Read Online Like the Flowing River: Thoughts and Reflections by Paulo Coelho - Free Book Online
Authors: Paulo Coelho
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insisted the serpent. ‘You need to look more beautiful for your man.’
‘No, I don’t,’ replied Eve. ‘He has no other woman but me.’
The serpent laughed.
‘Of course he has.’
And when Eve did not believe him, he led her up to a well on the top of a hill.
‘She’s in that cave. Adam hid her in there.’
Eve leaned over and, reflected in the water of the well, she saw a lovely woman. She immediately ate the apple the serpent was holding out to her.
According to this same Moroccan tribe, a return to paradise is guaranteed to anyone who recognizes his or her reflection in the water and feels no fear.
My Funeral
T he journalist from The Mail on Sunday appears at my hotel in London and asks one simple question: ‘If you were to die today, what kind of funeral would you like?’
The truth is that the idea of death has been with me every day since 1986, when I walked the Road to Santiago. Up until then, I had always been terrified at the thought that, one day, everything would end; but on one of the stages of that pilgrimage, I performed an exercise that consisted in experiencing what it felt like to be buried alive. It was such an intense experience that I lost all fear, and afterwards saw death as my daily companion, who is always by my side, saying: ‘I will touch you, but you don’t know when. Therefore live life as intensely as you can.’
Because of this, I never leave until tomorrow what I can do or experience today – and that includes joys, work obligations, saying I’m sorry if I feel I’ve offended someone, and contemplation of the present moment as if it were my last. I can remember many occasions when I have smelled the perfume of death: that far-off day in 1974, in Aterro do Flamengo (Rio de Janeiro), when the taxi I was travelling in was blocked by another car, and a group of armed paramilitaries jumped out and put a hood over my head. Eventhough they assured me that nothing bad would happen to me, I was convinced that I was about to become another of the military regime’s ‘disappeared’.
Or when, in August 1989, I got lost on a climb in the Pyrenees. I looked around at the mountains bare of snow and vegetation, thought that I wouldn’t have the strength to go back, and concluded that my body would not be found until the following summer. Finally, after wandering around for many hours, I managed to find a track that led me to a remote village.
The journalist from The Mail on Sunday insists: but what would my funeral be like? Well, according to my will, there will be no funeral. I have decided to be cremated, and my wife will scatter my ashes in a place called El Cebrero in Spain – the place where I found my sword. Any unpublished manuscripts and typescripts will remain unpublished (I’m horrified at the number of ‘posthumous works’ or ‘trunks full of papers’ that writers’ heirs unscrupulously publish in order to make some money; if the authors chose not to publish these things while they were alive, their privacy should be respected). The sword that I found on the Road to Santiago will be thrown into the sea, and thus be returned to the place whence it came. And my money, along with the royalties that will continue to be received for another seventy years, will be devoted entirely to the charitable foundation I have set up.
‘And what about your epitaph?’ asks the journalist. Well, since I’m going to be cremated, there won’t be a headstone on which to write an inscription, since my ashes will have been carried away on the wind. But if I hadto choose a phrase, I would choose this: ‘He died while he was still alive.’ That might seem a contradiction in terms; but I know a lot of people who have stopped living, even though they continue working and eating and carrying on with their usual social activities. They do everything on automatic pilot, unaware of the magic moment that each day brings with it, never stopping to think about the miracle of life, not
‘No, I don’t,’ replied Eve. ‘He has no other woman but me.’
The serpent laughed.
‘Of course he has.’
And when Eve did not believe him, he led her up to a well on the top of a hill.
‘She’s in that cave. Adam hid her in there.’
Eve leaned over and, reflected in the water of the well, she saw a lovely woman. She immediately ate the apple the serpent was holding out to her.
According to this same Moroccan tribe, a return to paradise is guaranteed to anyone who recognizes his or her reflection in the water and feels no fear.
My Funeral
T he journalist from The Mail on Sunday appears at my hotel in London and asks one simple question: ‘If you were to die today, what kind of funeral would you like?’
The truth is that the idea of death has been with me every day since 1986, when I walked the Road to Santiago. Up until then, I had always been terrified at the thought that, one day, everything would end; but on one of the stages of that pilgrimage, I performed an exercise that consisted in experiencing what it felt like to be buried alive. It was such an intense experience that I lost all fear, and afterwards saw death as my daily companion, who is always by my side, saying: ‘I will touch you, but you don’t know when. Therefore live life as intensely as you can.’
Because of this, I never leave until tomorrow what I can do or experience today – and that includes joys, work obligations, saying I’m sorry if I feel I’ve offended someone, and contemplation of the present moment as if it were my last. I can remember many occasions when I have smelled the perfume of death: that far-off day in 1974, in Aterro do Flamengo (Rio de Janeiro), when the taxi I was travelling in was blocked by another car, and a group of armed paramilitaries jumped out and put a hood over my head. Eventhough they assured me that nothing bad would happen to me, I was convinced that I was about to become another of the military regime’s ‘disappeared’.
Or when, in August 1989, I got lost on a climb in the Pyrenees. I looked around at the mountains bare of snow and vegetation, thought that I wouldn’t have the strength to go back, and concluded that my body would not be found until the following summer. Finally, after wandering around for many hours, I managed to find a track that led me to a remote village.
The journalist from The Mail on Sunday insists: but what would my funeral be like? Well, according to my will, there will be no funeral. I have decided to be cremated, and my wife will scatter my ashes in a place called El Cebrero in Spain – the place where I found my sword. Any unpublished manuscripts and typescripts will remain unpublished (I’m horrified at the number of ‘posthumous works’ or ‘trunks full of papers’ that writers’ heirs unscrupulously publish in order to make some money; if the authors chose not to publish these things while they were alive, their privacy should be respected). The sword that I found on the Road to Santiago will be thrown into the sea, and thus be returned to the place whence it came. And my money, along with the royalties that will continue to be received for another seventy years, will be devoted entirely to the charitable foundation I have set up.
‘And what about your epitaph?’ asks the journalist. Well, since I’m going to be cremated, there won’t be a headstone on which to write an inscription, since my ashes will have been carried away on the wind. But if I hadto choose a phrase, I would choose this: ‘He died while he was still alive.’ That might seem a contradiction in terms; but I know a lot of people who have stopped living, even though they continue working and eating and carrying on with their usual social activities. They do everything on automatic pilot, unaware of the magic moment that each day brings with it, never stopping to think about the miracle of life, not
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