Like the Flowing River: Thoughts and Reflections (18 page)

W
illiam Blake said: ‘What is now proved was once only imagined.’ And because of this we have the airplane, space flights, and the computer on which I am writing this. In Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece
Alice Through the Looking Glass
, there is a dialogue between Alice and the White Queen, who has just said something utterly unbelievable.

‘I can’t believe
that
!’ said Alice.

‘Can’t you?’ the Queen said in a pitying tone. ‘Try again:

draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.’

Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said: ‘one

can’t
believe impossible things.’

‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the

Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-

hour a day. Why, sometimes, I’ve believed as many as six

impossible things before breakfast.’

Life is constantly telling us: ‘Believe!’ Believing that a miracle could happen at any moment is necessary for our happiness, but also for our protection and to justify our existence. In today’s world, many people think it is
impossible to do away with poverty, to bring about a just society, and to lessen the religious tension that appears to be growing with each day.

Most people avoid the struggle for the most diverse of reasons: conformism, age, a sense of the ridiculous, a feeling of impotence. We see our fellow human beings being treated unjustly and we say nothing. ‘I’m not going to get involved in fights unnecessarily’ is the excuse given.

This is the attitude of the coward. Anyone travelling a spiritual path carries with him a code of honour that must be obeyed. A voice crying out against wrongdoing is always heard by God.

Even so, sometimes we hear the following remark: ‘I live my life believing in dreams, and I often do my best to combat injustice, but I always end up disappointed.’

A warrior of light knows that certain impossible battles nevertheless deserve to be fought, which is why he is not afraid of disappointments, for he knows the power of his sword and the strength of his love. He vehemently rejects those who are incapable of taking decisions and are always trying to shift responsibility for all the bad things that happen in the world onto someone else.

If he does not struggle against what is wrong – even if it seems beyond his strength – he will never find the right road.

Arash Hejazi once sent me the following note: ‘Today, I got caught in a heavy shower while walking along the street. Fortunately, I had my umbrella and my rain-cape; however, both were in the boot of my car, which was parked some way away. While I was running to get them,
I thought about the strange signal I was receiving from God: we always have the necessary resources to face the storms that life throws at us, but most of the time, those resources are locked up in the depths of our heart, and we waste an enormous amount of time trying to find them. By the time we’ve found them, we have already been defeated by adversity.’

Let us, therefore, always be prepared; otherwise, we either miss an opportunity or lose the battle.

I
know that a storm is coming because I can look far into the distance and see what is happening on the horizon. Of course, the light helps – the sun is setting, and that always emphasizes the shapes of the clouds. I can see flickers of lightning, too.

There is not a sound to be heard. The wind is blowing neither more nor less strongly than before, but I know there is going to be a storm because I am used to studying the horizon.

I stop walking. There is nothing more exciting or more terrifying than watching a storm approach. My first thought is to seek shelter, but that could prove dangerous. A shelter can turn out to be a trap – soon the wind will start to blow and will be strong enough to tear off roof tiles, break branches and bring down electricity lines.

I remember an old friend of mine who lived in Normandy as a child and who witnessed the Allied landing in Nazi-occupied France. I’ll never forget his words: ‘I woke up, and the horizon was full of warships. On the beach beside my house, the German soldiers were watching the same scene, but what terrified me most was the silence. The total silence that precedes a life-or-death struggle.’

It is that same silence that surrounds me now, and which is gradually being replaced by the sound – very soft – of the breeze in the maize fields around me. The atmospheric pressure is changing. The storm is getting closer and closer, and the silence is beginning to give way to the gentle rustling of leaves.

I have witnessed many storms in my life. Most storms have taken me by surprise, and so I’ve had to learn – and very quickly too – to look farther off, to understand that I cannot control the weather, to practise the art of patience, and to respect nature’s fury. Things do not always happen the way I would have wanted, and it’s best that I get used to that.

Many years ago, I wrote a song that said: ‘I lost my fear of the rain because when the rain falls to earth it always brings with it something of the air.’ It’s best to master my fear, to be worthy of the words I wrote, and to understand that, however bad the storm, it will eventually pass.

The wind has begun to blow harder. I am in open countryside and there are trees on the horizon that, at least in theory, will attract the lightning. My skin is waterproof, even if my clothes get soaked. So it is best simply to enjoy what I’m seeing rather than go racing off in search of safety.

Another half an hour passes. My grandfather, who was an engineer, liked to teach me the laws of physics while we were out having fun together: ‘After a lightning flash, count the seconds before the next peal of thunder and multiply by 340 metres, which is the speed of sound. That way, you’ll always know how far off the thunder is.’ A
little complicated, perhaps, but I’ve been doing that calculation since I was a child, and I know that, right now, this storm is two kilometres away.

There is still enough light for me to be able to see the shape of the clouds. They are the sort pilots refer to as Cb – cumulonimbus. These are shaped like anvils, as if a blacksmith were hammering the skies, forging swords for furious gods who must, at this moment, be immediately over the town of Tarbes.

I can see the storm approaching. As with any storm, it brings with it destruction, but it also waters the fields; and, with the rain, falls the wisdom of the heavens. As with any storm, it will pass. The more violent the storm, the more quickly it will pass.

I have, thank God, learned to face storms.

