my legend...

if only all people would think like paulo coelho, then this world would be a better place...

"what is a personal calling? it is God's blessing, it is the path that God chose for you here on earth. whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend. however, we don't all have the courage to confront our own dream.

"why?

"there are four obstacles. first: we are told from childhood onward that everything we want to do is impossible. we grow up with this idea, and as years accumulate, so too do the layers of prejudice, fear and guilt. there comes a time when our personal calling is so deeply buried in our soul as to be invisible. but it is still there.

"if we have the courage to disinter dream, we are then faced by the second obstacle: love. we know what we want to do, but are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue the dream. we do not realize that love is just a further impetus, not something that will prevent us from going forward. we do not realize that those who genuinely wish us well want us to be happy and are prepared to accompany us on our journey.

"once we have accepted that love is a stimulus, we come up against the third obstacle: fear of the defeats we will meet on the path. we who fight for our dream suffer far more when it doesn't work out, because we cannot fall back on the old excuse" "oh well, i didn't really want it anyway." we do want it and know that we have staked everything on it and that the path of the personal calling is no easier than any other path, except that our whole heart is in their journey. then, we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the universe in conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.

"i ask myself: are defeats necessary?

"well, necessary or not, they happen. when we first begin fighting for our dream, we have no experience and make many mistakes. the secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.

"so, why is it so important to live our personal calling if we are only going to suffer more than other people?

"because, once we have overcome the defeats - and we always do - we are filled by a greater sense of euphoria and confidence. in the silence of our hearts, we know we are proving ourselves worthy of the miracle of life. each day, each hour, is part of the good fight. we start to live with enthusiasm and pleasure. intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our soul, until one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.

"having disinterred our dream, having used the power of love to nurture it and spent many years living with the scars, we suddenly notice that what we always wanted is there, waiting for us, perhaps the very next day. then comes the fourth obstacle: the fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives.

"oscar wilde said: "each man kills the thing he loves." and it's true. the mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt. we look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. we forget about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we had to give up in order to get this far. i have known people who, when their personal calling was within their grasp, went on to commit a series of stupid mistakes and never reached their goal - when it was only a step away.

"this is the most dangerous of the obstacles because it has a kind of saintly aura about it: renouncing joy and conquest. but if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the soul of the world, and you understand why you are here."

~paulo coelho
rio de janeiro
nov2002
translated by margaret jull costa
quoted from "the alchemist"

revisited

i just thought i'd start off with the books i read, have been reading, and will probably read when i feel indifferent, or cranky at life in general. i always recommend books to my students and i'm glad i'd catch them after a day or two leafing through the books that inspire people and change lives. now, i'm not too big on self-help and do-it-or-fail-in-life texts. i just think that all beings are unique and while a particular outlook may change one's life considerably, it may not work for others. on the other hand, i love novels that inspire. the lessons are subtly imposed. it is by the process of literary exposition that readers learn of the morals these stories want to impart. or maybe i just hate being taught what to do.
i remember receiving a christmas gift from my coordinator from one of the schools i used to work in. it was "the purpose driven life." i was thankful, at the same time offended. i never thought anybody would think that i haven't found my purpose. well, maybe i haven't yet... but i'll get there. and i will get life's lessons through my mistakes and achievements and of course, vicarious experiences.


"the alchemist" by paolo coelho
"when your heart truly desires something, the whole universe conspires to help you achieve that thing, simply because it is a desire that originated from the soul of the world."

"…at that moment, it seemed to him that time stood still and the Soul of the World surged within him. whe he looked into her dark eyes, and saw that her lips were poised between laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke- the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. it was love. something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert. something that exerted the same force whenever two eyes met, as had theirs here at the well. she smiled, and that was certainy an omen- the omen he had been waiting, whithout even knowing he was, for all his life. the omen he had sought to find with his sheep and in his books, in the crystals and in the silence of the desert.

"it was the pure Language of the World. it required no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time. what the boy felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life, and that, with no need for words, she recognized the same thing. he was more certain of it than of anything in the world. he had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming committed. but maybe people who felt that way had never learned the universal language. because, when you know that language, it’s easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether its in the middle of the desert or in some great city. and when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. there is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. it is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning."

"the name of the rose" by umberto eco

"…the truth is that I “saw” the girl, I saw her in the
branches of the bare tree that stirred lightly when a benumbed sparrow flew to
seek refuge there; I saw her in the eyes of the heifers that come out of the
bard, and I heard her in the bleating of the sheep that crossed my erratic
path. It was as if all creation spoke to me of her, and I desired to see her
again, true, but I was also prepared to accept the idea of never seeing her
again, and of never lying again with her, provided that I could savor the joy
that filled me that morning, and have her always near even if she were to be,
and for eternity, distant. It was, now I am trying to understand, as if- just
as the universe is surely like a book written by the finger of God, in which
everything speaks to us of the immense goodness of its Creator, in which every
creature is description and mirror of life and death, in which the humblest
rose becomes a gloss of our terrestrial progress- everything, in other words,
only of the face I had hardly glimpsed in the aromatic shadows of the kitchen.
I dwelled on these fantasies because I said to myself that if the whole world
is destined to speak to me of the power, goodness, and wisdom of the Creator,
and if that morning the whole world spoke to me of the girl, who was
nevertheless a chapter in the great book of creation, a verse of the great
psalm chanted by the cosmos- I said to myself that if this occurred, it could
only be a part of the great theopantic design that sustains the universe,
arranged like a lyre, miracle of consonance and harmony. As if intoxicated, I
then enjoyed her presence in the things I saw, and, desiring her in them, with
the sight of them I was sated.

"And yet I felt a kind of sorrow, because at the same time I
suffered from an absence, though I was happy with the many ghosts of a
presence…

"…now I know that good is cause of love and that which is
good is defined by knowledge, and you can only love what you have learned is
good , whereas I had, indeed, learned that the girl was the good of the
irascible appetite, but the evil of the will. But I was in the grip of so many
and such conflicting emotions, because what I felt was like the holiest love
just as the doctors describe it: it produced in me that ecstasy in which lover
and beloved want the same thing, and for her I felt I felt jealous, but not by
the evil kind, condemned by Paul in I Corinthians, but that which Dionysius
speaks of in the “The Divine Names” whereby God is also called jealous because
of the great love He feels for all creation. I was jealous in the way in which,
for the angelic doctor, jealousy is motus in amatum, the jealousy of
friendship, which inspires us to move against all that harms the beloved."~Adso of Melk

...more when i feel like it...