And at this point, dear reader, I must ask you and the Young Prince’s friends to forgive my interference, because from now on it will be impossible to identify him by sight alone. I know, however, that anyone who keeps an open heart will recognize him every time.
Chapter Fourteen
When we were back on the road, the Young Prince turned to me and asked, ‘Please tell me how you managed not to turn into a serious person.’ It seemed the idea that growing up would involve this sort of change was really preoccupying him.
‘I’d started to tell you,’ I said, ‘that some people leave their dreams and ideals behind so that they can focus on owning more and more, as though security came from power and possessions. For some, the search for recognition and success is about escaping into the future, because they haven’t had the courage to be themselves, or face criticism and disapproval, and follow their true calling. Others are obsessed with control, and they manipulate and reorder reality in relation to themselves. They judge and characterize others, stuffing them into physical and mental niches that will be very hard to ever get out of. And so they paralyse the unlimited transformative richness of the universe and of human love. If parents put as much effort into teaching their children love as they do into exacting discipline and routine, this planet would be a wonderful one to live on.’
‘D’you mean that all discipline isn’t a good thing?’ asked the Young Prince.
‘What we normally mean by “discipline” is imposing our human, limited sense of order on to nature, which is divine and therefore superior. Humankind should beware arranging nature for their own benefit, as the result tends to be the opposite of what they intended: a natural disorder which turns against them. The pollution of the planet, the extinction of animal and plant species, the exhaustion of natural resources and many other things I could name are negative examples of human order and discipline.’
‘I understand what you’re saying,’ the Young Prince said, nodding thoughtfully.
‘On my last trip I met a man who thought he controlled the stars. He would spend his days counting them and doing sums, and then he’d write the answers on a little piece of paper and keep it in a drawer. He thought that if he did that, he owned them.’
‘I see you’ve noticed how much serious people love numbers. They’re never satisfied,’ I continued, ‘until they know the exact height of a mountain, the number of victims of an accident or how much money you earn in a year, just to mention a few examples. Actually, we own nothing at all except ourselves.’
‘I’ve heard that on this planet they also keep track of people by giving them numbers,’ he said nervously.
His remark made me think about passport numbers, social security numbers, phone numbers, credit card numbers…
‘That’s right. There are so many people on Earth that there doesn’t seem to be any other way we can identify ourselves. Names don’t seem to be enough,’ I replied, a little sadly.
‘Show me where you keep your numbers,’ the Young Prince said curiously, expecting me to uncover some part of my body.
‘Oh, we don’t have them stamped on to us,’ I answered with a smile, as I took out some of the cards in my wallet. My face fell a little as I recalled some appalling examples of exactly the thing I’d just denied, situations I would scarcely be able to explain to him. ‘Perhaps, not too far in the future,’ I ventured, thinking aloud, ‘our genetic code will be used to identify us all, like a unique, personal key. I hope to God that the result won’t end up restricting the liberty of every human being.’
‘What d’you mean?’ asked the boy, noticing the concern in my voice.
‘I mean that God created man and woman as spiritual beings, with a spark of free will, self-awareness and that ability to think and imagine that we call a soul. That’s why, as humans, we can’t give the best of ourselves, things like love and creativity, if we don’t have our freedom.’
‘God? Who’s God? You talked about him before as though he caused a lot of the things that happen down here, or as if he were capable of sorting them out.’
‘Who is He? I don’t even know if we should ask who or what He is.’
‘But you talk about him –’
‘Well, yes,’ I interrupted. ‘How would I not talk about Him?’ I took a deep breath, and let a few minutes pass while the Young Prince looked at me in amazement. ‘If I knew what God was, I’d know everything. It’s been said that He is what He is, His own beginning and His own end, and so the beginning and end of everything that exists. Others have imagined Him as a never-ending resurgence, an infinite succession of causes and effects. Some define Him in accordance with our ideas of perfection, as Goodness or Beauty; or they name Him the Word, the Creator, Truth and Supreme Wisdom.’
‘So you could say,’ my travelling companion came back, ‘that there is more men don’t know about God than they do know…’
‘That’s what I think, given that our limited human intelligence is unable to conceive of an infinite idea. The thing I find most shameful is that even today, in their ignorance, people carry on killing each other over the different answers you can give to that question.’
That seemed to give the Young Prince a fright, so I reassured him with a smile. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not that cruel!’
‘And are there other questions people fight over too?’ he asked, curious to know what awaited him on our intolerant, violent planet.
‘There are lots, but none that has whipped up as much hatred as questions of the divine, which goes to show how little our minds have developed. Although lately, something even worse has happened: people have stopped asking themselves who God is, in the quiet spaces of their minds, as if it no longer mattered to them why they’re alive.’
‘And what do you think?’ he asked me, hoping I’d shed a bit of light on such a clouded, confused matter.