Dhammapada (attributed to Buddha)

It would be better if, instead of a thousand words,

There was only one, a word that brought Peace.

It would be better if, instead of a thousand poems,

There was only one, a poem that revealed true Beauty.

It would be better if, instead of a thousand songs,

There was only one, a song that spread Happiness.

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi (thirteenth century)

Outside, beyond what is right and wrong, there exists a vast field.

We will find each other there.

The Prophet Mohammed (seventh century)

Oh, Allah, I turn to you because you know everything, even what is hidden.

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

If what I am doing is bad for me and for my religion, for my life now and hereafter, remove me from that task.

Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 7: 7–8)

Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

Jewish Prayer for Peace

Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord that we may walk in His paths. And we shall beat our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks.

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

And none shall be afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of Hosts has spoken.

Lao Tsu, China (sixth century
BC
)

If there is to be peace in the world, the nations must live in peace.

If there is to be peace among nations, the cities must not rise up against each other.

If there is to be peace in the cities, neighbours must understand each other.

If there is to be peace among neighbours, there must be harmony in the home.

If there is to be peace in the home, we must each find our own heart.

P
aulo Coelho was born in Rio in August 1947, the son of Pedro Queima Coelho de Souza, an engineer, and his wife Lygia, a homemaker. Early on, Coelho dreamed of an artistic career, something frowned upon in his middleclass household. In the austere surroundings of a strict Jesuit school, Coelho discovered his true vocation: to be a writer. Coelho’s parents, however, had different plans for him. When their attempts to suppress his devotion to literature failed, they took it as a sign of mental illness. When Coelho was seventeen, his father twice had him committed to a mental institution, where he endured sessions of electroconvulsive ‘therapy’. His parents brought him back to the institution once more, after he became involved with a theatre group and started to work as a journalist.

Coelho was always a nonconformist and a seeker of the new. When, in the excitement of 1968, the guerrilla and hippy movements took hold in a Brazil ruled by a repressive military regime, Coelho embraced progressive politics and joined the peace and love generation. He sought spiritual experiences travelling all over Latin America in
the footsteps of Carlos Castaneda. He worked in the theatre and dabbled in journalism, launching an alternative magazine called
2001.
He began to collaborate with music producer Raul Seixas as a lyricist, transforming the Brazilian rock scene. In 1973 Coelho and Raul joined the Alternative Society, an organization that defended the individual’s right to free expression, and began publishing a series of comic strips, calling for more freedom. Members of the organization were detained and imprisoned. Two days later, Coelho was kidnapped and tortured by a group of paramilitaries.

This experience affected him profoundly. At the age of twenty-six, Coelho decided that he had had enough of living on the edge and wanted to be ‘normal’. He worked as an executive in the music industry. He tried his hand at writing but didn’t start seriously until after he had an encounter with a stranger. The man first came to him in a vision, and two months later Coelho met him at a café in Amsterdam. The stranger suggested that Coelho should return to Catholicism and study the benign side of magic. He also encouraged Coelho to walk the Road to Santiago, the medieval pilgrim’s route.

In 1987 a year after completing that pilgrimage, Coelho wrote
The Pilgrimage.
The book describes his experiences and his discovery that the extraordinary occurs in the lives of ordinary people. A year later, Coelho wrote a very different book,
The Alchemist.
The first edition sold only nine hundred copies and the publishing house decided not to reprint it.

Coelho would not surrender his dream. He found
another publishing house, a bigger one. He wrote
Brida
(a work still unpublished in English); the book received a lot of attention in the press, and both
The Alchemist
and
The Pilgrimage
appeared on bestseller lists.

Paulo has gone on to write many other bestselling books, including
The Valkyries, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, The Fifth Mountain, Manual of the Warrior of Light, Veronika Decides to Die, Eleven Minutes, The Zahir
and
The Devil and Miss Prym.

Today, Paulo Coelho’s books appear at the top of bestseller lists worldwide. In 2002 the
Jornal de Letras de Portugal
, the foremost literary authority in the Portuguese language, bestowed upon
The Alchemist
the title of most sold book in the history of the language. In 2003 Coelho’s novel
Eleven Minutes
was the world’s bestselling fiction title (
USA Today
,
Publishing Trends
).

In addition to his novels, Coelho writes a globally syndicated weekly newspaper column and occasionally publishes articles on current affairs. His newsletter,
The Manual On-Line
, has over 70,000 subscribers.

Coelho and his wife, Christina Oiticica, are the founders of the Paulo Coelho Institute, which provides support and opportunities for underprivileged members of Brazilian society.

The following extract is taken from
The Witch of Portobello
, Paulo Coelho’s gripping new novel, which is set in London.

The Witch of Portobello
will be available from April 2007.

Before these statements left my desk and followed the fate I eventually chose for them, I considered using them as the basis for a traditional, painstakingly researched biography, recounting a true story. And so I read various biographies, thinking this would help me, only to realize that the biographer’s view of his subject inevitably influences the results of his research. Since it wasn’t my intention to impose my own opinions on the reader, but to set down the story of the ‘Witch of Portobello’ as seen by its main protagonists, I soon abandoned the idea of writing a straight biography and decided that the best approach would be simply to transcribe what people had told me.