May You Be Forgotten – Spiritual Story by Paulo Coelho

At the Sceta monastery, the abbot Lucas gathered the monks for the sermon.

“May you never be remembered,” he said.

“What do you mean?” replied one of the brothers, “May our example not help those who might need it?”

“In the days when everything was just, no one paid attention to exemplary people,” answered the abbot. “Everyone gave their best, without pretensions, and so fulfilled their duty to their fellow men. They loved their neighbor because they understood that this was part of life, and they thought nothing of respecting a law of nature.

“They shared their possessions in order not to accumulate more than they could carry, since journeys last a lifetime. They lived together in freedom, giving and receiving, without demanding or blaming anything on others.

That is why their deeds were not handed down, and there is no story known about them.”

Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian author who has sold more than 100 million books, which include 14 short story collections and the novel “The Alchemist.” He has been a fan of the Internet since the early 1990s. He spends at least three hours a day online, writing e-mails back and forth with his readers and posting photos on Flickr, MySpace and a blog.

Coelho's online activities also include promoting pirated copies of his own books. Since 2005 he's been directing his readers to an online site where they can download his books, in languages from German to Japanese, for free. “I always thought that when, at the beginning of your career, you strive to be read, you can't change your mind later and become greedy about it.”