EVERY morning, when I open my eyes to the so-called “new day,” I feel like closing them again, staying in bed, and not getting up. But I can’t do that.
Apathy. Pretending to be happy, pretending to be sad, pretending to have an orgasm, pretending to be having fun, pretending that you’ve slept well, pretending that you’re alive. Until there comes a point where you reach an imaginary red line and realize that if you cross it, there will be no turning back. Then you stop complaining, because complaining means that you are at least still battling something. You accept the vegetative state and try to conceal it from everyone. And that’s hard work.
...experiencing everything as though it were just a scene in a film I’m watching, without wanting—or being able—to stop it.
I look down the list of commitments that can’t be put off. The longer the list, the more productive I consider my day to be. Many of the tasks are things I promised to do the day before or during the week, but which I haven’t yet done. That’s why the list keeps growing, until it makes me so nervous that I decide to scrap the whole thing and start again. And then I realize that nothing on the list is actually very important.
Trusting the one you love always brings good results.
Six months ago, we bought a new washing machine and had to change the plumbing in the laundry room. We had to change the flooring, too, and paint the walls. In the end, it looked far prettier than the kitchen.
To avoid an unfortunate contrast, we had to replace the kitchen. Then we noticed that the living room looked old and faded. So we redecorated the living room, which then looked more inviting than the study we hadn’t touched for ten years. So then we went to work on the study.
Gradually, the refurbishment spread to the whole house.
I hope the same doesn’t happen to my life. I hope that the small things won’t lead to great transformations.
IT’S IN the Bible:
It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman.
And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”
Then David ordered that Uriah, a warrior faithful to him, be sent to the battlefront on a dangerous mission. He was killed and Bathsheba went to live with the king in his palace.
David—the great example, the idol for generations, the fearless warrior—not only
committed adultery, he also ordered the murder of his rival, betraying his loyalty and goodwill.
During the ice age, many animals died of cold, so the porcupines decided to band together to provide one another with warmth and protection.
But their spines or quills kept sticking into their surrounding companions, precisely those who provided the most warmth. And so they drifted apart again.
And again many of them died of cold.
They had to make a choice: either risk extinction or accept their fellow porcupines’ spines.
Very wisely, they decided to huddle together again. They learned to live with the minor wounds inflicted by their relatives, because the most important thing to their survival was that shared warmth.
...we like fish in aquariums; they remind us of ourselves, well fed but incapable of moving beyond the glass walls.
I ask all those who hope to one day work for the good of humanity: never forget that even if you deliver up your body to be burned, you gain nothing if you have not Love. Nothing!
The message of Love is in the way I live my life, and not in my words or my deeds.
Apparently, Frankenstein isn’t the only book that has stayed in print since it was first published: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in three days, follows suit. The story is set in London in the nineteenth century. Physician and researcher Henry Jekyll believes that good and evil coexist in all people. He is determined to prove his theory, which was ridiculed by almost everyone he knows, including the father of his fiancée, Beatrix. After working tirelessly in his laboratory, he manages to develop a formula.
Not wanting to endanger anyone’s life, he uses himself as a guinea pig.
As a result, his demonic side—whom he calls Mr. Hyde—is revealed. Jekyll believes he can control Hyde’s comings and goings, but soon realizes that he is sorely mistaken; when we release our dark side, it will completely overshadow the best in us. The same is true for all individuals.
That is how dictators are born. In the beginning they generally have excellent intentions, but little by little, in order to do what they think is for the “good” of their people, they make use of the very worst in human nature: terror.
After the darkness, light.
Do you see these players? They always have to make the next move. They can’t stop in the middle, because that means accepting defeat. There comes a time when defeat is inevitable, but at least they fought until the end. We already have everything we need. There is nothing to improve. Thinking we are good or bad, fair or unfair, all that is nonsense. We know that today Geneva is covered by a cloud that might take months to go away, but sooner or later, it will leave. So go ahead and let yourself go...By doing what you shouldn’t, you will realize it yourself...the light in your soul is greater than the darkness. But for this you must go all the way to the end of the game.
I open the curtains in my office and see people out there, some walking and holding hands without having to worry about the consequences. And I can’t show my love.
What leads people to commit adultery?
If married people, for whatever reason, decide to look for another partner, this does not necessarily mean that the couple’s relationship is not doing well. Nor do I believe that sex is the primary motive. It has more to do with boredom, with a lack of passion for life, with a shortage of challenges. It’s a combination of factors.
And why does this (adultery) happen?
Because, ever since we’ve moved away from God, we live a fragmented existence. We try to find oneness, but we don’t know the way back; thus, we are in a state of constant dissatisfaction. Society prohibits and creates laws, but this does not solve the problem.
Researchers from the University of Texas in Austin tried to answer the question so many people pose: Why do men cheat more than women when they know that this behavior is self-destructive and will cause the people they love to suffer? The conclusion was that men and women have exactly the same desire to cheat as their partner. It just happens that women have more self-control.
Brief encounters without any emotional involvement on the part of the man, and with the sole aim of satisfying sexual urges, enable the preservation and proliferation of the species. Intelligent women should not blame men for this. They try to resist, but they are biologically inclined to do it.
Have you noticed how human beings are more frightened by spiders and snakes than by automobiles despite the fact that deaths from traffic accidents are much more frequent? This occurs because our minds are still living in caveman times, when snakes and spiders were lethal. The same thing happens with a man’s need to have multiple women. In those times he went hunting, and nature taught him that preservation of the species is a priority; you must get as many women pregnant as possible.
