The Supreme Gift

by Paulo Coelho

  Envy is directed at those in the same line of work as ourselves, and is generally intent on destroying what is best in them. It is the most despicable of all human feelings.

  Envy is always waiting to destroy everything that other people do, even if they do it better than we do.

  And the only way to escape envy is to focus all your energies on Love.

  Instead of envying, we should admire the large, rich, generous soul that does not envy.

  * * *

  And having learned all that, we must learn something else: humility. Place a seal on your lips and forget your patience, your kindness, your generosity. Once Love has entered your life and done its beautiful work, sit quietly and say nothing about it.

  Love hides even from itself.

  Love avoids even self-satisfaction.

  Love does not boast; it is not arrogant.

  * * *

  The fifth ingredient is something that might seem strange and pointless in this rainbow of Love: courtesy. This is Love among people, Love in society. A lot of people say that courtesy is a superfluous feeling.

  Not true. Courtesy is Love in little things.

  ‘Love is not rude.’ You might be the shyest person in the world, the least well prepared for dealing with others, but if you have a reservoir of Love in your heart, you will always behave correctly.

  Carlyle said of Robert Burns that there was no truer gentleman in Europe than the ploughman poet, because he loved everything – the mouse, the daisy, and all God’s creatures great and small. This meant that Burns could speak to anyone, and visit courts and palaces from his own modest little cottage.

  Do you know the meaning of the word ‘gentleman’? It means someone who does things gently. That is the whole art and mystery of Love.

  Someone who has Love in his heart cannot act in an ungentlemanly manner, whereas the false gentleman, who is merely a snob, is a prisoner of his feelings and cannot love.

  ‘Love is not rude.’

  * * *

  Unselfishness. ‘Love does not insist on its own way.’

  Love does not even seek what is hers by right.

  In England, as in many other countries, men struggle – and justly so – for their rights. But there are certain moments when we can give up those rights.

  Paul, however, does not demand this of us, because he knows that Love is something so profound that no one who loves does so thinking of a reward.

  One loves because Love is the Greatest Gift, not because it gives us something in return.

  It isn’t hard to give up our rights; after all, they are outside us, bound up in our relationship with society. What is hard is to give up ourselves. It is still harder to seek nothing for ourselves at all.

  Generally speaking, in seeking, buying, winning and deserving those things, we have had the best of them already, and we can, in a noble gesture, forego any reward. But I am talking about not seeking at all.

  Id opus est. That is the task. Love is sufficient unto itself.

  ‘And do you seek great things for yourself?’ asks the prophet. ‘Seek them not.’ Why? Because there is no greatness in things. Things cannot be great. The only greatness is unselfish Love.

  I know that it is hard to give up a reward, but it is much harder to seek no reward at all.

  No, I shouldn’t say that. Nothing is too difficult for Love. I believe that the burden of Love is light. The ‘burden’ is merely Love’s way of living. And I am sure that it is also the easiest way to live, because the Love that seeks no reward can fill every minute of existence with its light.

  The lesson to be found in all spiritual teachings is that there is no happiness in having and getting, only in giving.

  I repeat: There is no happiness in having and getting, only in giving.

  Almost everyone nowadays is on the wrong track in their pursuit of happiness. They think a great deal about having and receiving, about outward show and success and being served by others. That is what most people call fulfillment.

  True fulfillment, though, lies in giving and serving. ‘Whoever would be first among you,’ said Christ, ‘must be the slave of all.’ He that would be happy should place Love above all else in life. Nothing else matters.

  * * *

  The next ingredient is good temper. Love ‘is not provoked’.

  We are inclined to view bad temper as a family failing, a personality trait, a matter of temperament, when we should really see it as a character defect. That is why, in his analysis of Love, Paul makes a point of mentioning good temper. And there are many other Biblical passages that cite bad temper as the most destructive element in human nature.

  What surprises me is that bad temper is often there in the lives of people who consider themselves to be virtuous, and can be a great blot on an otherwise noble, gentle nature. We know a lot of people who are almost perfect, but then, suddenly, they decide that they are right about something and lose their temper.

  The supposed compatibility of virtue and bad temper is one of the saddest problems afflicting humanity and society.

  There are, in fact, two kinds of sin: sins of the body and sins of the disposition. In a parable in the New Testament, the Prodigal Son abandons his family and goes off into the world, while the elder brother stays with the father. After many misfortunes, the Prodigal Son decides to return, and the father gives a great party in his honour. When the brother finds out, he angrily asks his father: ‘Did I not stay here by your side all this time, working, while he was squandering his inheritance?’

  The Prodigal Son can be seen as committing the first kind of sin, while his brother commits the second. Curiously, society has no doubt as to which of those two kinds of sin is worse, and condemnation falls, unchallenged, on the Prodigal Son. But are we right?