‘I prefer to feel God as a need to come together with all living creatures, as a sort of loving energy that sustains not just all of us but the whole universe. He speaks to me in a language of signs, symbols, miracles and coincidences, and that guides me along the way. Telepathy, dreams, intuitions, premonitions and all kinds of natural phenomena, like omens, hunches or visions, are a channel of communication that is always open to the alert, awakened mind and allows the transformation and full realization of the self. Sometimes it takes the form of a voice, murmuring inside me like angels; sometimes it’s a storm, or a strong wind or a rainbow. If you can silence your mind, ask your questions clearly and stay alert, the answers will come. They always do!’ My words seemed to reassure him. He thought for a minute in silence.
‘I suppose animals can’t give the best of themselves either if we shut them up in cages,’ the boy wondered aloud, perhaps remembering the sheep shut up in its box, as he ran his fingers over Wings’ sleeping head.
‘There are people who shut their children, or others, in cages with bars made of their demands, their expectations and fears,’ I reflected. ‘And they don’t realize that anything imposed as an obligation will always provoke resistance. Anything leading to stagnation and lack of spontaneity like that runs counter to the renewal that characterizes life. After all, we know there’s nothing as static and orderly as a graveyard.’
‘So we don’t need orderliness?’ asked the Young Prince, still unsure about this.
‘There’s an external orderliness that we need to feel comfortable, and we all need a different amount. But the one that really matters is the orderliness of the spirit, which should point towards God, because it’s from Him that we came and it’s towards Him that we’re going. It’s not a fixed aim, though, but rather the constant growth and evolution of our spiritual being.’
‘How do you know so many things?’ he enquired, surprised at my ability to find answers to his questions.
‘Thanks to my experience and my intuition,’ I replied.
‘And how do you know you’re right?’
‘Thanks to my experience and my intuition,’
I said again.
‘And you’re never wrong?’ he asked admiringly.
‘Of course I’m wrong sometimes, and when I am I add that error to my experience. You see, I can’t tell you that something I think is a universal truth – it will just be knowledge that has been useful to me in life. And you should do the same. Don’t believe what I tell you. Just take it and see if it’s of use to you.’
‘And where can I find that experience?’ the Young Prince wanted to know.
‘In life,’ I replied. ‘My experience is made up of all the mistakes I’ve had time to make, and my ability to overcome them. If you’re smart, you’ll be able to learn lessons from other people’s mistakes without having to repeat them yourself. Books, teachers and other people’s stories can show you the way, but in the end it’s you that has to decide what knowledge you will take on.’
When I saw his expression I realized that all this was sounding a bit vague to him. I have no doubt that young people learn more from our examples than from our words.
We were on a stretch of road that runs alongside a deep ravine, with a river snaking along the bottom. The strange, jagged outlines of the Andes rose up on both sides. One in particular caught our attention: a tall spire of rock that stretched up from the crest of a hill towards the sky. A sign told us it was called ‘The Finger of God’. I smiled as I thought of the locals rushing to give it a sacred name before travellers came up with other resemblances.
Personally, I found it easier to imagine, as Michelangelo had in the Sistine Chapel, that God’s finger reached down towards humanity and not the other way round. At that moment the answer I’d been looking for popped into my head.
‘Experience,’ I said, and my friend turned towards me, ‘is like a map. Although it’s an unfinished map, sadly, when it comes to the future. That’s why every day you should affirm all of your assumptions that have turned out to be correct, and discard any that are wrong.’
‘And what about intuition?’ asked the tireless Young Prince. Clearly, no one inside that car was about to congratulate me on the aptness of my analogies.
‘Intuition gives you your first impression of a person or a situation. And it’s usually right. Unfortunately, our society has overestimated rational, deductive reasoning, which is slower; and although it can be useful in science, it’s harder to apply to human questions. Intuitive knowledge, on the other hand, is immediate and complete.’
‘I think my flower was intuitive,’ he said, ‘because she knew things before I told them to her. Perhaps that’s why people and flowers sometimes don’t get along.’
Chapter Fifteen
I felt utterly immersed in the pleasure of driving down that sinuous road, which now hugged the shore of a lake nestling in the pine forests. With each gear change, the engine’s sonorous strum vibrated up my spine. At such a special moment for a lover of cars and speed, the boy’s sudden interjection was bound to fall on me like snow in spring.
‘You were telling me about serious people,’ he reminded me. ‘What else do you know about them?’
‘A few things,’ I murmured lazily, deciding it would be pointless to explain to him that he’d just interrupted a unique mechanical symphony. ‘I very nearly became a distinguished member of that species myself, after all.’
‘And what stopped you?’ probed the Young Prince, who always found his way to the crux of the matter.
‘When I really looked at the serious people around me – all respectable, successful types – I realized that none of them was truly happy.’
‘Don’t tell me that order and discipline made them unhappy,’ he pleaded. ‘Was that it?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘What happens is that most serious people who like order hate surprises and anything else that’s beyond their control. But the more control they exert, the less they enjoy it. They like to live in a world that moves along a nice, predictable orbit – a world without magic or delight. Changes, however small, have them all worried and upset, and our unstable reality contains countless opportunities to be both.’
‘What you’re saying reminds me of a lamplighter who was incapable of varying his routine,’ explained the Young Prince. ‘When his planet started to turn faster, his work became a torment.’
