Re-Reading Manual of The Warrior of Light - Paulo Coelho

Book Review: Manual of The Warrior of Light - Paulo Coelho

Paulo Coelho's Manual of The Warrior of Light (Harper, 2002, Brazil, 1997) is a lustrous and sparkling gem.  You will read it in a couple of hours as it is an exceptionally light but inspiring read.  In essence, like all of Coelho's books, it is a spiritual manual which could be read as a course in leadership or an inspiring manual for living life as authentically as possible.

The Power of Story

To tell a story, listen to a story, or share a story is such a profoundly human thing. To listen to the real-life story of another human being is a privilege. To tell your story to another human being is to reach out to the other, to say this is me, this is what I am about, this is where I came from, these are the ways I got here and there is where I am going.  Another marvellous book I read some twenty years back is On Stories by Richard Kearney (Routledge, 2002), Professor of Philosophy at Boston College and formerly of U.C.D.  As Kearney puts it therein when you tell your story: “you interpret where you are now in terms of where you have come from and where you are going to. And so doing you give a sense of yourself as a narrative identity that perdures and coheres over a lifetime. That is what the German philosopher Dilthey called the coming-together-of-life … meaning the act of coordinating an existence which would otherwise be scattered over time. In this way, storytelling may be said to humanise time by transforming it from an impersonal passing of fragmented moments into a pattern, a plot, a mythos.” (p. 4) It is in this very spirit of story as self-making that our first woman president Mary Robinson pledged herself to listening to the stories of others in her inauguration speech way back in 1990 on December 3rd:

I want this Presidency to promote the telling of stories — stories of celebration through the arts and stories of conscience and of social justice. As a woman, I want women who have felt themselves outside history to be written back into history, in the words of Eavan Boland, “finding a voice where they found a vision.”  (See Mary Robinson inauguration)

Coelho's Opening Story

Coelho tells a wonderful story in the Manual of The Warrior of Light by way of introduction.  This story is really an amazingly simple one, like all good stories.  It tells a tale about a small impressionable boy who is bewitched by the sea and by the wonderful stories of the local fishermen.  One day while walking on the beach he meets a beautiful woman who tells him about a mysterious island that was swallowed up by an earthquake.  On that island, there was a splendid temple with a wonderful bell which always rang out magical peals.  Then the sailors and fishermen tell him bewitching stories that if one listens long enough one can hear the peals of the temple bell emanating from the drowned city.  The young boy becomes so obsessed with hearing the bells from the drowned temple that he forgets about his family and friends and often sits awe-struck down on the beach waiting in vain to hear the bells.  He begins to lose his friends who begin to see him as somewhat weird, and his parents begin to worry about him.

The boy becomes bewildered that both the inspiring words of the beautiful lady and the bewitching words of the sailors and fishermen are proving to be so untrue.  Finally, he gives up and turns away from the sea and decides to go back and play with his friends and be more open to his family.  Then as he turned back to the world he heard the wonderful peal of bells.

A brilliant and wonderful story.  There is a similar one in the Gospels - I refer here to the transfiguration of Jesus Christ on Mount Tabor (though other mountains have been suggested).  According to the Gospels, Peter, James, son of Zebedee and John the Apostle were with Jesus upon the mountain.  Now, the story is somewhat similar to Coelho’s as the apostles wish to build a booth or tent upon the mountain and stay there because the experience of the mystical encounter with God/Truth/The Father has been so enchanting.  But Jesus tells them that they cannot stay there on the mountain, that they have to go back down to the world and live real lives there in the very heart of the fray, as it were.  Coelho’s story is somewhat similar.  The little boy cannot survive by dreamily looking into the ocean of mystery, waiting to hear the elusive peal of bells.  Rather he has to go back to his family and friends, and no sooner does he decide to do so than he begins to hear the bells.  As a friend of mine says: "The mystic cannot stay on the mountaintop all the time!"  In fact, if he does he will lose all contact with reality and indeed with the very Truth that he has encountered on the mountaintop!

And so, the boy begins to hear the bells of the lost temple when he is fully involved in life but is at the same time open to its enchantment, its wonder, its mystery and its enlightenment.  He meets the beautiful woman once again who directs him to write the manual in question which is this small but wonderfully wise book. I will append here some of those words of wisdom in a rather random order.

Some Words of Wisdom:

The Warrior of Light practises the following values. He or she will

v  value a child's eyes because children are able to look at the world without bitterness.

v  discover that enthusiasm and training are not enough to win. What counts is experience.

v  never be taken in by appearances and will make a point of remaining silent when people try to impress him/her.

v  recognise the path the moment they begin to walk along it, or, in other words, when they experience it in reality.

v  encourage others as a way of encouraging themselves.

v  know they have their faults.  But they know, too, that they cannot do their growing alone and thus distance themselves from their companions.

v  know that in the silence of their heart, that is, in meditation, they will hear an order that will guide them.

v  know that discipline must always be linked with compassion.

v  That they must become like water and learn to flow around obstacles.

v  never pick fruit while it is still green.  This is the Shakespearean idea: "Ripeness is all" (King Lear, I think!).  Patience is necessary to discern the right time for action.

v  remain thoroughly committed to his/her dream.

v  become, with practice, a master-listener.

v  pray and play like a child.

v  never force things.  They are patient and they take stock.

v  always question his/her own motivations.

v  always live in the now.

v  learn that there are no certainties.

v  know that the fool who gives advice about someone else's garden is not attending to his/her own.

v  learn to live with his/her own contradictions.