Dark Chocolate and Paulo Coelho

I feel Paulo Coelho’s books are like dark chocolate. Either you like it or you don’t. There’s no in-between.


You can’t start reading one of his books and wait for yourself to ‘develop a taste’ for it. You would be better off putting the book down and moving on to lighter stuff.


On the other hand, if you like his books, even his 2-page prologue makes you pause and think about it. Relate to it. Breathe the words in.


I am reading Brida. In fact I just finished the two page prologue and I am already thinking about things. Writing this. Sharing my thoughts with you. (Yeah right, this post is NOT a book review…Sorry…)


This book has always tantalized me. Every time I visited book shops there it would sit with a woman’s back staring at me. I would read the last page of its cover -

“As Brida seeks her destiny, she struggles to find a balance between her relationships and her desire to transform herself.”

Very ME. You could change the name Brida to Varada.


But I never bought the book before. Like they say, “I had chosen the book, but the book had not chosen me.” Not yet.


Yesterday it was like the book drew me towards it. I had already walked away from the store buying something else. But I felt compelled to go back and get Brida. Make her my own. Be hers.


Here are Paulo’s exact words that set me thinking to myself

“An anonymous text from the Tradition says that, in life, each person can take one of two attitudes: to build or to plant…”

I can understand what he means before I read the next words. From my own experiences.


I’ve been a builder till now. Building, amassing things. For me and as I keep telling myself – for people I love, people to whom I am responsible. Over the last couple years I am beginning to feel that the process of building is coming to a stop. Losing its charm. The excitement over my achievements in building are fading out.
I am feeling a growing urgency in my heart to turn my life the other way.
To start planting. 

To watch things grow.
To seek my destiny.
To create my legacy.
To leave something behind for which I’ll be remembered.
To pay attention to what My Kanhaji is telling me.
Lovingly.


~* Amen *~