In The Alchemist, you refer to Soul of the World. What exactly is this? How is it tied to religion or spirituality? Well, let’s distinguish religion from spirituality. I am Catholic, so religion for me is a way of having discipline and collective worship with persons who share the same mystery. But in the end all religions tend to point to the same light. In between the light and us, sometimes there are too many rules. The light is here and there are no rules to follow this light.
The alchemist character says that “everything has a soul” -including inanimate objects like rocks and water. Do you believe that? I do believe that everything we see, everything that is in front of us is just the visible part of reality. We have the invisible part of reality, like emotions for example like feelings. This is our perception of the world, but God is –as William Blake said– in a grain of sand and in a flower. This energy is everywhere.
Are all souls the same? Or are human souls in any way different? I believe everything is one thing only. That said, there are some questions in my life that I don’t know…I’ve stopped asking. At the very beginning of my life, I wanted to have answers for everything. And now I respect the fact that I can’t have answers for everything. So for this question I go to the mystery of it and say I don’t know. I only know that I am alive and there is something that manifests in my life, that it is God and one day I am going to understand my life, probably in the day that I die, or afterward. But I try to find good questions and not good answers.
You say we might know more “afterward”. You’re saying you think certain things might happen in the afterlife? We cannot know anything for sure. But I don’t believe in time either. You say “when we die”, but time is another of these things that we need to help ourselves to go through life, but it does not exists. I am talking to you, but the moment that I am talking to you, the universe is being created and destroyed. I am living out my past and future lives. Whatever I do now, even in this conversation, can affect all my past and future lives. I do believe in life after death, but I also don’t thing that it’s that important. What is important is to understand that we are also living this life after death now.
So we have to get rid of the notion of time? We have to try to get rid of the notion of time. And when you have an intense contact of love with nature or another human being, like a spark, then you understand that there is no time and that everything is eternal.
It sounds like this idea probably helped you overcome your fear of not existing, which you describe in the introduction to The Alchemist. Yes, of course there was this fear of death. And one day when I was made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, I had to go through an exercise and I had to face my death. Since then I realize that death is not the end of life, but it is also my best friend. She is always sitting by my side, even while I am talking to you, looking to the mountains here with snow.
Your death is always sitting by your side? By my side, sitting in the chair right in front of me. I see death as a beautiful woman.
What is she saying? She is saying, “I am going to kiss you,” and I say to her, “Not now, please.” But she says, “OK, not now-but pay attention and try to get the best of every moment because I am going to take you.” And I say, “OK, thank you for giving me the most important advice in life”–to live your moment fully.
You mentioned that you’re Catholic, but you’ve said elsewhere that your Jesuit upbringing was painful in some ways. What do you see as the value of, and problems with, organized religion? The value is that they give you discipline and they give you collective worship and they give you humbleness toward the mysteries. The danger is that every religion, incliding the Catholic one, says, “I have the ultimate truth”. Then you start to rely on the priest, the mullah, the rabbi, or whoever, to be responsible for your acts. In fact, you are the only one who is responsible.
In your book Veronika Decides to Die, Veronika is bored with the sameness of every day. How can people break of the sameness? Once someone asked me, “What do you want to be your epitaph?”[on your tombstone]. So I said, “Paulo Coelho died while he was alive.” The person said, “Why this epitaph? Everyone dies when he or she is alive.” I said, “No, this is not true.” The same pattern repeating and over again, you are not alive anymore. To die alive is to take risks. To pay your price. To do something that sometimes scares you but you should do because you may like or you may not like.
You also say people should watch for omens. Can you describe what you mean by omens? Omens are the individual language in which God talks to you. My omens are not your omens. They are this strange, but very individual language that guides you toward your own destiny. They are not logical. They talk to your heart directly. The only way that you can learn any language is by making mistakes. I made my mistakes, but then I started to connect with the signs that guide me. This silent voice of God that leads me to the places where I should be.
The Alchemist talks about the principle of favorability, which is sort of like “beginner’s luck.” What would you say to people who feel they have never experienced beginner’s luck? People who feel that every time they try to move toward a dream, they’re blocked? Try again. [laughs]. Because when you’re really close to what God meant to you to be here, you are going to experience beginner’s luck.
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