Read Like the Flowing River: Thoughts and Reflections Online
Authors: Paulo Coelho
S
ic 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.
S
ome 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.
O
n 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.
However, I also met many people who really were capable of dealing with forces that went far beyond my comprehension. I have seen the weather being changed, for example; I have seen operations performed without anaesthetic, and on one such occasion (on a day, in fact, when I had woken up feeling full of doubts about our unknown powers) I stuck my finger into an incision made with a rusty penknife. Believe me if you like – or laugh at me if that is the only way you can read what I am writing – but I have seen the transmutation of base metal; I have seen spoons being bent; and lights shining in the air around me because someone said this was going to happen (and it did). These things have almost always
occurred with witnesses present, usually sceptical ones. Mostly, those witnesses remained sceptical, always believing that it was all just an elaborate trick. Others said it was ‘the Devil’s work’. A few felt that they were witnessing phenomena that went beyond human comprehension.
I have seen this in Brazil, in France, in England, Switzerland, Morocco, and Japan. And what happens with the majority of these people who manage, shall we say, to interfere with the ‘immutable’ laws of nature? Society considers them to be marginal phenomena; if they can’t be explained, then they don’t exist. Most of the people themselves can’t understand why they are capable of doing these surprising things, and, for fear of being labelled charlatans, they end up suppressing their own gifts.
None of them is happy. They all hope for the day when they can be taken seriously. They all hope for some scientific explanation of their powers (although, in my view, that is not the way forward). Many hide their potential and suffer because of that – because they could help the world, but are not allowed to. Deep down, I think they, too, are waiting to be granted an ‘official pardon’ for being different.
While separating the wheat from the chaff, and not allowing ourselves to be discouraged by the enormous number of charlatans in the world, I think we should ask ourselves again: what are we capable of? And then, quite calmly, go off in search of our own immense potential.
‘T
here was something you didn’t mention in your talk about the Road to Santiago,’ said a pilgrim as we were leaving the Casa de Galicia, in Madrid, where I had given a lecture only minutes before.
I’m sure there were many things I didn’t mention, since my intention had been merely to share something of my own experiences. Nevertheless, I invited her for a cup of coffee, intrigued to know what this important omission was.
And Begoña – for that was her name – said:
‘I’ve noticed that most pilgrims, whether on the Road to Santiago or on any of life’s paths, always try to follow the rhythm set by others. At the start of my pilgrimage, I tried to keep up with my group, but I got tired. I was demanding too much of my body. I was tense all the time and ended up straining the tendons in my left foot. I couldn’t walk for two days after that, and I realized that I would only reach Santiago if I obeyed my own rhythm. I took longer than the others to get there, and for long stretches I often had to walk alone; but it was only by respecting my own rhythm that I managed to complete the journey. Ever since then, I have applied this to everything I do in life: I follow my own rhythm.’
I
realized very early on that, for me, travelling was the best way of learning. I still have a pilgrim soul, and I thought that I would pass on some of the lessons I have learned, in the hope that they might prove useful to other pilgrims like me.
1. Avoid museums.
This might seem to be absurd advice, but let’s just think about it a little. If you are in a foreign city, isn’t it far more interesting to go in search of the present than the past? It’s just that people feel obliged to go to museums because they learned as children that travelling was about seeking out that kind of culture. Obviously, museums are important, but they require time and objectivity – you need to know what you want to see there, otherwise you will leave with a sense of having seen a few really fundamental things, but can’t remember what they were.
2. Hang out in bars.
Bars are the places where life in the city reveals itself, not in museums. By bars I don’t mean discotheques, but the places where ordinary people go, have a drink, ponder the weather, and are always ready
for a chat. Buy a newspaper and enjoy the ebb and flow of people. If someone strikes up a conversation, however silly, join in: you cannot judge the beauty of a particular path just by looking at the gate.
3. Be open.
The best tour guide is someone who lives in the place, knows everything about it, is proud of his or her city, but does not work for any agency. Go out into the street, choose the person you want to talk to, and ask them something (Where is the cathedral? Where is the post office?). If nothing comes of it, try someone else – I guarantee that by the end of the day you will have found yourself an excellent companion.
4. Try to travel alone or – if you are married – with your spouse.
It will be harder work, no one will be there taking care of you, but only in this way can you truly leave your own country behind. Travelling with a group is a way of being in a foreign country while speaking your mother tongue, doing whatever the leader of the flock tells you to do, and taking more interest in group gossip than in the place you are visiting.
5. Don’t compare.
Don’t compare anything – prices, standards of hygiene, quality of life, means of transport, nothing! You are not travelling in order to prove that you have a better life than other people. Your aim is to find out how other people live, what they can teach you, how they deal with reality and with the extraordinary.
6. Understand that everyone understands you.
Even if you don’t speak the language, don’t be afraid. I’ve been in lots of places where I could not communicate with words at all, and I always found support, guidance, useful advice, and even girlfriends. Some people think that if they travel alone, they will set off down the street and be lost for ever. Just make sure you have the hotel card in your pocket and – if the worst comes to the worst – flag down a taxi and show the card to the driver.
7. Don’t buy too much.
Spend your money on things you won’t need to carry: tickets to a good play, restaurants, trips. Nowadays, with the global economy and the internet, you can buy anything you want without having to pay excess baggage.
8. Don’t try to see the world in a month.
It is far better to stay in a city for four or five days than to visit five cities in a week. A city is like a capricious woman: she takes time to be seduced and to reveal herself completely.
9. A journey is an adventure.
Henry Miller used to say that it is far more important to discover a church that no one else has ever heard of than to go to Rome and feel obliged to visit the Sistine Chapel with two hundred thousand other tourists bellowing in your ear. By all means go to the Sistine Chapel, but wander the streets too, explore alleyways, experience the freedom of looking for something – quite what you don’t know, but which, if you find it, will, you can be sure, change your life.