“Why do we have to listen to our hearts?” the boy asked, when they had made camp that day.
“Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure.”
“But my heart is agitated,” the boy said. “It has its dreams, it gets emotional, and it’s become passionate over a woman of the desert. It asks things of me, and it keeps me from sleeping many nights, when I’m thinking about her.”
“Well, that’s good. Your heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say.”
“My heart is a traitor,” the boy said to the alchemist, when they had paused to rest the horses. “It doesn’t want me to go on.”
“That makes sense. Naturally it’s afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you’ve won.”
“Well, then, why should I listen to my heart?”
“Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. ”
“You mean I should listen, even if it’s treasonous?”
“Treason is a blow that comes unexpectedly. If you know your heart well, it will never be able to do that to you. Because you’ll know its dreams and wishes, and will know how to deal with them.
“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”
From “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho
What is this Favour Bank?’
‘It was an American writer who first mentioned it. It’s the most powerful bank in the world, and you’ll find it in every sphere of life.’
‘What favours could I do for anyone?’
‘That doesn’t matter in the least. Let me give you an example: I know that one day, you’ll be very influential. I know this because, like you, I too was once ambitious, independent, honest. I no longer have the energy I once had, but I want to help you because I can’t or don’t want to grind to a halt just yet.
I start making deposits in your account – not cash deposits, you understand, but contacts. I introduce you to such and such a person, I arrange certain deals, as long as they’re legal. You know that you owe me something, but I never ask you for anything.’
‘And then one day…’
‘ One day, I’ll ask you for a favor. You do what I ask, I continue to help you, and other people see that you’re a decent, loyal sort of person and so they too make deposits in your account – always in the form of contacts, because this world is made up of contacts and nothing else. They too will one day ask you for a favor, and you will respect and help the people who have helped you. You’ll know everyone you need to know and your influence will keep on growing.’
‘I could refuse to do what you ask me to do.’
‘You could. The Favour Bank is a risky investment, just like any other bank. You refuse to grant the favor I asked you, in the belief that I helped you because you deserved to be helped, because everyone should recognize your talent. Fine, I say thank you very much and ask someone else into whose account I’ve also made various deposits, but from then on, everyone knows, without me having to say a word, that you are not to be trusted.
‘And…’
‘You’ll grow only half as much as you could have grown, and certainly not as much as you would have liked to. At a certain point, your life will begin to decline, you got halfway, but not all the way. Neither frustrated nor fulfilled. You’re neither cold nor hot, you’re lukewarm, and as an evangelist in some holy book says: “Lukewarm things are not pleasing to the palate.”‘
Favour Bank by Paulo Coelho
We are afraid to change because we think that, after much effort and sacrifice, we know our present world.
And even though that world might not be the best of all worlds and even though we may not be entirely satisfied with it, at least it won’t give us any nasty surprises.
We won’t go wrong.
When necessary, we will make a few minor adjustments so that everything continues the same.
We see that the mountains always stay in the same place. We see that fully-grown trees, when transplanted, usually die.
And we say: ‘We want to be like the mountains and the trees. Solid and respectable.’
Even though, during the night, we wake up thinking:
‘I wish I was like the birds, who can visit Damascus and Baghdad and come back whenever they want to.’
Or: ‘I wish I was like the wind, for no one knows where it comes from nor where it goes, and it can change direction without ever having to explain why.’
The next day, however, we remember that the birds are always fleeing from hunters and other larger birds, and that the wind sometimes gets caught up in a whirlwind and destroys everything around it.
It’s nice to dream that we will have plenty of time in the future to do our travelling and that, one day, we will. It cheers us up because we know that we are capable of doing more than we do.
Dreaming carries no risks. The dangerous thing is trying to transform your dreams into reality. Wrong!
Afraid to Change by Paulo Coelho
The boy was walking to buy bread when the mayor of the city crossed the street.
‘The reason he is so powerful, is because, he’s made a pact with the devil,’ a very devout woman in the street told the boy.
Sometime later, when travelling to another town, the boy saw a beautiful corn field. He asked who the owner was.
‘All this land belongs to the same man. I’d say the devil had a hand in that.’ – answered one of the villagers.
At this very moment, a beautiful woman walked past the boy. A priest also saw her and said aloud:
‘That woman is in the services of satan!’
From then on, the boy decided to seek the devil out. One day he managed to see him face to face.
‘They say you can make people powerful, rich, and beautiful.’
‘To be totally honest, this is not true’ replied the devil
‘You have just been listening to the views of those who are trying to promote me.’
Needing to adapt to the new times, Satan decided to get rid of a whole lot of his stock of temptations. He placed an ad in the newspaper and attended his customers all day in his workshop.
It was a fantastic stock: stones for the virtuous to stumble over, mirrors for increasing one’s self-importance, and spectacles that reduced the importance of others. Some objects hanging on the wall drew a lot of attention: a dagger with a curved blade to be used on someone’s back, and tape-recorders that registered only gossip and lies.
– Don’t worry about the price! – shouted old satan to the potential customers. – Take it home today and pay for it whenever you can!
One of the visitors noticed three tools lying in a corner that seemed to be quite worn and attracted little attention. But they were very expensive. Curious, he wanted to know the reason for that apparent discrepancy.
– They are worn because they are the ones that I use most of all – answered satan with a laugh. – If they drew a lot of attention, people would know how to protect themselves.
– However, they are both worth the price I am asking for them: one is Doubt, the other is the Inferiority Complex, the third is Bitterness. All the other temptations can sometimes fail, but these three always work.
