100 Things | Paulo Coehlo

3. Paulo Coehlo is one of my favorite authors to read.

A good friend of mine recommended the author and I am so grateful she did. I requested that she give me a suggestion on which Paulo Coelho book to read first. She suggested I read The Valkyries and for that time in my life it was the perfect Coelho book. That was the summer of 2001.

The books is about love, relationships and spiritual-self journey. I think most people get different things out of books. But over-all Coelho's books seem to be about spiritual-self journeys. His books are a mixture of well religion, spirituality and mysticism. Coelho is a Christian, but his form of Christianity is very different then the one I was brought up on.

The Valkyries is a "true" story. A story of a journey in Coelho's life. It is a story of the acceptance of love. It is a journey of love intermixed with trust, faith and forgiveness. It is the story of becoming our spiritual self while battling the darkness inside. It is a story of relationships and accepting love in relationships. The ideas that came through were much like ideas that came through in The Celestine Prophecy to me - it spoke of universal ideas and spirituality.

The main thing I got out of the book is that we are responsible for everything that happens in our lives and in our world. Such as if we are negative then that breeds negative things in our life. But with love and openness to what comes our way, we can change things. If we start to look at the world with love then that force will give back to the world and ourselves in abundance. Hokey? Maybe but I believe it.

One of my favorite quote sform the book:

"He knew one of the women well, and had shared his universe with her. They had seen the same mountains, and the same trees, although each of them had seem them differently. She knew his weaknesses, his moments of hatred, of despair. Yet she was there at his side. They shared the same universe."

I have read The Pilgrimage, The Alchemist, The Zahir and Eleven Minutes.

I would like to read all his books because his works often give me insight to my spiritual path and just self awareness. But also they are just very good stories that make me keep wanting to know what the next page will say.