“Whether proud or humble, vain or unassuming, selfish or supportive, everyone wants what is best for themselves. And there is nothing wrong with that. Access to goods in a way that makes days more pleasant does not, in itself, constitute a deviation from the spiritual journey. The issue lies in the content and motivation of wanting, as well as in the means used to achieve it. Be it a house, a job, a romantic union, or the pursuit of peace. Not every conquest is a victory, and not every good does us good. As the alchemist of the Recôncavo used to say, money builds and destroys beautiful things. Both buildings and souls. Wanting is no different”.
She paused briefly before continuing: “Wanting the best for oneself is a valid and legitimate desire. The pivotal point lies in knowing what is best for oneself. Not infrequently, the beauty of life slips through the gaps of the climb toward the desired good, whether material or invisible. The miser believes himself to be cautious, the proud believes he is defending honour, cowards scorn the challenges they refuse to face, the violent claim to be defending themselves from the hardships of the world, the selfish merely retain what they consider essential to their own happiness. The mistakes are as many as the motives that make us want. Driven by twisted reasoning, many give free rein to their own shadows under apparently justifiable pretexts. They stumble between good and evil because they fail to distinguish them clearly. Discerning right from wrong has never been an easy reading. Otherwise, no one would err”.
She looked at me with compassion and suggested: “Accepting the better path, different from the one previously taken, is an act of arduous correction, available only to those willing to rebuild themselves upon new foundations. It is necessary to uncover layers of deception, accepted as inevitable truths simply because one never considered allowing oneself a different choice, outside the pattern to which one has always been conditioned. Deeply rooted behaviours, passed down through generations since time immemorial, whose intent is to protect us from what is wrong, evil, and worst, because we do not know how to choose, end up entangling us with what is wrong, evil, and worst. We propagate conflicts within and outside ourselves. We suffer. By the hands of our own misunderstanding, we end up finding exactly what we sought to avoid. We maintain an existential journey in collusion with immobility, delay, and pain. To move through the days merely repeating behaviours that have already proven ineffective is to accept wrong, evil, and worst as perennial realities. We believe we are at peace when, in truth, we are merely fleeing the evolutionary challenges offered by life. We establish internal tension whenever we refuse to face external difficulties. We waste what is right, good, and best in life”.
As if traveling, she let her gaze sail through the blue of the sea to the blue of the sky on the distant horizon before continuing: “Identifying the way of being that restricts the possibilities of living is a primordial stage of self-discovery, without which no personal transformation will occur. Breaking with this centuries-old and ineffective behaviour, contrary to freedom, as it keeps us captive to our own shadows, and contrary to dignity, as it prevents us from offering the treatment we would like to receive, is the sincere desire of many people. However, few succeed. The reason is simple. It is not enough to want; one must learn how to want. At times, it takes us too long to realize that choices once deemed unthinkable are not only possible, but offer us even more: they are what open the passages through the existential walls we once believed to be insurmountable,” reflected Cléo, the witch.
I was at the top of Pedra Bonita, a massive granite outcrop leaning hundreds of meters above and at the edge of the Atlantic, in Rio de Janeiro. As usual, I climb this mountain to meditate when faced with some existential dilemma. Many times, despite believing I know what the best choice is, something within me remains unstructured. Peace disappears, and my soul screams in the form of agony. Something in me needs urgent correction, a sign that, when disconnected from my essence, I end up straying from the good path. Although so close, it is not always easy to hear the voice of the soul, manifested only in the encounter allowed by silence and stillness. At times, I cannot, for the internal tension is so intense that it prevents me. That is when I need help. Then I seek the fortune of finding Cléo atop the mountain. She does not always appear, but when she does, she translates the light of my soul for me. The beautiful dark-skinned witch, with a long, slender body and black hair thrown to the wind, dancing in rhythm with her flowing dresses of fine fabric printed in warm colours, always approaches and leaves spinning among seagulls, like supporting characters in a fantastic enchanted ballet. Cléo is considered an urban legend. Although everyone has heard at least one story about the manifestations of the Rio witch, few have seen her. Many do not believe in her existence. They say it is delusion or imagination. I do not mind. More than once, the witch has sat beside me as a valuable interpreter of my soul. That day, as we talked, the city pulsed at our feet.
