You feel that nothing you have learned has put down roots, that
while you’re capable of entering the magical universe, you cannot
remain submerged in it. You feel that all of this may be nothing but a
fantasy dreamed up by people to fend off their fear of death.
I have only one certainty: there exists a parallel spiritual
universe that impinges on the world in which we live. Apart from that,
everything else seems absurd to me—sacred books, revelations, guides,
manuals, ceremonies … and, what is worse, they appear to have no
lasting effects.
That’s because, like everyone else on the planet, you believed that
time would teach you to grow closer to God. But time doesn’t teach; it
merely brings us a sense of weariness and of growing older.
In magic—and in life—there is only the present moment, the now. You
can’t measure time the way you measure the distance between two points.
"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 about 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.
Past and future exist only in our memory. The present moment,
though, is outside of time, it’s Eternity. In India, they use the word
‘karma,’ for lack of any better term.
You think that you exist because you’re unhappy. Other people exist
merely as a function of their problems and spend all their time talking
compulsively about their children, their wives and husbands, school,
work, friends. They never stop to think: I’m here. I am the result of
everything that happened and will happen, but I’m here. If I did
something wrong, I can put it right or at least ask forgiveness. If I
did something right, that leaves me happier and more connected with the
now.”
you discover 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 realize 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 traveling, it’s just changing countries, which is completely
different.
Whenever I refused to follow my fate, something very hard to bear would happen in my life.
What did I do to deserve this?
Lord, preserve me from tragedy and I will follow your desires.
Here I am, trying to persuade myself that I always give the best of
myself, and nature is telling me exactly the opposite: anyone truly
committed to life never stops walking. Hell is when we look back during that fraction of a second and know that we wasted an opportunity to dignify the miracle of life. Paradise is being able to say at that moment: "I made some mistakes, but I wasn’t a coward. I lived my life and did what I had to do.”
Routine has nothing to do with repetition. To become really good at
anything, you have to practice and repeat, practice and repeat, until
the technique becomes intuitive. What can’t be cured must be endured.
Every note leaves in each of us a memory, but it is the melody as a
whole that tells a story, the story of someone wanting to get closer to
another person and who keeps on trying, despite repeated rejections.
I can’t tell someone that their dreams are impossible.
If I were to persuade just one person to stop fighting for
something they were convinced was worthwhile, I would end up persuading
myself, and my whole life would be diminished. So, in my relationships with men, I’ve always sought suffering, conflict, and despair.
Don’t let yourself be destroyed by a force that was placed in our hearts in order to make everything better.
The light of love flows out of my soul, but it can go nowhere
because it’s blocked by pain. I could inhale and exhale every morning
for the rest of my life, but that wouldn’t solve anything.
What hurts us is what heals us.
Life has been very hard on me, but, at the same time, it has taught me a great deal.
To live is to experience things, not sit around pondering the meaning of life.
What we aim to do is calm the spirit and get in touch with the
source from which everything comes, removing any trace of malice or
egotism. 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.
Lao-tzu’s words, was: place all your feelings outside of yourself and you will be renewed.
I don’t believe in God as you imagine Him to be, but I believe in many things that you could never even dream of.
I think to myself that this really isn’t something I should concern myself with.