, in Spain, there is a ruined castle. I decide to visit the place and, as I am standing there before it, a man at the door says:

  ‘You can’t come in.’

  My intuition tells me that he is saying this purely for the pleasure of saying ‘No’. I explain that I’ve come a long way; I try offering him a tip; I try being nice; I point out that this is, after all, a ruined castle. Suddenly, going into that castle has become very important to me.

  ‘You can’t come in,’ the man says again.

  There is only one alternative: to carry on and see if he will physically prevent me from going in. I walk towards the door. He looks at me, but does nothing.

  As I am leaving, two other tourists arrive and they, too, walk in. The old man does not try to stop them. I feel as if, thanks to my resistance, the old man has decided to stop inventing ridiculous rules. Sometimes the world asks us to fight for things we do not understand, and whose significance we will never discover.

  Statutes for the New Millennium

  1 We are all different, and should do what we can to remain so.

  2 Each human being was given two possibilities: action and contemplation. Both lead to the same place.

  3 Each human being was given two qualities: power and the gift. Power directs us towards our destiny; the gift obliges us to share with others what is best in us.

  4 Each human being was given a virtue: the ability to choose. Anyone who fails to use this virtue transforms it into a curse, and others will choose for them.

  5 Each human being has his or her own sexual identity and should be able to exercise that identity without guilt as long as they do not force that sexual identity on others.

  6 Every human being has a personal legend to be fulfilled, and this is our reason for being in the world. This personal legend manifests itself in our enthusiasm for the task.

  7 One can abandon one’s personal legend for a time, as long as one does not forget about it entirely and returns to it as soon as possible. 8 Every man has a feminine side, and every woman a masculine side. It is important to use discipline with intuition, and to use intuition with objectivity.

  9 Every human being should know two languages: the language of society and the language of signs. One serves to communicate with other people, the other serves to understand God’s messages.

  10 Every human being has the right to search for happiness, and by ‘happiness’ is meant something that makes that individual feel content, not necessarily something that makes other people feel content.

  11 Every human being should keep alive within them the sacred flame of madness, but should behave as a normal person.

  12 Only the following items should be considered to be grave faults: not respecting another’s rights; allowing oneself to be paralysed by fear; feeling guilty; believing that one does not deserve the good or ill that happens in one’s life; being a coward.

  We will love our enemies, but not make alliances with them. They were placed in our path in order to test our sword, and we should, out of respect for them, struggle against them.

  We will choose our enemies.

  13 All religions lead to the same God, and all deserve the same respect.

  Anyone who chooses a religion is also choosing a collective way of worshipping and sharing the mysteries. Nevertheless, that person is the only one responsible for his or her actions along the way and has no right to shift responsibility for any personal decisions on to that religion.

  14 It is hereby decreed that the wall separating the sacred and the profane be torn down. From now on, everything is sacred.

  15 Everything that is done in the present affects the future in the form of consequence and affects the past in the form of redemption.

  16 All statutes to the contrary are revoked.

  Destroying and Rebuilding

  I am invited to go to Guncan-Gima, the site of a Zen Buddhist temple. When I get there, I’m surprised to see that the extraordinarily beautiful building, which is situated in the middle of a vast forest, is right next to a huge piece of waste ground.

  I ask what the waste ground is for and the man in charge explains:

  ‘That is where we will build the next temple. Every twenty years, we destroy the temple you see before you now and rebuild it again on the site next to it. This means that the monks who have trained as carpenters, stonemasons, and architects are always using their practical skills and passing them on to their apprentices. It also shows them that nothing in this life is eternal, and that even temples are in need of constant improvement.’

  The Warrior and Faith

  Henry James compares experience to a kind of huge spider’s web suspended in the chamber of consciousness and capable of trapping not only what is necessary, but every air-borne particle as well.

  Often what we call ‘experience’ is merely the sum of our defeats. Thus we look ahead with the fear of someone who has already made a lot of mistakes in life and we lack the courage to take the next step.

  At such moments, it is good to remember the words of Lord Salisbury: ‘If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe.’

  It is important to accept one’s passions, and not to lose one’s enthusiasm for conquests. They are part of life, and bring joy to all who participate in them. The warrior of light never loses sight of what endures, nor of bonds forged over time. He knows how to distinguish between the transient and the enduring. There comes a moment, however, when his passions suddenly disappear. Despite all his knowledge, he allows himself to be overwhelmed by despair: from one moment to the next, his faith is not what it was, things do not happen as he dreamed they would, tragedies occur in unfair and unexpected ways, and he begins to believe that his prayers are not being heeded. He continues to pray and to attend religious services, but he cannot deceive himself; his heart does not respond as it once did, and the words seem meaningless.