UNESCO had opened a call seeking a book that, through fiction, would warn children about the inappropriate approach of ill-intentioned adults. A current, serious, and necessary subject. We had just published a wonderful work by a young pedagogue with exactly this content, presented in a creative and playful way for the children’s universe. The selected book would be purchased in colossal quantities for distribution around the world in countless languages. It was a great deal of money. The publishing house was going through serious financial difficulty. It would be not only an economic solution but also an editorial one. We could pay overdue bills and publish a thousand other authors whose works deserved to be known and recognized. There were marvellous manuscripts waiting to come to life. We would climb a corporate tier. Many good things would happen. After a pre-selection, when publishers from all corners of the planet sent works for evaluation, only ten books remained for the final phase of the process. Ours was among them. As in similar previous situations involving major interests, ethics did not usually shape publishers’ behaviour. Defending one’s own book was not enough. Pointing out inconsistencies and incompleteness in competing works was a customary stance in the dispute. I learned this upon hiring an experienced consultant to prepare the presentation of our book to the judges. I was warned that unpleasant behind-the-scenes work awaited me. I would have to seek out each judge, invite them for coffee or lunch, where, in a subtle and seemingly casual way, I would attempt to destroy the competitors. It was not a contest, but a war without gunpowder or scruples. If I refused to do it, I was warned I would have no chance at all. All the other publishers would do this with our book. Those were the rules of the game. Not accepting them would be naïve. No one is dishonest when failing to be honest in dealings with the dishonest, the consultant advised. I agreed to do the unpleasant work. I needed to win. It meant the survival of the publishing house. The ends justify the means: it would be a lesser evil in the face of a greater good, I justified to myself. The nightmare of bankruptcy haunted the corners of my sleepless nights. I had no choice.
The witch retorted: “Everyone has choices. Any situation, no matter how complicated it may seem, allows for a path different from the one by which the flow of ancestral conditioning usually convinces the masses to remain in the same place. Life demands movement. A different and daring choice will always be possible, even if it is not the one of golden dreams. In fact, the best decision almost never aligns with ease and privilege. Believing that life is doomed to fatality, as if the events of a person’s daily life placed them aboard a rudderless ship, at the mercy of tides and unknown currents, subject to inevitable shipwrecks, is to fail to understand the inalienable right to free will, wherein lies the power of personal direction toward a destiny compatible with the choices made”. Cléo shrugged and concluded: “At times, the best option is not to flee the storm, but to embrace the difficulty”. Stunned, I asked how I could embrace something that might destroy me. She smiled and remarked: “Believing that something or someone has the power to destroy us is an idea contrary to the forces of Light that order and balance the Universe. Only each person can do that to themselves. No one else. That is why I say we need to learn how to want”. I said I only wanted to save the publishing house from bankruptcy. It was a matter of survival. A fair and natural desire, I argued. Cléo was strict: “The ends, no matter how noble, never justify the base means used to achieve them. No evil, however small, serves as a foundation for good. Arguments to the contrary are nothing more than fallacies used in an attempt to avoid the effort indispensable to spiritual progress”. Annoyed, I hissed that the price demanded by good was too high. That was when she disarmed me: “Good has a price. Evil does too. Choose which one you want to pay”.
Ashamed, but unwilling to accept the witch’s arguments, I reasoned that letting the publishing house fail would not be a sensible choice. It amounted to corporate suicide. I recalled the employees who would lose their jobs. Many were breadwinners. I confessed that I could not envision any other path than accepting the rules of the game. All the other publishers would use them. It was not I who imposed them, nor would I be able to avoid them if I wanted to save the publishing house from bankruptcy. That was when Cléo surprised me once again: “Do you know the Sermon on the Mount?” I found the question amusing. Of course I knew it. It was the main axis of my studies at the OEMM, Order of the Esoteric Monks of the Mountain, a place I had attended for years. The Sermon is an authentic manual for those who wish to direct their steps toward the light, I replied. The witch quoted a small excerpt from the sacred text: “Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the road to perdition. Many travel upon it. Difficult are the paths of life. Few are those who manage to cross”. She continued: “What is the meaning of the narrow gate?” I fell silent. The witch expressed my thought: “To make virtues and truth the guides of all choices. To bind wanting to ethics. A very simple idea, yet extremely difficult to execute. Some of our most long-awaited desires present themselves within our reach in an improper way”. She looked at the sea before commenting: “Ah! Temptations… those of the soul usually cause more damage than those of the body”.