‘Well,’ I continued, ‘those people’s passage through life is as sparkling and brief as their epitaphs, however many medals and diplomas they’ve piled up. No one dares to put a footnote at the bottom of a tombstone saying, “And in spite of it all, he was never really happy.” With shooting stars, the sky writes on its vault the eulogy they deserve.’
‘No one should congratulate themselves on being a shooting star,’ he mused.
‘No, that’s right,’ I agreed. And I added, ‘They’re like little flames that flare and die. Fireflies in the evening of time.’
I continued with my reflections. ‘And then there are those other people who, when faced with reality, can’t let go of their ideals (like the serious people they are), who try so hard to protect those ideals that they end up building a wall around them, and all they manage to do is suffocate their spirit. Sometimes that wall is so perfectly built that they can’t find a single crack to climb back through. And so they get stuck outside, like puppets with no strings to animate them, like ghosts that don’t know who they are, where they’ve come from or where they’re going. Their planets stray without direction, and with time they become as cold as wandering comets.’
‘I don’t want to be a wandering comet,’ stated the Young Prince. Then he asked, ‘What is a ghost?’
‘A ghost is an empty image, a shadow, a shell with no substance. There are people who don’t think ghosts exist,’ I added. ‘But I’m quite sure they do, and there are a lot of them, everywhere you go. For me, ghosts are people with no heart.’
‘I don’t want to be a ghost either,’ the Young Prince said, becoming more and more conscious of the difficulties that growing up would involve.
‘In that case, don’t betray your desires, and don’t bury them inside yourself until they die of starvation. Learn to bring what’s real together with what you yearn for. In all that you do, give the best of yourself so that your spirit is returned to you, and offer the best of yourself to each person so that they can return your love. You’ll see that the world will become a magnifying mirror, reflecting back at you everything that you gave without self-interest, and more. Because the only way to surround yourself with smiles is to smile, and the only way to surround yourself with love is to give it to others. There will come a moment when you’re suspended between a world that revolves around you, in childhood, and a world that is open to others when you’re grown up. It’s then that you have to let go of everything fanciful, all your stubbornness and all your selfishness, so you can grow into the convictions you’ll need for defending your noble ideas. Love yourself, and you’ll be able to love others. Love your dreams, so that you can use them to build a world that is warm and beautiful, full of smiles and hugs. That will be a world you want to live in, and it will turn in the orbit of a rainbow. If you really believe in it, and build it up bit by bit with every little act, that world will become real for you. And it will be the reward for all your worthy endeavours – I’ve never seen someone fully enjoying an undeserved happiness. It’s only people who truly love that are like stars, and their light keeps shining on us after they are gone.’
It seemed to me that his voice glowed with feeling as he said, ‘When I die, I want to be a star. Teach me to live so that I can become a star.’ Cradling his dog, he leant his head against the window.
‘There’s no exact formula I could teach you,’ I replied gently. ‘I’m not a master of the stars. All I can offer you is what I’ve learned in life – a handful of truths that, like all truths, can only be communicated with love. Like all of us, you’ve got the capacity to love, and that’s all you need. Whenever you have doubts, search inside yourself, and if you’re patient enough, you’ll always find the answer.’
B
ut he was no longer listening…Perhaps he discovered that in the land of dreams, we can all be princes and stars.
Chapter Sixteen
That night we stayed in a beautiful guest house that sat surrounded by a great forest on the shore of a lake. It was a simple building of wood and stone, with lovely fires burning in the grates. The walls of the rooms were papered with patterns and colours inspired by the rooms’ names. Ours was called ‘The Meadow’: it was bright green, and the prints were of plants and wild flowers. The rules of the place meant that Wings had to sleep alone that night, in a small but comfortable room. Even then I feared it would be hard for my friend to be separated physically and emotionally from that puppy.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when, as I went down to the dining room for dinner, I found the same noisy family we’d seen at lunchtime – the hotels aren’t exactly numerous around there. As was perhaps to be expected, our entrance caused the same hubbub as it had done a few hours before, proving that some people never change. But as dinner went on, perhaps because both children and adults were tired, the atmosphere at their table became so unpleasant that the barely contained aggression and violence started to make us quite uncomfortable.
The youngest child was crying inconsolably. Another wasn’t allowed to eat his dinner as a punishment. A third was being forced to finish a plate of fish that he clearly didn’t like. The other two stared straight down at their plates, not daring to pass comment on their brothers’ predicaments. All of this had such a profound effect on my young friend, unaccustomed as he was to family arguments, that he seemed to lose his appetite. And then came our journey’s second miracle of love: he got up from the table, went to get Wings and, carrying him in, wrapped in his arms like a soft white baby, gave it to the children as a present. Their eyes were wide with joy as they all reached out to stroke the puppy.
The Young Prince’s gesture and attitude were so moving that the parents were speechless. By the time they could react and try to return the gift (no doubt with all kinds of sensible reasons), Wings was already a part of their life. They just about managed to look at me, as if I was the father and needed to give my consent. When I smiled and nodded, it was a done deal. The next day there would be eight of them on the road together.
The Return of the Young Prince Page 5