  At such a moment, there is only one possible path to follow: keep practising. Say your prayers out of duty or fear, or for some other reason, but keep praying. Keep on, even if all seems in vain.

  The angel in charge of receiving your words, and who is also responsible for the joy of faith, has wandered off somewhere. However, he will soon be back and will only know where to find you if he or she hears a prayer or a request from your lips.

  According to legend, after an exhausting morning session of prayer in the monastery of Piedra, the novice asked the abbot if prayers brought God closer to mankind.

  ‘I’m going to reply with another question,’ said the abbot. ‘Will all the prayers you say make the sun rise tomorrow?’

  ‘Of course not! The sun rises in obedience to a universal law.’

  ‘Well, there’s the answer to your question. God is close to us regardless of how much we pray.’

  The novice was shocked.

  ‘Are you saying that our prayers are useless?’

  ‘Absolutely not. If you don’t wake up early enough, you will never get to see the sunrise. And although God is always close, if you don’t pray, you will never manage to feel His presence.’

  Watch and pray: that should be the warrior of light’s motto. If he only watches, he will start to see ghosts where they don’t exist. If he only prays, he will not have time to carry out the work that the world so desperately needs. According to another legend, this time from the Verba Seniorum, the abbot pastor used to say that Abbot John had prayed so much that he need no longer worry – all his passions had been vanquished.

  The abbot pastor’s wo
rds reached the ears of one of the wise men in the Monastery of Sceta. He called together the novices after supper.

  ‘You may have heard it said that Abbot John has no more temptations to conquer,’ he said. ‘However, a lack of struggle weakens the soul. Let us ask the Lord to send Abbot John a great temptation, and if he manages to conquer it, let us ask the Lord to send him another, and another. And when he is once more struggling against temptations, let us pray that he may never say: “Lord, remove this demon from me.” Let us pray that he asks: “Lord, give me strength to confront evil.”’

  In Miami Harbour

  ‘Sometimes, people get so used to what they see in films that they end up forgetting the real story,’ says a friend, as we stand together looking out over Miami harbour. ‘Do you remember The Ten Commandments?’

  ‘Of course I do. At one point, Moses – Charlton Heston – lifts up his rod, the waters part, and the children of Israel cross over.’

  ‘In the Bible it’s different,’ says my friend. ‘There, God says to Moses: “Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward.” And only afterwards does he tell Moses to lift up his rod, and then the Red Sea parts. It is only courage on the path itself that makes the path appear.’

  Acting on Impulse

  Father Zeca, from the Church of the Resurrection in Copacabana, tells of how, when he was travelling once on a bus, he suddenly heard a voice telling him to get up and preach the word of Christ right there and then.

  Zeca started talking to the voice: ‘They’ll think I’m ridiculous. This isn’t the place for a sermon,’ he said. But something inside him insisted that he speak. ‘I’m too shy, please don’t ask me to do this,’ he begged.

  The inner impulse insisted.

  Then he remembered his promise – to surrender himself to all Christ’s purposes. He got up, cringing with embarrassment, and began to talk about the Gospel. Everyone listened in silence. He looked at each passenger in turn, and very few looked away. He said everything that was in his heart, ended his sermon, and sat down again.

  He still does not know what task he fulfilled that day, but he is absolutely certain that he did fulfil a task.

  Transitory Glory

  Sic transit gloria mundi. That is how St Paul defines the human condition in one of his Epistles: ‘Thus passes away the glory of the world.’ And yet, knowing this, we all set off in search of recognition for our work. Why? One of Brazil’s greatest poets, Vinicius de Moraes, says in the words to a song:

  E no entanto é preciso cantar,

  mais que nunca é preciso cantar.

  [And meanwhile, we must sing,

  more than ever, we must sing.]

  Gertrude Stein said that, ‘A rose is a rose is a rose’, but Vinicius de Moraes says only that we must sing. Brilliant. He gives no explanations, no justifications, and uses no metaphors. When I stood for the Brazilian Academy of Letters, I went through the ritual of getting in touch with the other members, and one academician, Josué Montello, said something rather similar. He told me: ‘Everyone has a duty to follow the road that passes through his or her village.’

  Why? What is there along that road?

  What is the force that propels us far from the comfort of all that is familiar and makes us face challenges, even though we know that the glory of the world will pass away?

  I believe that this impulse is the search for the meaning of life.

  For many years, I sought a definitive answer to this question in books, in art, in science, in the many dangerous and comfortable roads I have travelled. I found many answers, some of which lasted me for years, and others that failed to withstand even a single day’s analysis; and yet none of them was strong enough for me to be able to say: this is the meaning of life.

  Now I am convinced that the answer will never be vouchsafed to us in this life, but that, at the end, when we stand once more before the Creator, we will understand each opportunity that was offered to us, which we either accepted or rejected.

