Maktub

he said, horrified. "Well, I don't know any other food that would bring you so quickly to God," said the master.

In the winter of 1981, the wanderer is walking with his wife through the streets ofPrague , when he sees a boy doing drawings of some neighborhood buildings. He likes what he sees, and decides to buy one. When he holds out the money, he notices that the boy has no gloves -and the temperature is in the 20s.

"Why don't you wear gloves?" he asks. "So that I can hold my pencil." They talk a bit aboutPrague . The boy offers to do a drawing of the wanderer's wife's face, free of charge. As he waits for the drawing to be completed, the wanderer realizes that something strange had happened: he had conversed for almost five minutes with the boy, and neither spoke the other's language. They had used only gestures, smiles and facial expressions -but the will to share something had allowed them to enter into the world of language without words.

A friend took Hassan to the door of a mosque, where a blind man was begging. "This blind man is the wisest person in our country," said the friend. "How long have you been blind," Hassan asked the man.

"Since birth," the man answered. "And how did you become so wise?" "Since I didn't accept my blindness, I tried to become an astronomer," the man answered. "But, since I couldn't see the heavens, I was forced to imagine the stars, the sun and the galaxies. And, the closer I came to God's work, the closer I came to His wisdom."

In a bar in a remote village inSpain , close to the city ofOlite , there is a sign placed there by the owner.

"Just as I succeeded in finding all the answers, all the questions changed." The master says: "We are always concerned with finding answers. We feel that answers are important to understand what life means. "It is more important to live fully, and allow time to reveal to us the secrets of our existence. If we are too concerned with making sense of life, we prevent nature from acting, and we become unable to read God's signs."

There is an Australian legend about a shaman who was walking with his three sisters when they met the most famous warrior of the time. "I want to marry one of these beautiful girls," the warrior said. "If one of them marries, the other two will suffer", said the shaman. "I am looking for a tribe that allow its men to have three wives." For years, they walked the entire Australian continent without finding such a tribe. "At least one of us could have been happy," said one of the sisters when they were old, and sick of walking.

"I was wrong," said the shaman. "But now it's too late." And he turned the three sisters into blocks of stone, so that all who passed by would understand that one person's happiness does not mean others must be sad.

The journalist, Walter Carelli, went to interview the Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges. When his interview had been completed, they began to talk about the language that exists beyond words, and about the human being's great capacity to understand others. "I will give you an example," said Borges. And he began to speak in a strange language. Then he stopped and asked the journalist what he had been saying. Before Carelli could respond, the photographer who was with him said: "It's the 'Our Father. '" "Exactly," said Borges. "I was reciting it in Finnish."

An animal trainer with the circus is able to dominate elephants by using a very simple trick: when the animal is still a child, he lashes one of his legs to the trunk of a tree. No matter how hard he struggles, the young elephant is unable to free himself. Little by little, he becomes used to the idea that the trunk of the tree is more powerful than he is. When he becomes an adult possessing tremendous strength, one has only to tie a string about the elephant's leg, and tie him to a sapling. He will not attempt to free himself. As with elephants, our feet are often bound by fragile ties. But since, as children, we became accustomed to the strength of the tree trunk, we do not dare to struggle. Without realizing that a simple courageous act is all that is needed to find our freedom.

The master says: "It avails you nothing to seek explanations about God. You can listen to beautiful words, but they are basically empty. Just as you can read an entire encyclopedia about love without knowing how to love. No one will ever prove that God exists. Certain things in life simply have to be experienced -and never explained. Love is such a thing. God -who is love -is also such a thing. Faith is a childhood experience, in that magical sense that Jesus taught us: 'Children are thekingdomofGod . ' "God will never enter your head. The door that He uses is your heart."

The abbot always said that Abbot Joseph had prayed so much that he no longer had anything to worry about -his passions had been conquered. Those words reached the ears of one of the wise men at the monastery of Sceta, who called his novitiates together after their evening meal. "You have heard it said that Abbot Joseph has no further temptations to overcome," he said. "The lack of a struggle weakens the soul. Let us ask that the Lord send down a powerful temptation to Abbot Joseph. And, if he is able to resist that temptation, let us ask for another and another. And when he is once again struggling to resist temptation, let us pray that he never says: 'Lord, take this devil away. ' Let us pray that instead he asks:

'Lord, give me the strength to win out over evil'"

There is a moment in every day when it is difficult to see clearly: evening time. Light and darkness blend, and nothing is completely clear nor completely dark. In most spiritual traditions, this moment is considered holy. The Catholic tradition teaches us that we should say a Hail Mary at six o'clock in the evening. In the Quechuan tradition, if we run into a friend in the afternoon and we are still with him at evening time, we must start all over, greeting him again with a "Good evening." At dusk, the balance between man and the planet is tested. God mixes shadow and light to see if the Earth has the courage to go on turning. If the Earth is not frightened by the darkness, night passes -- a new sun shines the next day.