  We do not have a balance in which to weigh one another’s sins, and ‘better’ or ‘worse’ are only words in our vocabulary. But I would say to you: more sophisticated faults can be far more serious than simpler and more obvious ones.

  In the eyes of Him who is Love, a sin against Love is a hundred times worse. No vice, be it desire, avarice, lust or drunkenness, is worse than an evil temper.

  When it comes to embittering lives,

  destroying communities,

  breaking up relationships,

  devastating homes,

  withering up men and women,

  taking the bloom off youth,

  for sheer gratuitous, misery-producing power,

  ill temper has no rival.

  Look at the elder brother: very proper, hard-working, patient, responsible, and all credit to him for his virtues. Then look at this boy, this child, sulking outside his own father’s door.

  ‘He was angry,’ we read, ‘and refused to go in.’ Think of the effect his brother’s attitude must have had on the Prodigal Son! And how many prodigal sons are kept out of the Kingdom of God by the loveless people who profess to be inside!

  Imagine the face of the elder brother as he says those words, from underneath a cloud of jealousy, rage, pride, cruelty, self-righteousness, stubbornness, resentment and a lack of charity. Those are the ingredients of that dark, loveless soul. Those are the ingredients of bad temper and intolerance.

  And any of us who have experienced such pressures in life know that these sins are far more destructive than the sins of the body.

  Did not Christ say that the publicans and the harlots would enter the Kingdom of Heaven ahead of the scholars of the day?

  There is no place in the Kingdom for the ill-tempered and intolerant. One such man would make Paradise unbearable for everyone else.

  Unless he be born again, and leave aside everything he considers untouchable and certain, he cannot, simply cannot, enter the Kingdom of Heaven, because in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, he must carry Paradise in his soul.

  And yet, as you see, even while I was speaking, I began to grow angry. A bubble of irritation rose up, revealing some rottenness underneath. That is the great test
of Love: knowing that, however hard we try, we almost never achieve the necessary peace for Love to flourish. See how the most hidden parts of the soul surface as soon as we lower our guard. And so, suddenly, while preaching generosity, humility, patience, courtesy and unselfishness, temper flared.

  I fell into the vice of all those who speak of virtue: intolerance.

  You see, it is not enough merely to speak of these ideas or to struggle with them. We have to seek out their hiding place, to change our innermost nature. Then all feelings of anger will die of their own accord. Then our souls will grow gentler, not because we took out aggression, but because we put in Love.

  God is Love, a Love which, as it penetrates us, sweetens, purifies and transforms everything. It drives out all error, it renews, regenerates and rebuilds the inner man.

  Will-power alone cannot transform you.

  Love can.

  Therefore, let Love in. Remember: this is a matter of life and death. There is no point my standing here and talking about Love if I am incapable of Love myself. ‘Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.’

  That is to say, it is better not to live than not to love.

  It is better not to live than not to love.

  * * *

  Let us speak a little about guilelessness and sincerity. The people who influence and touch us most deeply are those who believe what we say.

  Suspicion makes people shrivel up.

  Faced by guilelessness, however, we grow and expand. We find courage and friendship beside those who believe in us.

  Those who understand us can transform us.

  It is good to know that there are still people who think no evil, because they know the importance of the good they are doing. Those people grow in the eyes of men and of God. They are unafraid of envy or indifference because Love ‘thinketh no evil’, always looks on the bright side, always looks for the positive in every action.

  And again, he who loves wins, even though he sought no reward. How marvellous to live always in the light! What a stimulus, what a blessing to spend an entire day without once thinking evil!

  To be trusted is to be very close to Love. And we will only achieve that if we trust in other people. The little harm that others can do us because of our guilelessness is as nothing compared to our joy in the face of life. There will no longer be any need to wear heavy armour, bulky shields and dangerous weapons. Guilelessness will protect us.

  We can only help someone if we trust him. If we respect others, we will recover our self-respect.

  If we believe that someone can improve and that person feels we consider him to be our equal, he will hear our words and believe he can be a better person.

  * * *

  Love ‘does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth’. I called this ingredient sincerity.

  He who loves will love Truth as much as he loves his fellow man. He will rejoice in the Truth, but not in what he was taught to believe.

  Not in the truth of doctrines.

  Not in the truth of churches.

  Not in this ‘ism’ or that ‘ism’.

  He will rejoice in the Truth. He will seek the Truth with a humble, unbiased mind and will be contented with what he finds.

  Perhaps the word sincerity is not the best one to describe that quality of Love, but I cannot come up with a better one.

  I am not talking about the kind of sincerity that humiliates someone else, that pounces on other people’s mistakes in order to show how good we are. Real Love does not consist in exposing other people’s weaknesses, but in accepting everything and rejoicing to see that things are better than people said they were.

