It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.
Never stop dreaming.
Not everyone can see his dreams come true in the same way.
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.
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything because it’s all written there.
If you can concentrate on the present, you’ll be a happy man…the secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better…Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity.
Everything has been written by the same hand.
All things are one.
Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the language of the world.
Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him.
Wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.
You’ve got to find the treasure, so that everything you have learned along the way can make sense.
There is only one way to learn. It’s through action.
Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World and it will one day return there.
This natural world is only an image and a copy of paradise.
The existence of this world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect.
No heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.
Most people see the world as a threatening place, and because they do, the world turns out indeed to be a threatening place.
When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.
No one fails to suffer the consequences of everything under the sun.
There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.
When we love, we always strive to become better than we are.
When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
Without love, dreams would have no meaning.
Love is the pure language of the world…A language without words…the one true language of the universe. It requires no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time.
Love is the force that transforms and improves the soul of the world.
The boy reached through to the Soul of the World and saw that it was a part of the Soul of God. And he saw that the Soul of God was his own soul. And that he, a boy, could perform miracles.
No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn’t know it.
A philosophy of life: I’m an adventurer, looking for treasure.
There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.
“At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fates. That’s the world’s greatest lie. Whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.” (Melchizedek, the Old King)
“As he mused about these things, he realised that he had to choose between thinking of himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an adventurer in quest of his treasure”
“There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe… The soul of the world is nourished by people’s happiness.” (The Old King)
“The desert takes our dreams away from us, and they don’t always return. We know that, and we are used to it. Those who don’t return become a part of the clouds, a part of the animals that hide in the ravines and of the water that comes from the earth. They become part of everything… They become the soul of the world.” (Fatima)
Life attracts life.
Don’t think about what you’ve left behind.
If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return.
It’s not often that money saves a person’s life.
It is said that the darkest hour of the night comes just before the dawn.
What happens once will never happen again. But what happens twice will surely happen a third time.
The fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.
“If I am really part of your dream, you will come back one day.” (Fatima)
“The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never forget the drops of oil on the spoon.” (The Wise Man)
In the long run, what people think about shepherds and bakers becomes more important for them than their own destinies.
————
Story One
————
A certain shopkeeper sent his son to learn about the secret of happiness from the wisest man in the world. The lad wandered through the desert for forty days, and finally came upon a beautiful castle, high atop a mountain. It was there that the wise man lived.
Rather than finding a saintly man, though, our hero, on entering the main room of the castle, saw a hive of activity: tradesmen came and went, people were conversing in the corners, a small orchestra was playing soft music, and there was a table covered with platters of the most delicious food in that part of the world. The wise man conversed with everyone, and the boy had to wait for two hours before it was his turn to be given the man’s attention.
The wise man listened attentively to the boy’s explanation of why he had come, but told him that he didn’t have time just then to explain the secret of happiness. He suggested that the boy look around the palace and return in two hours.
“Meanwhile, I want to ask you to do something,” said the wise man, handing the boy a teaspoon that held two drops of oil. “As you wander around, carry this spoon with you without allowing the oil to spill.”
The boy began climbing and descending the many stairways of the palace, keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. After two hours, he returned to the room where the wise man was.
“Well,” asked the wise man, “did you see the Persian tapestries that are hanging in my dining hall? Did you see the garden that it took the master gardener ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?”
The boy was embarrassed, and confessed that he had observed nothing. His only concern had been not to spill the oil that the wise man had entrusted to him.
“Then go back and observe the marvels of my world,” said the wise man. “You cannot trust a man if you don’t know his house.”
“Relieved, the boy picked up the spoon and returned to his exploration of the palace, this time observing all of the works of art on the ceilings and the walls. He saw the gardens, the mountains all around him, the beauty of the flowers, and the taste with which everything had been selected. Upon returning to the wise man, he related in detail everything he had seen.
“But where are the drops of oil I entrusted to you?” asked the wise man.
Looking down at the spoon he held, the boy saw that the oil was gone.
“Well, there is only one piece of advice I can give you,” said the wisest of wise man. “The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.”
———-
“They (the sheep) are so used to me that they know my schedule”, he (Santiago) muttered. Thinking about that for a moment, he realized that it could be the other way around; that it was he who had become accustomed to their schedule.