The German philosopher, Schopenhauer, was strolling along a street inDresden , seeking the answers to questions that bothered him. Passing by a garden, he decided to sit and look at the flowers. One of the residents of the neighborhood observed the philosopher's strange behavior and summoned the police. Minutes later, an officer approached Schopenhauer. "Who are you," the officer asked brusquely. Schopenhauer looked the policeman up and down. "If you can help me find the answer to that question,"

he said, "I will be eternally grateful to you."

A man searching for wisdom decided to go up into the mountains, since he had been told that every two years God appeared there. During his first year there, he ate everything that the land had to offer. Eventually, the supply was exhausted, and he had to return to the city. "God is unfair!" he exclaimed.

"Didn't he know that I waited for a year to hear his voice. I was hungry and had to come back to town."

At that moment, an angel appeared. "God would like very much to talk with you," the angel said. "For an entire year he fed you. He was hoping that you would produce your own food after that. But what did you plant? If a man is unable to grow fruit where he lives, he is not ready to talk with God."

People say, "Well, it seems that freedom for man consists of choosing his own brand of slavery. I work eight hours a day, and if I get a promotion, I'll have to work twelve. I got married, and now I have no time to myself. I looked for God, and now I have to attend cult meetings, masses and other religious ceremonies. Everything that's imp

ortant in life -love, work, faith -winds up becoming a burden that's too heavy to bear." The master says: "Only love allows us to escape. Only love turns slavery into freedom. If we cannot love, it is better to stop now. Jesus said: 'Better to be blind in one eye than for the entire body to perish in darkness. ' "Hard words. But true."

A hermit fasted for an entire year, eating only once a week. After this sacrifice, he asked that God reveal to him the true meaning of a certain passage in the Bible. No response was heard. "What a waste of time," the hermit said to himself. "I gave up so much, and God didn't even answer! Better to leave these parts and find a monk who knows the meaning of the verse." At that moment, an angel appeared. "The twelve months of fasting served only to make you believe that you were better than others, and God does not answer a vain person," the angel said. "But when you were humble, and sought help from others, God sent me." And the angel explained what he wanted to know.

The master says: "Notice how certain words were formed so as to show their meaning clearly. "Let us take the word "preoccupation." It can be divided in two: "pre" and "occupation." It means to occupy oneself with something before it happens. "Who, in the entire universe, could have the gift of occupying himself with a thing that has not yet happened? Never be preoccupied. Be attentive to your destiny and to your path. Learn everything you need to know in order to handle the bright sword entrusted to you.

Pay attention to how your friends, your masters and your enemies fight. Train yourself sufficiently, but do not commit the worst of errors: believing that you know what kind of blow your adversary is going to deliver."

Friday comes, you go home, and you pick up the newspapers that you weren't able to read during the week. You turn on the television with the sound off. You put on a cassette tape. You use the remote control to jump from one channel to the other, as you try to turn the pages of the paper and listen to the music. The papers contain nothing new, the TV programs are repetitious, and you've already heard the cassette dozens of times. Your wife is attending to the children, sacrificing her youthful years without really understanding why she is doing so. An excuse occurs to you: "Well, that's the way life is." No, that's not the way life is. Life is enthusiasm. Try to remember where it was that you hid away your enthusiasm. Take your wife and children with you and try to find it again, before it's too late. Love never kept anyone from following his dream.

On Christmas Eve, the wanderer and his wife did an evaluation of the year that was about to end. During dinner at the only restaurant in a village in thePyrenees , the wanderer began to complain about something that hadn't gone the way he thought it should have. His wife stared at the Christmas tree decorating the restaurant. The wanderer thought that she was no longer interested in the conversation, and changed the subject: "Aren't the lights on the tree pretty!" he said. "They are," his wife answered. "But if you look closely, among the dozens of bulbs there is one that has burned out. It seems to me that, instead of seeing the past year in terms of the dozens of blessings that illuminated it, you are fixating on the only bulb that illuminated nothing."

"Look at that humble holy man, walking the road", said one devil to another. "I think I'll go over there and conquer his soul." "He won't listen to you, because he is concerned only with holy things," said his companion. But the devil, in his usual ardent fashion, dressed himself as the Archangel Gabriel, and appeared before the holy man. "I have come to help you," he said. "You must have me confused with someone else," answered the holy man. "I have done nothing in my life to deserve the attention of an angel." And he continued on his way, never knowing what he had avoided.

A friend of the wanderer went to a play on Broadway, and went out for a drink during the intermission. The lobby was crowded, and people were smoking, talking and drinking. A pianist was playing, but no one paid any attention to his music. The wanderer's friend sipped her drink and studied the musician. He seemed bored -just doing his job and waiting for the intermission to end. After another drink, and feeling a bit high, she approached the piano. "You're a pain in the neck! Why don't you play just for yourself?"

she exclaimed. The pianist was surprised. And then he began to play the kind of music he liked. In just a few minutes, the entire lobby fell silent. When the song was over, there was enthusiastic applause.