Have you ever felt that – without regret – you have chosen and are on the wrong path, and though you wish to be free of it, abandoning this road will cause much more chaos and hurt than staying on it? (Sue-Ann Marquis)
I had moments in my life that I absolutely knew that I was on the wrong path. For instance, when I became an executive for a record company.
My paycheck was good, I had a woman I loved next to me but… something vital was missing.
For a time, I had the impression that if I let go, it would cause much hardship for us. But inevitably the situation got unsustainable. I was truly unsatisfied with my life and started to notice that my soul was dying in the process.
I decided then to leave my job and travel for 6 months across Europe with Christina (this was back in 1982). This initial travel enabled me to encounter my master in Germany, then Amsterdam. From this moment on, I focused on trying to get as close as I could to my calling: being a writer.
However, it took an extra 4 years to actually be able to tell a story – my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella (The Pilgrimage).
So – in order to answer your question: yes, I walked a path that wasn’t mine. I felt scared to leave this path that I knew so well. But the moment I stepped out, it turned out that all the demons I expected to face weren’t there at all. I had hardships of course, but all was worthwhile – because my soul was alive.
As written by Paulo Coelho
Lesson #1: Choose your family wisely.
I saw this listed in a Bangkok gym as tip number ten to “live a long life,” but it struck me as particularly poignant as I was thinking about my trip during my last run on the beach in Thailand before going back to LA.
Let me start with the story of a brother and sister, whom Big Task Foundation now sponsors. They were living in a trash dump, literally, with a prostitute mother and a drunk father who beat her up a lot – she drank a lot too. During the day, they wandered the streets and at night slept on the trash among the rats. Then at the young ages of 5 and 6 they stumbled upon the Asia Center Foundation (AsiaCenterFoundation.org) and took refuge there, among people who cared about them, fed them, and got them into school and on the path to college.
In other words, they chose to find a family that gave them what they needed. The little boy, who wants to be a lawyer, still interacts with his mom although he lives at the safe house; the sister doesn’t want to even visit because she’s afraid of being recruited to her mother’s profession. They’ve been through a lot, but they’re happy.
Even as children, they chose wisely. We should all do the same – and it applies to our professional lives. To be happy, you have to seek out the right partners, and be proactive about it. Frustrated by your work environment? Then find the accountability buddy who won’t let you fail. Find or develop the team that cares so deeply about each other’s success that they will out-perform better-resourced, even smarter teams because they have the passion. Find the loving support that will give you the encouragement you need to see the potential and not the limitations. Why should you let anyone stand in your way of success when there are people out there who can give you all you need. Find them!
Lesson #2: Make every day a meditation by walking slowly, listening deeply, and counting breaths, not sheep.
On New Years Day, all the orphanages were closed to us so I wanted to go to a temple, to sit among the majesty of hundreds or thousands of years of spirituality and be guided through a beautiful reflective experience looking toward 2011. As it turns out in Thailand it’s a tradition to do just that on the last day of the year. Smart folk.
Our meditation at the temple was lead by Monk Thomas – another wise one who chose his own family. He was born of an English father and a Thai mother, not easy for a child in Thailand. Over time and through deep exploration of what was important to him, Thomas chose to make a new family in a life of devotion.
I know about and have experienced the benefits of meditation but have nevertheless rarely found the time to practice it daily. When we arrived that day, we were ushered to the fluorescent-lit storage area with old steel desks that the temple called their office. We were told the temple was full but we would do our meditation here. (Here? Really? With all the cool flashy gold stuff upstairs we were going to sit here?) And then I saw the spiders. Many spiders. (Why didn’t I just stay back at the hotel pool?) We were instructed to clear some boxes for a pathway of about ten feet and the instruction began.
First, listening meditation. As I sat on a steel chair, Monk Thomas started into his standard speech about what we would learn. But then he interrupted himself. “You know, we can even meditate while we listen,” he said pointedly. “Perhaps you find yourself disappointed by our scenery, perhaps a little angry that you sat in traffic for an hour to get here, and maybe you are thinking that you are missing EVERYTHING upstairs, the beautiful gold reclining Buddha that you came to see….”
I was beginning to think maybe the temple was totally empty and Thomas had put us with the spiders as a lesson. I took the hint. I started to look at him and listen, deeply. I recognized that these thoughts he got me to cop to were not only distractions but distractions I was actively choosing. I needed to let them float by and focus only on him. I got myself to stop thinking about what I would say if he were to stop. Then I thought about how many times I’ve cut off other people’s sentences and completed them myself. And what it would be like to sit and really listen to someone – and how it would feel to them to know they were being truly heard and respected. What it would do for my own understanding of their point of view and what it would do for my blood pressure! If this was meditation, I could do it. I could listen. Every day.
His point made, Thomas moved on. “How about sleeping?” Now he had my attention. I don’t get much sleep but I do sleep every day. Monk Thomas suggested that as we lie down to go to bed, we shouldn’t shift around. Don’t focus on the day or tomorrow. Don’t count sheep. Just lie still and observe your breath. If you have a thought, observe it, then refocus on your breath.
Finally when the time came for us to meditate we didn’t sit as I had thought one did. Instead we were instructed in the art of walking meditation. We were to walk slowly, deliberately, and attentively while saying a simple mantra, “I am walking, I am walking, I am walking.” When we ran out of space, we were to say, “I am standing, I am standing, I am standing,” and “I am turning, I am turning, I am turning.” Then “I am wanting to walk, I am wanting to walk, I am wanting to walk.” And again, “I am walking, I am walking, I am walking.”
In walking – even to the bathroom – we can practice being present in our bodies, our actions. I can indeed meditate every day, and so can you for greater peace of mind, health, and focus for prosperity and joy.
Keith Ferrazz