The boy could see in his father’s gaze a desire to be able, himself, to travel the world — a desire that was still alive, despite his father’s having had to bury it, over dozens of years, under the burden of struggling for water to drink, food to eat, and the same place to sleep every night of his life.
The problem is that they (the sheep) don’t even realize that they’re walking a new road every day. They don’t see that the fields are new and the seasons change. All they think about is food and water. Maybe we’re all that way, the boy mused.
It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.
“It’s a book that says the same thing almost all the other books in the world say,” continued the old man (Melchizedek). “It describes people’s inability to choose their own destinies. And it ends up saying that everyone believes the world’s greatest lie.”
“It (destiny) is what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their destiny is. At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their destiny.”
“It (mysterious force) is a force that appears to be negative, but actually shows you how to realize your destiny. It prepares your spirit and your will ……
To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only real obligation.
If you start out by promising what you don’t even have yet, you’ll lose your desire to work toward getting it.
When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.
It’s called the principle of favorability. When you play cards the first time, you are almost sure to win. Beginner’s luck. Why is that? Because there is a force that wants you to realize your destiny; it whets your appetite with a taste of success.
Don’t forget that everything you deal with is only one thing and nothing else.
I’m like everyone else — I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does.
He had learned that there were certain things one shouldn’t ask about, so as not to flee from one’s own destiny.
This wasn’t a strange place; it was a new one.
And both you and I needed to cleanse our minds of negative thoughts.
You must always know what it is that you want.
“I’m already used to the way things are. Before you came, I was thinking about how much time I had wasted in the same place, while my friends had moved on, and either went bankrupt or did better than they had before. It made my very depressed. Now I can see that it hasn’t been too bad. The shop is exactly the size I always wanted it to be. I don’t want to change anything, because I don’t know how to deal with change. I’m used to the way I am.” The boy didn’t know what to say. The old man (crystal shop owner) continued, “You have been a real blessing to me. Today, I understand something I didn’t see before: every blessing ignored becomes a curse. I don’t want anything else in life. But you are forcing me to look at wealth and at horizons I have never known. Now that I have seen them, and now that I see how immense my possibilities are, I’m going to feel worse than I did before you arrived. Because I know the things I should be able to accomplish, and I don’t want to do so.” (Note: the shopkeeper is a person who knows his dream but doesn’t want to realize it.)
There was a language in the world that everyone understood, a language the boy had used throughout the time that he was trying to improve things at the shop. It was the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.
He could always go back to being a shepherd. He could always become a crystal salesman again. Maybe the world had other hidden treasures, but he had a dream, and he had met with a king. That doesn’t happen to just anyone!
Making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.
It was shepherds who were the first to recognize a king that the rest of the world refused to acknowledge.
There’s no such thing as coincidence … the mysterious chain that links one thing to another, the same chain that had caused him to become a shepherd, that had caused his recurring dream, that had brought him to a city near Africa, to find a king, and to be robbed in order to meet a crystal merchant, and …
The closer one gets to realizing his destiny, the more that destiny becomes his true reason for being, thought the boy.
People need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want. We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it’s our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same Hand.
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. …. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living right now.
The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better. Forget about the future, and live each day according to the teachings, confident that God loves his children. Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity.
He had lived every one of his days intensely since he had left home so long ago.
Love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny.
“Why do we have to listen to our hearts?” “Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure.”
“But my heart is agitated,” the boy said. “It has its dreams, it gets emotional, and it’s become passionate over a woman of the desert. It asks things of me, and it keeps me from sleeping many nights, when I’m thinking about her.” “Well, that’s good. Your heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say.”
“Because you will never again be able to keep it (heart) quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you’re thinking about life and about the world.”
“Even though I complain sometimes, ” it (heart) said, “it’s because I’m the heart of a person, and people’s hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren’t, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.” …..
Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every search ends with the victor’s being severely tested.
Don’t give in to your fear. If you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart.
But the path was written in the omens, and there was no way I could go wrong.
Life really is generous to those who pursue their destiny.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I couldn’t agree with you more. Thank you for bringing such wisdom into one place.
nice site! D:
thansks , i’m just listening to this audio book, I’m learning english actually, and i rEAD THIS BOOK A FEW TIMES INFRENCH…
THANKS FOR WRITING THEM DOWN IN ENGLISH , OUPS FOR THE mAJ…
great job!!
Wow, thanks! This is helpful for my review.