  In a sermon of 1890, the pastor Henry Drummond speaks of this encounter with the Creator. He says:

  The test of man then is not, ‘How have I believed?’ but ‘How have I loved?’ The final test of religion is not religiousness, but love: not what I have done, not what I have believed, not what I have achieved, but how I have discharged the common charities of life. Sins of commission in that awful indictment are not even referred to. By what we have not done, by sins of omission, we are judged. It could not be otherwise. For the withholding of love is the negation of the Spirit of Christ, the proof that we never knew Him, that for us He lived in vain.

  The glory of the world is transitory, and we cannot measure our lives by it, only by the decision we make to follow our personal legend, to believe in our utopias, and to fight for them. Each of us is the protagonist of our own life, and often it is the anonymous heroes who leave the most enduring marks.

  A Japanese legend tells how a certain monk, filled with enthusiasm for the beauty of the Chinese book, the Tao te Ching, decided to raise enough money to translate and publish it in his own language. This took him ten years.

  Meanwhile, his country was devastated by a terrible plague, and the monk decided to use the money he had raised to relieve the suffering of those who were ill. However, as soon as the situation stabilized, he again set about collecting the money he needed to translate and publish the Tao. Another ten years passed, and he was just about to publish the book when a tidal wave left hundreds of people homeless.

  The monk again spent the money he had collected, this time on rebuilding the homes of those who had lost everything. Another ten years passed; he collected more money and, finally, the Japanese people were able to read the Tao te Ching.

  Wise men say that, in fact, this monk published three editions of the Tao: two invisible and one in print. He believed in his utopia, he fought the good fight, he kept faith with his objective, but he never forgot to look after his fellow human beings. That is how it should be for all of us – sometimes the invisible books, born out of our generosity towards other people, are as important as those that fill our libraries.

  Charity Under Threat

  Some time ago, my wife went to the aid of a Swiss tourist in Ipanema, who claimed he had been robbed by some street children. Speaking appalling Portuguese in a thick foreign accent, he said that he had been left without his passport, without any money, and with nowhere to sleep.

  My wife bought him lunch, gave him enough cash to pay for a hotel room for the night while he got in touch with his embassy, and then left. Days later, a Rio newspaper reported that this ‘Swiss tourist’ was, in fact, an inventive con-artist who put on an accent and abused the good faith of those of us who love Rio and want to undo the negative image – justified or not – that has become our postcard.

  When she read the article, my wife simply said: ‘Well, that’s not going to stop me helping anyone.’

  Her remark reminded me of the story of a wise man who moved to the city of Akbar. No one took much notice of him, and his teachings were not taken up by the populace. After a time, he became the object of their mockery and their ironic comments.

  One day, while he was walking down the main street in Akbar, a group of men and women began insulting him. Instead of pretending that he had not noticed, the wise man turned to them and blessed them.

  One of the men said:

  ‘Are you deaf too? We call you the foulest of names and yet you respond with sweet words!’

  ‘We can each of us only offer what we have,’ came the wise man’s reply.

  On Witches and Forgiveness

  On 31 October 2004, taking advantage of certain ancient feudal powers that were due to be abolished the following month, the town of Prestonpans in Scotland granted official pardons to eighty-one people – and their cats – who were executed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for practising witchcraft.

  According to the official spokeswoman for the Barons Courts of Prestoungrange
and Dolphinstoun: ‘Most of those persons condemned…were convicted on the basis of spectral evidence – that is to say, prosecuting witnesses declared that they felt the presence of evil spirits or heard spirit voices.’

  There is no point now in going into all the excesses of the Inquisition, with its torture chambers and its bonfires lit by hatred and vengeance; but there is one thing that greatly intrigues me about this story.

  The town, and the 14th Baron of Prestoungrange and Dolphinstoun, are granting pardons to people who were brutally executed. Here we are in the twenty-first century, and yet the descendants of the real criminals, those who killed the innocent victims, still feel they have the right to grant pardons.

  Meanwhile, a new witch-hunt is starting to gain ground. This time the weapon is not the red-hot iron, but irony and repression. Anyone who develops a gift (which they have usually discovered purely by chance), and dares to speak of their abilities is, more often than not, regarded with distrust, or forbidden by their parents, husband, or wife from saying anything about it. Having been interested since my youth in what are known as ‘the occult sciences’, I have come into contact with many of these people.

  I have, of course, been taken in by charlatans; I have dedicated time and enthusiasm to ‘teachers’ who eventually dropped their mask and revealed the total void beneath. I have participated irresponsibly in certain sects, and practised rituals for which I have paid a high price. And I did all this in the name of a search that is absolutely natural to humankind: the search for an answer to the mystery of life.