  So much for the analysis of Love. Now we have to try and fit all those ingredients into our characters.

  That should be our objective in the world: learning to love.

  Life offers us endless opportunities to learn how to love. Every man and every woman, every day of their lives, has ample opportunity to give themselves to Love. Life is not a holiday, but an education.

  And the most important lesson we can learn is how to love.

  How to love better.

  What makes someone a great artist, a great writer or a great musician?

  Practice.

  What makes someone a great man or woman?

  Practice. Nothing else.

  Spiritual growth applies the same laws used by body and soul. If you don’t exercise your arms, you will never develop your biceps. If you don’t exercise your soul, you will never develop strength of character or beauty of spiritual growth.

  Love is not a brief moment of enthusiasm.

  Love is the rich, strong, generous expression of our being – character in its fullest sense. And to build that requires constant practice.

  What was Christ doing in the carpenter’s workshop?

  Practising.

  Even though he was perfect, we read that he learned obedience and thus grew in wisdom and in favour with God and men.

  Try to see the world as a great education in Love and do not quarrel with your lot in life. Do not complain because of your unending cares and anxieties, your mean surroundings, the small and sordid souls you are obliged to live with.

  That is God’s way of making you practise.

  And do not be alarmed by temptation or surprised because it is always there and never moves away, despite all your efforts and prayers. That is God’s way of putting your soul to work.

  All these things are teaching you to be patient, humble, generous, unselfish, kind and courteous. Do not push away the Hand that is shaping your image, because that Hand is also showing you your path.

  Be assured, you are growing more beautiful with each minute that passes – and although it may not seem like it, difficulties and temptations are God’s tools.

  Remember Goethe’s words: ‘Talent develops itself in solitude; character in the stream of life.’

  Talent develops itself in solitude, through prayer, faith, meditation and seeing the unseen.

  But character can only grow if we remain in the stream of life.

  Because it is in the world that we learn to love.

  I have named a few of the elements of Love as a way of helping us understand God and our fellow man.

  However, these are only elements. Love can never be defined.

  Light is more than the sum of its ingredients – it is something that glows and shines in space.

  And Love is much more than the sum of all its ingredients – it is something living, pulsating, divine.

  If we were to mix together all the colours of the rainbow, we would simply create the colour white - not light.

  In the same way, if we put together all the virtues we have talked about, we might become virtuous, but that doesn’t mean we would have learned to love.

  So how do we go about bringing Love into our hearts?

  We work our will hard in order to keep Love close.

  We try to copy those who have learned to love.

  We forget all the rules telling us what Love is, including everything I have said here.

  We pray.

  We watch.

  None of that, however, will make us love, because Love is an effect. And only when we know the cause will the effect be produced.

  Shall I tell you what that cause is?

  When we read the Revised Version of the First Epistle of John, we find these words:

  ‘We love because He first loved us.’

  That is what is written: ‘we love’ not ‘we love Him’, as it appeared in the earlier King James version.

  ‘We love because He first loved us.’ Notice that word because.

  That is the cause I mentioned.

  Because He first loved us, the effect – the consequence – is that we love too.

  We are all manifestations of Love.

  We love Him, we love ou
rselves, we love everyone.

  That is how it is. Our heart is slowly transformed. Consider the Love that is given to you and you will know how to love.

  You cannot force yourself – or anyone else – to love. All you can do is look at Love, fall in love with it and copy it.

  Love love. Remember the great sacrifice He made and, by loving Him, you will become like Him.

  Love begets Love.

  If you place a piece of iron close to a source of electricity it will, by a process of induction, become electrified. If you place it close to a magnet, it will become a magnet for as long as the other magnet is there.

  Remain close to Him who loved us and you will be magnetised by that Love.

  Anyone who seeks the cause will feel the effect.

  Try to free yourself from the idea that the spiritual search exists purely by chance or by caprice or because of our liking for mystery. It is there because of a natural or, rather, spiritual law, because it is a divine law.

  Edward Irving went to visit a dying boy. When he entered the room, he placed his hand on the boy’s head and said: ‘My boy, God loves you.’

  And he said nothing more. He just went away.

  The boy got out of bed and called to all the people in the house: ‘God loves me! God loves me!’ The change was extraordinary; the certainty that God loved him gave him strength and destroyed whatever was wrong with him and began his transformation.

  In the same way, Love melts any ill or evil in a man’s heart and transforms him into a new creature, patient, humble, generous, gentle, unselfish and sincere.

  There is no other way of loving, nor is there any mystery to it. We love others, we love ourselves, we love our enemies, because He first loved us.

  There is little more to add about Paul’s reasons for considering Love to be the Greatest Gift, except to analyse the most important reason, which can be summed up very briefly: