The Warrior of Light

Someone sent me this piece from Paulo Coelho's The Warrior of Light....


All the world’s roads lead to the heart of the warrior. He plunges unhesitatingly into the river of passions always flowing through his life. The warrior knows that he is free to choose his desires, and he makes these decisions with courage, detachment and –sometimes - with just a touch of madness!

He embraces his passions and enjoys them intensely. He knows that there is no need to renounce the pleasures of conquest, they are part of life and bring joy to all those who participate in them.

But he never loses sight of those things that last or of the strong bonds that are forged over time. A warrior can distinguish between the transient and the enduring.

Warriors of light always have a certain gleam in their eyes. They are of this world, they are part of the lives of other people and they set out on their journey with no saddlebags and no sandals.

They are often cowardly. They do not always make the right decisions. They suffer over the most trivial things, they have mean thoughts and sometimes believe they are incapable of growing. They frequently deem themselves unworthy of any blessing or miracle.

They are not always quite sure what they are doing here. They spend many sleepless nights, believing that their lives have no meaning. That is why they are warriors of light, because they make mistakes, because they ask themselves questions, because they are looking for a reason – and are sure to find it!

Sometimes the warrior feels as if he is living two lives at once. In one of them he is obliged to do all the things he does not want to do and to fight for ideas in which he does not believe.

But there is another life, and he discovers it in his dreams, in his reading and in his encounters with people who share his ideas. The warrior allows his two lives to draw near.

“There is a bridge that links what I do with what I would like to do,” he thinks. Slowly, his dreams take over his everyday life and then he realises that he is ready for the thing he always wanted. Then all that is needed is a little daring, and his two lives become one.

The warrior of light studies the two columns on either side of the door he is trying to open. One is called “Fear” and the other is called “Desire”.

The warrior looks at the column of Fear and on it is written: “You are entering a dangerous, unfamiliar world where everything you have learned up until now will prove useless”.

The warrior looks at the column of Desire and on it is written: “You are about to leave a familiar world wherein are stored all the things you ever wanted and for which you struggled long and hard.”

The warrior smiles because nothing frightens him and nothing holds him. With the confidence of one who knows what he wants, he opens the door…