The Book of Manuals

E. Blame other people. João knows he is a good man, that he has always been an honest worker and has tried to give the best of himself. He thinks his boss is acting unfairly, that he doesn’t deserve what is happening to him. The fact is that the boss might be going through exactly the same drama, because all employees are controlled by abstract entities known as ‘companies’. Even so, faced by what João considers to be an absurd situation, instead of keeping a cool head, he thinks that the world is full of cruel and evil people.

F. Overestimate your own abilities: João starts saying how talented and capable he is and ends up convincing himself that he is not facing a crisis, but rather a new opportunity. João is very talented, but that isn’t enough, because he’s not yet ready for the final blow when it comes and which takes away his breath and his enthusiasm.

Since he has done all the wrong things, when the evil day arrives, João is dismissed. From then on, the family stands on the brink of ruin, because of all that precious time wasted denying that disaster was nigh.

What to do then? Well, I have been through many crises in my life and have probably made all the mistakes described above. Until, during what was possibly the very worst of all my crises, my friends rallied round.

Now, the first thing I do is ask for help. Naturally, the final decision will be my sole responsibility but I have never regretted revealing my vulnerability to my wife and my friends, instead of trying to put a brave face on it.

And as soon as I began to ask for and accept help, my tendency to make mistakes diminished, although it’s still there, of course, always waiting to strike.

Manual for real travelling, and not just so that you can tell your friends you’ve visited other countries

1. Avoid museums. This might seem to be absurd advice, but let’s just think about it a little: if you are in a foreign city, isn’t it far more interesting to go in search of the present than the past? It’s just that people feel obliged to go to museums because they learned as children that travelling was about seeking out that kind of culture. Obviously museums are important, but they require time and objectivity - you need to know what you want to see there, otherwise you will leave with a sense of having seen a few really fundamental things, except that you can’t remember what they were.

2. Hang out in bars. Bars are the places where life in the city reveals itself, not in museums. By bars I don’t mean nightclubs, but the places where ordinary people go, have a drink, ponder the weather, and are always ready for a chat. Buy a newspaper and enjoy the ebb and flow of people. If someone strikes up a conversation, however silly, join in: you cannot judge the beauty of a parti

cular path just by looking at the gate.

3. Be open. The best tour guide is someone who lives in the place, knows everything about it, is proud of his or her city, but does not work for an agency. Go out into the street, choose the person you want to talk to and ask them something (Where is the cathedral? Where is the post office?). If nothing comes of it, try someone else - I guarantee that by the end of the day you will have found yourself an excellent companion.

4. Try to travel alone or - if you are married - with your spouse. It will be harder work, no one will be there taking care of you, but only in this way can you truly leave your own country behind. Travelling with a group is a way of being in a foreign country while speaking your mother tongue, doing whatever the leader of the flock tells you to do, and taking more interest in group gossip than in the place you are visiting.

5. Don’t compare. Don’t compare anything - prices, standards of hygiene, quality of life, means of transport, nothing! You are not travelling in order to prove that you have a better life than other people - your aim is to find out how other people live, what they can teach you, how they deal with reality and with the extraordinary.

6. Understand that everyone understands you. Even if you don’t speak the language, don’t be afraid: I’ve been in lots of places where I could not communicate with words at all, and I always found support, guidance, useful advice, and even girlfriends. Some people think that if they travel alone, they will set off down the street and be lost for ever. Just make sure you have the hotel card in your pocket and - if the worst comes to the worst - flag down a taxi and show the card to the driver.

7. Don’t buy too much. Spend your money on things you won’t need to carry: tickets to a good play, restaurants, trips. Nowadays, with the global economy and the Internet, you can buy anything you want without having to pay excess baggage.

8. Don’t try to see the world in a month. It is far better to stay in a city for four or five days than to visit five cities in a week. A city is like a capricious woman: she takes time to be seduced and to reveal herself completely.

9. A journey is an adventure. Henry Miller used to say that it is far more important to discover a church that no one else has ever heard of than to go to Rome and feel obliged to visit the Sistine Chapel with two hundred thousand other tourists bellowing in your ear. By all means go to the Sistine Chapel, but wander the streets too, explore alleyways, experience the freedom of looking for something - quite what you don’t know - but which, if you find it, will - you can be sure - change your life.

The ten steps of the spiritual search according to the Tradition

1. Restlessness: You realise that you need to change your life, either because it’s boring or because it’s painful.

2. The search: The decision to change. The search begins through books, courses, meetings.

3. Disappointment: Looking for the right path. You become aware of your teachers’ problems and faults. However many strands of philosophy or religion you follow, however many secret societies you join, there are always the same underlying problems: vanity and a desire for power.

4. Denial: Many people abandon the path when they realise that those who are on the path have not yet resolved their own problems.

5. Anxiety: You abandon the path, but a seed has been sown: faith. And it grows day and night. You feel uncomfortable, believing that you found something and then lost it.

6. The return: Some other serious rupture (a tragedy or an ecstasy perhaps) makes you realise that your faith is still alive. And faith, if tended with care, resists all disappointments.

7. The teacher: The most dangerous moment. Teachers are merely people with experience. Each path is different and individual, but, at this point, it risks being sullied and becoming a collective path.

8. The signs: You leave your teacher when the path reveals itself – through signs. Through those signs, God is teaching you what you need to know.

9. Dark night: You have made your choice. You change your life and take your first steps – despite your fear.

10. Communion: This is the moment when, as St Paul, said, the Divinity enters the person. The mystery of miracles reveals itself in all its marvellous grandeur.

Manual for dealing with time

(the following text is based on studies carried out by a friend of mine, Stephan Rechtstaffen, a doctor who set up the highly successful Omega Institute in New York)