Then she turned to me and continued: “Everyone wants what is good, but few are ready to use the good as a wheel in favour of their own movement. For such an endeavour, it is necessary to carry with oneself an attribute indispensable to love and wisdom: self-abnegation. A virtue rarely found because it prioritizes the riches of the soul to the detriment of the treasures of the world, a fundamental understanding for those who comprehend the importance of illuminating their own steps along the Path. Many understand it as madness, cowardice, or surrender, when in fact self-abnegation demands the highest levels of sincerity, courage, and commitment to truth. It is the renunciation of ambitions driven by fame and fortune, for which multitudes wage war every day, replacing them in favour of the peaceful, silent, and honourable manifestations of a soul forged in the fire of an existence in which pain brought to the surface of life a rare, unlikely, and little-known love. Whoever has not yet understood what life’s priorities are has learned nothing about proper wanting. First understand the priorities. Then use them to guide your choices. Every want carries within it the power to keep the course toward the light or to lead to a deviation that ends in the dark alleys of incomprehension. Prioritizing priorities is neither pleonasm nor redundancy, but highlights the importance of wanting as a definer of destinies”. I insisted that all the other competitors would resort to the same dubious tactic. I would be at a clear disadvantage. I would have no chance at all. It would be the end. Cléo corrected my reasoning: “The mistakes of others will never serve as an excuse to justify our own. Whether by shadowy trails or sunlit paths, each individual decides which side of the road they will travel”. She shrugged and added: “What fools believe to be the end, the wise see as a wonderful opportunity for transformation”.
Referring to another passage from the same sacred text, fully aligned with our conversation, she argued: “Many are unaware of or fail to give due importance to the immeasurable value of their own light. They do not mind gaining the world at the price of losing the soul. They have great difficulty resisting the temptations of luxury and brilliance for all the ease and privileges they allow. Shallow conquests that will weigh on the baggage further along and beyond the road of time. Your soul will be tomorrow where today your wanting is”. I asked whether there was not a great deal of naivety in thinking this way. She disagreed: “What you understand as naivety, I see as wisdom. Self-abnegation is a virtue despised by many. Few understand the enormous driving force that this evolutionary tool possesses. Giving up a material good in favour of a spiritual value is a form of wanting still disregarded by the masses. An act of love for life. An authentic commitment to the light. The self-abnegant are genuinely strong and wise, although most see them as weak and foolish. There is nothing wrong with wanting gold, as long as you never give your soul in the trade. Not everything that glitters is light. Outside of self-abnegation there is no way to pass through the narrow gate”. She looked at me seriously and asked whether there was anything in her words that I did not already know. I shook my head no. Cléo concluded the conversation: “Ideas without action do not move the mills of evolution”.
I watched her move away, spinning among the seagulls, until she disappeared from my sight. I descended the mountain stunned. Drawing close to the truth causes fear. The reason is simple: truth transforms. But it brings uncertainty: will I be able to deal with the new reality I will begin to live with? A natural doubt. When we change our patterns of thinking and feeling, of posture and choices, reality, formed by the limits of the truth attained, also changes. There will be a place within me still under construction. And it is there that I will begin to live. I will have at my disposal new tools that I will still need to learn how to use to perfection. The old reactions and survival mechanisms, useful up to this point, will no longer serve, for they are inefficient in leading me forward. Constant learning will be the keynote of the new reality. Discoveries, encounters, and continuous achievements demand the boldness and courage to want differently. To evolve is a journey toward the unknown. Truth, at first, seems frightening. It is not easy to believe in what you perceive but do not see. As long as one is afraid to sustain oneself in the invisible air, the caterpillar will never know the wings hidden within.
Understanding the truth is not enough. It must become an inseparable element of who we are. I needed a few days to settle ideas and feelings. I called the publishing house employees to a meeting. I explained the changes in plans. We would dispense with the services of the experienced consultant. We would forgo the usual meetings with the judges intended to defame the competition. I explained the foundations of the decision, as well as the risks assumed. I said I would understand anyone who preferred to leave the company at that moment, while we still had money to pay severance. If bankruptcy came, perhaps even that would not be possible. For the most diverse reasons, almost everyone chose to leave the company. I expected this from some, not from so many. I set aside the initial sadness and respected the decision without contesting it. It was an inherent part of the difficulties at the narrow gate. I thanked them for the time we had shared and sent them to the accountant. Life goes on. And it must go on. Without lament, but with movement. With work and no resentment. We had a presentation at UNESCO to prepare. I assembled a creative team with the employees who remained. Through their attitudes at such a significant moment, a beautiful cosmic family was formed by the bonds of light that came to unite us. From Teresa, the award-winning illustrator, to Jonas, the young man responsible for cleaning and coffee, a front of struggle, overcoming, and survival was formed with those who stayed. In a serious joke, we called ourselves The Three Hundred of Sparta. We were no more than half a dozen. We were merely alluding to the historical fact of when a few had the determination and courage to face many. All ideas were analysed with care. All opinions were evaluated attentively. Despite the enormous danger looming, the days were shaped with joy and hope. In the end, we had prepared a beautiful presentation to deliver at UNESCO. Without any false modesty or showboating, among the works presented by competing publishers, I considered ours the most beautiful and complete of all. Perhaps because it contained the best of each of us in the smallest details of its creation. They were unforgettable moments of immeasurable richness.