And didn’t the women also think about preserving the species?
Of course they did. But while man’s commitment to the species lasts, at most, eleven minutes, for the woman, each child means at least nine months of pregnancy. Not to mention having to take care of the offspring, feed it, and protect it from danger like spiders and snakes. So your instincts were developed differently. Affection and selfcontrol became more important.
Deep down we’re all the same. We make the same mistakes and walk around with the same unanswered questions.
Love isn’t just a feeling; it’s an art. And like any art, it takes not only inspiration, but also a lot of work.
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who was admired by all, but no one
dared to ask for her hand in marriage. In despair, the king consulted the god Apollo. He told him that Psyche should be dressed in mourning and left alone on top of a mountain. Before daybreak, a serpent would come to meet and marry her. The king obeyed, and all night the princess waited for her husband to appear, deathly afraid and freezing cold. Finally, she slept. When she awoke, she found herself crowned a queen in a beautiful palace. Every night her husband came to her and they made love, but he had imposed one condition: Psyche could have all she desired, but she had to trust him completely and could never see his face.
The young woman lived happily for a long time. She had comfort, affection, joy, and she was in love with the man who visited her every night.
However, occasionally she was afraid that she was married to a hideous serpent. Early one morning, while her husband slept, she lit a lantern and saw Eros, a man of incredible beauty, lying by her side. The light woke him, and seeing that the woman he loved was unable to fulfill his one request, Eros vanished. Desperate to get her lover back, Psyche submitted to a series of tasks given to her by Aphrodite, Eros’s mother.
Needless to say, her mother-in-law was incredibly jealous of Psyche’s beauty and she did everything she could to thwart the couple’s reconciliation. In one of the tasks, Psyche opened a box that makes her fall into a deep sleep.
Eros was also in love and regretted not having been more lenient toward his wife.
He managed to enter the castle and wake her with the tip of his arrow. ‘You nearly died because of your curiosity,’ he told her. ‘You sought security in knowledge and destroyed our relationship.’ But in love, nothing is destroyed forever. Imbued with this conviction, they go to Zeus, the god of gods, and beg that their union never be undone. Zeus passionately pleaded the cause of the lovers with strong arguments and threats until he gained Aphrodite’s support. From that day on, Psyche (our unconscious, but logical, side) and Eros (love) were together forever.
Those who cannot accept this, and who always try to and an explanation for
magical and mysterious human relationships, will miss the best part of life.
Buses come and go. People get on and walk quickly, maybe because of the cold.
Others board slowly, not wanting to get home, to work, or to school. But no one shows any anger or enthusiasm; they’re not happy or sad, just poor souls mechanically carrying out the mission that the universe assigned on the day they were born.
I gradually begin to get a terrible headache, but I know what it is: my blood returning to parts that were blocked by emotions that are finally beginning to dissolve. The moment of release is accompanied by pain, but it’s always been that way.
He doesn’t need to explain what he said yesterday. I don’t need to explain what I felt today. The world is perfect.
It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.
When someone sees the same people every day, they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.
The world's greatest lie: at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate.
The principle of favorability, beginner's luck. Because life wants you to achieve your destiny.
EVERY BLESSING IGNORED BECOMES A CURSE.
Maktub.
Urim and Thummim.
When you want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it.
But that disaster taught me to understand the word of Allah: people need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want.
When I am eating, that's all I think about. If I'm on the march, I just concentrate on marching. If I have to fight, it will be just as good a day to die as any other. Because I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man.
Eat when it's time to eat. And move along when it's time to move along.
"Why would the desert reveal such things to a stranger, when it knows that we have been here for generations?"
"Because my eyes are not yet accustomed to the desert," the boy said. "I can see things that eyes habituated to the desert might not see."
I had to test your courage. Courage is the quality most essential to understand the Language of the World.
It's not what enters men's mouth that's evil. It's what comes out of their mouth that is.
Pages 122-127. Love. Treasure. Women. Destiny.
One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.
She would have to send her kisses on the wind, hoping that the wind would touch the boy's face, and would tell him that she was alive. That she was waiting for him, a women awaiting a courageous man in search of her treasure.
If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you have found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return.
There is only one way to learn, it's through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.
In those times, the Master Work could be written simply on an emerald. But men began to reject simple things, and to write tracts, interpretations, and philosophical studies. They also began to feel that they knew a better way than others had.
Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.
Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we've moved towards that dream. That's the point at which most people give up. It's the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one 'dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.' Every search begins with beginner's luck. And every search ends with the victor's being severely tested.
Life's simple lesson: When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.
Don't let the see that you're afraid. They are brave men, and they despise cowards.
"But I have no idea how to turn myself into the wind."
"If a person is living out his destiny, he knows everything he needs to know. There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."
"I'm not afraid of failing. It's just that I don't know how to turn myself into the wind."
"Well, you'll have to learn; your life depends on it."
"But what if I can't?"
"Then you'll die in the midst of trying to realize your destiny. That's a lot better than dying like millions of other people, who never even knew what their destinies were. But don't worry. Usually the threat of death makes people a lot more aware of their lives."
"This is for you. It's for your generosity to the pilgrims."
"But this payment goes well beyond my genorisity," the monk responded.
"Don't say that again. Life might be listening, and give you less the next time."
Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.
