O Aleph

by Paulo Coelho

and the times when I immerse myself in some magical reality last only seconds, just long enough to know that another world exists and long enough to leave me frustrated because I can’t absorb everything I learn.

‘That’s funny. I’ve been trying all my life to find out what my limits are and have never reached them yet. But then my universe doesn’t really help, it keeps expanding and won’t allow me to know it entirely,’ says J. provocatively.

‘If we had spoken before, you would not have been ripe. If we were to talk later, you would have rotted.’ He bites into the pear, savouring the taste. ‘Perfect. The right moment.’

you feel that all of this may be nothing but a fantasy dreamed up by people to fend off their fear of death.’

But time doesn’t teach; it merely brings us a sense of weariness and of growing older.’

‘Time’ doesn’t pass. We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we’re always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and why we didn’t act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we’re going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don’t want and how to get what we have always dreamed of.

It isn’t what you did in the past that will affect the present. It’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.’

Go and re-conquer your kingdom, which has grown corrupted by routine.

They never stop to think: I’m here. I am the result of everything that happened and will happen, but I’m here.

Travel is never a matter of money, but of courage.

that your old ‘I’, along with everything you ever learned, is absolutely no use at all in the face of those new challenges, and you begin to realise that, buried deep in your unconscious mind, there is someone much more interesting and adventurous and more open to the world and to new experiences.

‘Our life is a constant journey, from birth to death. The landscape changes, the people change, our needs change, but the train keeps moving. Life is

the train, not the station.

And what you’re doing now isn’t travelling, it’s just changing countries, which i...

‘Because we all have the possibility of redemption, but for that to happen, we have to seek out the people we harmed and ask their forgiveness.’

Find out what you have left unfinished and complete the task. God will guide you, because everything you ever experienced or will experience is in the here and now.

The world is being created and destroyed in this very moment. Whoever you met will reappear, whoever you lost will return.

Understand what is going on inside you and you will understand what is going ...

When a sense of dissatisfaction persists, that means it was placed there by God for one reason only: you need to change everything and move forward.

In theory, every loss is for our good; in practice, though, that is when we question the existence of God and ask ourselves, ‘What did I do to deserve this?’

despite such moments, I continue to doubt.

always try to interpret things in accordance with what we want and not as they are.

know that I am in all the people surrounding me, and that they are in me. Together we write the Book of Life, our every encounter determined by fate and our hands joined in the belief that we can make a difference in this world. Everyone contributes a word, a sentence, an image, but in the end, it all makes sense: the happiness of one becomes

the joy of all.

We simply have to trust and follow the signs and live our Personal Legend; sooner or later, we will realise that we are all part of something, even if we can’t understand rationally what that something

We are all redeemed and free to follow the path that has no beginning and will have no end.

That is what marks out the warrior: the knowledge that willpower and courage are not the same thing. Courage can attract fear and adulation, but will-power requires patience and commitment.

A life without challenges? But where is the pleasure in looking for God outside people?

years alone in a cave in Nepal. I asked her what she had achieved. ‘Spiritual orgasm,’ she replied, to which I replied that there were far easier ways to achieve orgasm.

No life is complete without a touch of madness,

I only know that a life without cause is a life without effect.

Words are tears that have been written down. Tears are words that need to be shed. Without them, joy loses all its brilliance and sadness has no end. Thank you, then, for your tears.

It’s a leap into something we have already experienced and that is being repeated.

learned long ago that in order to heal my wounds,

I must have the courage to face up to them. I also learned to forgive myself and correct my mistakes. However,

‘Although sometimes,’ I go on, ‘we need to be strangers to ourselves. Then the hidden light in our soul will illuminate what we need to see.’

The important thing is to do what I’m telling you now. Inhale deeply and ask for all the blessings in the air to enter your body and fill every cell. Then exhale slowly, projecting happiness and peace around you. Repeat this ten times. You’ll be helping to heal yourself and contributing to healing the world as well.’ ‘What do you mean?’

‘What hurts us is what heals us,’

To live is to experience things, not sit around pondering the meaning of life. Obviously, not everyone needs to cross Asia or follow the Road to Santiago.

Don’t think about what you’ll tell people afterwards. The time is here and now. Make the most

Who are these people climbing into the carriages? What does this journey mean to each passenger?

If you spend too much time trying to find out what is good or bad about someone else, you’ll forget your own soul and end up exhausted and defeated by the energy you have wasted in judging others.’

‘If you want to see a rainbow you have to learn to like the rain.’

am in the Aleph, the point at which everything is in the same place at the same time. I’m at a window looking out at the world and its secret places, poetry lost in time and words left hanging in space.

It was raining heavily and she declined my invitation to tea, but I knew then that we were like the clouds that fill the sky so that you can no longer tell where one ends and another begins.

we are all a mirror of our time.

words are life set down on paper. So seek out the company of others.’

mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do. Seek out people who aren’t afraid of making mistakes and who, therefore, do make mistakes. Because of that, their work often isn’t recognised, but they are precisely the kind of people who change the world and, after many mistakes, do something that will transform their own community completely.’

No one ever loses anyone. We are all one soul that needs to continue growing and developing in order for the world to carry on and for us all to meet once again. Sadness really doesn’t help.’

point in the universe that contains all other points, present and past, large and small.