We lost the contest.
I informed the employees by phone call and hung up immediately afterward. I did not want to speak to anyone. My mind oscillated between asking for a bank loan to settle the expenses of closing the publishing house and the words I would use to thank those who had not abandoned me at such a difficult, beautiful, and delicate moment. They had chosen to pass through the narrow gate by my side. They were greater than I was. They deserved all my love and respect. Despite the sadness over the loss of the company, and the consequent departure of those peaceful warriors who walked with me to the end, there was a strange feeling of peace, perhaps even a serene joy, for having allowed myself to pursue my wanting in the best way, without resorting to subterfuges, shadows, or evil. Where many would see a crushing defeat, there existed a simple yet grand victory at the same time. Something within me had been conquered. And that made me feel very good. I lacked neither emotional balance nor mental strength to move forward, despite everything. There was firmness and clarity. I had always understood the power of light, but I had never felt it with such magnitude.
I stayed two more days in Paris, where UNESCO’s headquarters are located. I kept my phone turned off for the rest of the trip. I tried to sell the publishing house’s catalogue to French publishers. It would be a way to at least pay the severance of those incredible people who believed in me. I was unsuccessful. I landed at Galeão in the early hours of a beautiful sunny morning. Without going home, I went straight to the publishing house in São Cristóvão, a neighbourhood filled with small villages inhabited by factory workers. With the relocation of some factories to other neighbourhoods years earlier, we had taken advantage of one of these vacated villages to set up the publishing house headquarters. A simple place, yet very cozy. We carried out a major renovation designed by my wife, Denise. Inspired by Caminito, the famous street in Buenos Aires where she once lived, the houses were painted with cheerful, vibrant colours. Flowers were planted along the eaves and windows. It was beautiful. I felt good there. I would miss that place. I thought this when I tried to unlock the door, which, to my surprise, was open. It was very early. Business hours had not yet begun. Besides, no one had anything left to do in a bankrupt publishing house.
Upon entering, a surprise. The employees had prepared a plentiful breakfast to welcome me. I was received with many hugs and smiles. I noticed they were amused by my surprise at the scene. I thanked them for the affection, but pointed out that there was no reason for celebration. Then came another surprise. That was when they told me that one of the publishers I had contacted in Paris after the contest result, who, like the others, had refused the offer to acquire our catalogue, had gotten in touch with the publishing house. Since he had attended and liked our presentation at UNESCO, he allowed himself to analyse the material more carefully. He ended up finding many points in common between our publishing house and his, one of the largest in France. He saw in this an opportunity for both. As he had always wanted to offer his books in the Brazilian market, he tried to contact me that same day. Since my phone was turned off, he could not reach me. Enthusiastic, he sent an email with a proposal to buy half of the company’s shares. The catalogues would merge, allowing our books to also reach European readers. We would not only settle the debts, but gain momentum and support to resurface and grow again. A generous offer in every respect. Without being able to consult me, but unwilling to let the opportunity slip away, the assembled employees decided, in my name, to say yes to the proposal. The Three Hundred of Sparta had turned History upside down and won a war considered lost.
The contract was on my desk, in the house next door where my office was located. Alone in the room, I read the document almost unable to believe those words. Then I called the French publisher to thank him for the interest and inform him that the deal was closed. As I signed the transfer of shares, I heard Cléo’s voice behind me: “There is no defeat for those who remain in the light”. I turned around, but there was no one there. I knew that voice. In silence, I thanked the witch for teaching me that knowing how to want is a primordial factor in crossing the narrow gate. There will be other gates as the journey advances. Now I know that all of them will be related to my wanting.
Translated by: Cazmilian Zórdic
