Coelho Wants to Say

I have been re-reading Paulo Coelho’s books lately. The Alchemist is my all time favourite and I recommend you to read it and if you have already, maybe it is time to re-read it. This book seems to change as we change and keeps on bringing new messages every time we read it.

Yet, this time I will share some passages from this two other books: Veronica Decides to Die and Eleven Minutes.

From
Veronica Decides to Die

** I want to continue being mad, living my life the way I dream it, and not the way other people want it to be.

**They think they are normal, because they all do the same thing.

**People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves.

**Madness is the inability to communicate your ideas. It's as if you were in a foreign country, able to see and understand everything that's going on around you, but incapable of explaining what you need to know or of being helped, because you don't understand the language they speak there.

**What makes a person hate themselves??

- Cowardice perhaps. Or the eternal fear of being wrong, of not doing what others expect.

**The happier people can be, the unhappier they are.

** You have two choices; to control your mind or to let your mind control you.

**There are only two prohibitions, one according to man's law, the other according to God's; Never force a sexual relationship on anyone, because that is considered to be rape. And never have sexual relations with children, because that is the worst of all sins. Apart from that, you are free. There is always someone who wants exactly what you want.

**''Am I cured?''

''No .You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that, in my view, is a serious illness.''

''Is wanting to be different a serious illness?''

''It is if you force yourself to be the same as everyone else; it causes neuroses, psychoses and paranoia. It's a distortion of nature, it goes against God's Laws, for in all the world's woods and forests, He did not create a single leaf the same as another. But you think it's mad to be different and that's why you choose to live in a hospital for mads, because everyone is different here, and so you appear to be the same as everyone else. Do you understand? People go against the nature because they lack the courage to be different, and the organism starts to produce Bitterness.

**The man and woman who shook the world were ordinary men ad women, like him, like his father, like the girlfriend he knew he was losing. They were full of the same doubts and anxieties that all human beings experienced in their daily routine. They were people who had no special interest in religion or God, in expending their minds or reaching a new level of consciousness, until one day they simply decided to change everything .The most interesting thing about the book was that it told how, in each of those lives, there was a single magical moment that made them set off their own vision of Paradise.

They were people who had not allowed their lives to pass by blankly, and who, to achieve what they wanted, had begged for alms or courted kings, used diplomacy or force, flouted laws or faced the wrath of the powers-that-be, but who had never given up, and were always able to see the advantages in any difficulty that presented itself.

From
Eleven Minutes

**The great aim of every human being is to understand the meaning of total love. Love is not to be found in someone else, but in ourselves; we simply awaken it. But in order to do that, we need the other person. The universe only makes sense when we have someone to share our feelings with.

**Keeping passion at bay or surrendering blindly to it-which of these two attitudes is the least destructive?

**You don't know what loneliness is like when you have the chance to be with the other people all the time, when you get invitations every night to parties, opening nights at the theater. When women are always ringing you up, women who love your work, who say how much they would like to have supper with you-they are beautiful, intelligent, educated women. But something pushes you away and says; ''Don't go. You won't enjoy yourself. You'll spend the whole night trying to impress them and squander your energies proving to yourself how you can charm the whole world. ''

**I want you how ever you want to be wanted.

**Instead of buying something that you would like to have, I'm giving you something that is mine, truly mine. A gift. A sign of respect for the person before me, asking him to understand how important it is to be by his side. Now he has a small part of me with him, which I gave him with my free, spontaneous will.

**Really important meetings are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other.

Generally speaking, these meetings occur when we reach a limit, when we need to die and reborn emotionally. These meetings are waiting for us, but more often than not, we avoid them happening. If we are desperate, though, if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself and our universe changes direction.

Everyone knows to love, because we are all born with that gift. Some people have a natural talent for it, but the majority of us have to re-learn, to remember how to love, and everyone, without exception, needs to burn on the bonfire of past emotions, to relieve certain joys and griefs, certain ups and downs, until they can see the connecting thread that exists behind each new encounter; because there is a connecting thread.

And then, our bodies learn to speak the language of the soul.

**No one can know how to humiliate another person if they themselves have not experienced humiliation.

**When I had nothing to lose, I had everything. When I stopped being who I am,I found myself.

** We are all human beings,we are born full of guilt;we feel terrified when happiness becomes a real possibility;and we die to punish everyone else because we feel impotent,ill-used and unhappy.

**In order to master the soul, one must also learn to master the body.

**You experienced pain yesterday and you discovered that it led to pleasure. You experienced it today and found peace. That's why I am telling you; don't get used to it, because it is very easy to become habituated; it's a very powerful drug. It's in our daily lives, in our hidden suffering, in the sacrifices we make, blaming love for the destruction of our dreams. Pain is frightening, when it shows its real face, but it is seductive when it comes disguised as sacrifice or self-denial. Or Cowardice. However much we may reject it, we human beings always find a way of being with pain, of flirting with it, and making it a part of our lives.

If you think you can live without suffering, that's a great step forward, but don't imagine that other people will understand you. True, no one wants to suffer, and yet nearly everyone seeks out pain and sacrifice, and then they fell justified, pure, deserving of the respect of their children, husbands, neighbours, God. What makes the world go round is not he search for pleasure.

Sons give up their dreams to please their parents, parents give up their lives in order to please their children; pain and suffering are used to justify the one thing that should bring only joy; Love.

**Love one another, but let's not try to possess one another.

**Search for happiness is more important than the need for pain.

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With love,
Z.
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Affirmation of the Week:
“I am at rest in my own centre.” By Gerd Ziegler
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Quote of the Week:
“The gateways to wisdom and knowledge are always open.”
Louise L. Hay

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Suggested Reading:
“Veronica Decides To Die” By Paulo Coelho.
The Turkish translation of this book is sold under the name “Veronika Ölmek İstiyor.”