The German philosopher, Schopenhauer, was strolling along a street in Dresden, seeking the answers to questions that bothered him.  Passing by a garden, he decided to sit and look at the flowers.

One of the residents of the neighborhood observed the philosopher's strange behavior and summoned the police.  Minutes later, an officer approached Schopenhauer.

"Who are you," the officer asked brusquely.

Schopenhauer looked the policeman up and down.

"If you can help me find the answer to that question," he said, "I will be eternally grateful to you."

A man searching for wisdom decided to go up into the mountains, since he had been told that every two years God appeared there.

During his first year there, he ate everything that the land had to offer.  Eventually, the supply was exhausted, and he had to return to the city.

"God is unfair!" he exclaimed.  "Didn't he know that I waited for a year to hear his voice.  I was hungry and had to come back to town."

At that moment, an angel appeared.

"God would like very much to talk with you," the angel said.  "For an entire year
>he fed you.  He was hoping that you would produce your own food after that.  But what did you plant?  If a man is unable to grow fruit where he lives, he is not ready to talk with God."

People say, "Well, it seems that freedom for man consists of choosing his own brand of slavery.  I work eight hours a day, and if I get a promotion, I'll have to work twelve.  I got married, and now I have no time to myself.  I looked for God, and now I have to attend cult meetings, masses and other religious ceremonies.  Everything that's important in life -- love, work, faith -- winds up becoming a burden that's too heavy to bear."

The master says:

"Only love allows us to escape.  Only love turns slavery into freedom.

"If we cannot love, it is better to stop now.  Jesus said: 'Better to be blind in one eye than for the entire body to perish in darkness.'

"Hard words.  But true."

A hermit fasted for an entire year, eating only once a week.  After this sacrifice, he asked that God reveal to him the true meaning of a certain passage in the Bible.

No response was heard.

"What a waste of time," the hermit said to himself.  "I gave up so much, and God didn't even answer!  Better to leave these parts and find a monk who knows the meaning of the verse."

At that moment, an angel appeared.

"The twelve months of fasting served only to make you believe that you were better than others, and God does not answer a vain person," the angel said.  "But when you were humble, and sought help from others, God sent me."

And the angel explained what he wanted to know.

The master says:

"Notice how certain words were formed so as to show their meaning clearly. 

"Let us take the word "preoccupation."  It can be divided in two: "pre" and "occupation."  It means to occupy oneself with something before it happens.

"Who, in the entire universe, could have the gift of occupying himself with a thing that has not yet happened?

Never be preoccupied.  Be attentive to your destiny and to your path.  Learn everything you need to know
>n order to handle the bright sword entrusted to you.  Pay attention to how your friends, your masters and your enemies fight.

"Train yourself sufficiently, but do not commit the worst of errors: believing that you know what kind of blow your adversary is going to deliver."

Friday comes, you go home, and you pick up the newspapers that you weren't able to read during the week.  You turn on the television with the sound off.  You put on a cassette tape.  You use the remote control to jump from one channel to the other, as you try to turn the pages of the paper and listen to the music.  The papers contain nothing new, the TV programs are repetitious, and you've already heard the cassette dozens of times.  Your wife is attending to the children, sacrificing her youthful years without really understanding why she is doing so.

An excuse occurs to you: "Well, that's the way life is."  No, that's not the way life is.  Life is enthusiasm.  Try to remember where it was that you hid away your enthusiasm.  Take your wife and children with you and try to find it again, before it's too late.  Love never kept anyone from following his dream.

On Christmas Eve, the wanderer and his wife did an evaluation of the year that was about to end.  During dinner at the only restaurant in a village in the Pyrenees, the wanderer began to complain about something that hadn't gone the way he thought it should have.

His wife stared at the Christmas tree decorating the restaurant.  The wanderer thought that she was no longer interested in the conversation, and changed the subject:

"Aren't the lights on the tree pretty!" he said.

"They are," his wife answered.  "But if you look closely, among the dozens of bulbs there is one that has burned out.  It seems to me that, instead of seeing the past year in terms of the dozens of blessings that illuminated it, you are fixating on the only bulb that illuminated nothing."

"Look at that humble holy man, walking the road", said one devil to another.  "I think I'll go over there and conver his soul."

"He won't listen to you, because he is concerned only with holy things," said his companion.

But the devil, in his usual ardent fashion, dressed himself as the Archangel Gabriel, and appeared before the holy man.

"I have come to help you," he said.

"You must have me confused with someone else," answered the holy man.  "I have done nothing in my life to deserve the attention of an angel."

And he continued on his way, never knowing what he had avoided.

A friend of the wanderer went to a play on Broadway, and went out for a drink during the intermission.  The lobby was crowded, and people were smoking, talking and drinking.

A pianist was playing, but no one paid any attention to his music.  The wanderer's friend sipped her drink and studied the musician.  He seemed bored -- just doing his job and waiting for the intermission to end.

After another drink, and feeling a bit high, she approached the piano.

"You're a pain in the neck!  Why don't you play just for yourself?" she exclaimed.

The pianist was surprised.  And then he began to play the kind of music he liked.  In just a few minutes, the entire lobby fell silent.

When the song was over, there was enthusiastic applause.

Saint Francis of Assisi was a very popular young man when he decided to leave it all behind and do his life's work.  Saint Clare was a beautiful young woman when she took her vow of chastity.  Saint Raimundo Lull knew the great intellectuals of his time when he went off into the desert.

The spiritual quest is, above all, a challenge.  Whoever uses it to flee from his problems will not go very far.

It does no good for someone who cannot make friends to retire from the world.  It accomplishes nothing to take a vow of poverty if you are already unable to earn a living.  And it makes no sense to become humble if one is already a coward.

It is one thing to have something and give it up.  It is another not to have something and to condemn those who have.  It is easy for a weak man to go around preaching absolute chaity, but what good is it?

The master says:

"Praise the Lord's work.  Conquer yourself as you confront the world."