What If...

What if you went home tonight, a little buzzed, passed out and dreamt.

And what if in your dream you dreamt of a far more beautiful world than this, with far more beautiful spirits and far more beautiful feelings.

And what if in this dream you met a beautiful soulmate, far more beautiful than you could ever imagined.

And what if she gave you a rare, strange, exotic flower, and made your spirit dance and your heart sing.

And what if the next morning you eventually awoke with an awful hangover...but still had that beautiful flower resting lovingly atop your chest.

"The Other"

A man was in a bar with his group, when an old friend entered. He had lived his life trying to go down the right path, but to no avail. “I should give him some money”, he thought to himself.

But the friend was now rich, and came to the bar that night just to pay all the debts he had incurred over the years. In addition to repaying the loans given to him, he ordered a round of drinks for everyone.

When asked how he had become so successful, he replied, that until days ago he was living as the “Other”.

“What is the Other?” asked Pilar.

“The Other believes that the obligation of man is to spend a lifetime thinking about how to have security so not to die of hunger when getting old. Therefore, living as the Other you fail to discover that Life also has plans, and they may be different.”

“But there is danger. And there is suffering”, the people said in the bar, who had begun to listen.

“No one escapes the suffering. So it is better to lose a few battles in order to fight for your dreams, then to be defeated without even knowing what you are fighting for. When I discovered this, I woke up determined to be what I always really wanted to be.

The Other stood there in my room watching. Although it sought to scare me sometimes, I did not allow it to return. From the moment I pushed the Other out of my life, the divine energy worked its miracles."

- Paulo Coehlo ("By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Cried")

Seagulls and Sardines

It's early morning, and I see a seagull descend from a cloud and hover above the ocean surface.

In the calm tide, the fish must surely look above and wonder how these magnificent creatures, who occasionally plunge into their world then quickly exit, have learned to fly.

The birds, too, must look with amazement at the fish below. How can these magnificent creatures breathe under water, they surely must ask.

Birds and fish exist. That is a fact. But they live in different worlds, different universes. Their universes momentarily collide, but that is it.

Each have questions about the other. And there is an answer to each of their questions. But since they live in different universes, they will never understand the simple truth, the reason why.

That is a metaphor for each of us, in these days of our yearning, our searching, our growth. Our seeking answers to why we are here, what we are to do, what this thing called Life is all about.

There are reasons why things happen to us, those we love, as well as those we might be intimidated by and might not admire. There are always reasons why people come in and out of our lives. Reasons we may never know.

But trust that there is an answer.

You won't find that answer in your mind: it has been programmed, in recent times, like a computer.

You won't find that answer listening to the "advice" of others: they, too, speak only from their own, myopic thinking, their own limited universe.

But you may find it if you listen to your heart.

Your heart knows the truth and the way and the secrets. Your heart holds and embraces “the key”.

Your heart understands, in silence, the mysteries of the days and  nights.