Books by Carlos G. Vallés
TREASURE YOUR LEISURE
The book explains the importance and the practice of leisure in our lives. The prevalent work ethic has taught us the importance and value of hard work as justification of our existence and of all the formation we ourselves have received from society and are in conscience obliged to return to it in service and help. This is right, but we have neglected the importance and value of leisure also in our lives for social communication, formation, rest, gathering of new strength for continued work. The right proportion of work and leisure is essential for a balanced life.
ISBN: 978-93-80066-94-3
SKETCHES OF GOD
How to let God be God
“Tell me your God, and I’ll tell you your life.” Our image of God accompanies us through our lives, giving us strength the more it approaches God in his infinite reality, and causing us anxiety when we blur that image with human prejudices. As we advance in life, so are we expected to advance also in our knowledge of God. Hindus in some parts of India shape clay images of God which they devotedly sink in the waters of the sea in yearly festival, while they shape a new image for the next year. They do it to remind us that our finite minds do not encompass all that the infinite God is, and we have to keep learning how to draw new “Sketches of God”.
Pags: 178
THE ART OF CHOOSING
Life at the Crossroads
Life is made up of decisions. That is why the art of choosing is the art of living. A wrong decision lives hidden scars in the soul, while a right decision opens to us highways of joy and growth. All masters of all times have taught us how to handle crossroads in life to better our journey. In India the art of discernment (viveka) has been a permanent tradition of sages and saints; and proficiency in the art won his name for one of the world figures of Hinduism in the last century: Swami Vivekanand, whose name means “The joy of discernment”. Inner balance, open mind, contact with reality and clear faith help our daily discernment. Time to reflect on “The art of Choosing”.
Pags: 135
PRAYING TOGETHER
Psalms for Contemplation
This is the book that has brought me most satisfaction in life. I studied the Psalms with the best classical and modern commentaries I found through my student’s years, I learned to use them as the heart of my prayer alone or with others, I saw how they fitted into the reality of life and into the crevices of the soul. I could identify the proper Psalm for the proper moment with flicking a page. A rain during a common prayer, a sudden sickness, a joy or a surprise in a friendly family. All that was covered by the inspired Psalms in their intimate dialogue with a living God. The Psalms are a “new song” in our lives, and this is the experience I have relived in this book.
Pags: 332
I LOVE YOU, I HATE YOU
The Dynamics of Human Relations
Relationships are life. The better we understand them, the better we can hope to live. And as life is complex, so relationships are also complex. So complex that the opposite feelings can coexist in the best of friendships, and puzzling situations can arise in the quietest home. To discover such situations and face those feelings can be deeply instructive and refreshingly practical. Psychologists speak of “love-hate relationships”. To realise their breadth and their importance is the means to improve our relationships and so to deepen the observance of the supreme commandment of love.
Pags: 158
COURAGE TO BE MYSELF
“Know Thyself” and Be Yourself
This is the most systematic of all my books. A kind of manual in three clear parts: Owning the Past, Taming the Future, Living the Present. Our energies are dispersed what with regretting the past and with worrying about the future. With the result that we miss the present. We forget the wisdom of the age-old commandment: Do what you do. The glory of God is man fully alive. Every man and woman is a unique creation of God, meant to give him glory by being fully, uniquely, differently the personal work of art God meant him or her to be. Thus my first duty as a person is to be myself, and to be so in the totality of God’s creative dream for me from an eternity of love.
Pags: 237
MY FRIENDS, THE SENSES
Theory and Practice of Organic Integration in the Life of the Spirit
For a long time we nave been calling our prayer life “spiritual life”. This is justifiable, but it is also dangerous as it tends to make us forget the fundamental role our body, our organism, our senses play in the life of the spirit. Many prayers could be straightened up and many hardships could be softened if we would learn to integrate our “material” existence into our long and generous – and often frustrating – “spiritual” effort. Silence, posture, gestures, breathing… help incarnate the strength of the spirit into the earthly realities of our day. The result is a larger horizon, a firmer foundation, and a more balanced attitude in the total surrender of the human person to God.
Pags: 264
MY LIFE IN SEVEN WORDS
Personal Glimpses
These seven words are: Transparency, credibility, creativity, intimacy, wonder, earth, yes! This is the book I have written in the shortest time in my whole life: six days for a book on seven words. It was the answer to the request of a wise publisher who suggested the idea; and the idea was so irresistible that on reading his letter, the seven words sprung by themselves in my mind, I went to the keyboard, and I sent him the typescript of the book together with my letter of acceptance of his proposal. Umashankar Joshi, poet and friend, used to say that publishers are benefactors of writers… because they prod them to write. Javier Cortes is certainly one such.
Pags: 118
I AM COLLECTING RAINBOWS
A Study in Self-Integration
“Each one of us is born as many, and dies as one”, said Heiddeger. The chapters of this book run through several of the “many” I have been, “I am my mother’s son”, “I am a writer”, “I am my ideas”, “I am my feelings”…, to end up with “I am I”. Along our lives we all go on combining and reconciling and bringing together all those strains that together make up our personality, till we weave them into the unique pattern our life turns out to be. It is important to recognise the variety of colours and lines and trends that we know we are, so that we ignore none of our riches and forget none of our shades. All are needed for the final picture.
Pags: 149
UNENCUMBERED BY BAGGAGE
Tony de Mello: A Prophet for Our Times
I had attended the last two-weeks course Tony de Mello had given in Lonavla, when two months later I received on the phone the sad news of his death. I literally went from the phone to the typewriter, and without any sketch or plane or old notes, I put on paper and sent to the press my living memories of the man who was and remains one of the most influential spiritual masters in our days. Surprisingly, no other book has been written to this day about him, not even a simple biography, and so this work continues to be, as it has been through all these years, the best available introduction to his truly remarkable life and work.
Pags: 184
TASTE AND SEE
Gifts and Fruits of the Spirit
The year 1998 was declared by the Pope “The Year of the Spirit” as a preparation for the new millennium, and the same year I happened to go to the country of Guatemala en Central America for a lecture tour. My happy surprise was to see that the Guatemala Bishops Conference had published a “Catechism for 1998” on the Holy Spirit…, and most of the pages were just taken from this book of mine, with due acknowledgement, of course. The Holy Spirit is God made person in our hearts today, and to understand lovingly the ways of his action in us is to revive our own Christian life in a world that needs more than ever the light and the warmth the Spirit brings with his presence.
Pags: 214
AND THE BUTTERFLY SAID…
Ecological Meditations
I allow myself to have favourites among my own books, and this is one of them. Also its publisher chose it when asked which book he himself preferred from among the several hundred books he had published that year. This is a book of ecological experiences from the Andes to the Himalayas, and from Zen to aboriginal traditions. How long is it since you last saw a butterfly in full flight. The butterfly is ecology’s ambassador to earth, and she has warned us. The butterfly said: “I told you. I go, and will not come again if your earth is not green. You will se me no more.” Her message shakes us into ecological awareness, the virtue of our day.
Pags: 259
MORE ABUNDANTLY
Christian Life to the Full
The best way to prevent disease is to improve one’s general state of health. This is true of our bodily life, as it is of our spiritual life, our prayer life, our religious life. We seek renovation in courses and meetings and seminars, and all that helps in the noble endeavour of updating the Gospel in our lives and bringing it to all those around us; but if all these efforts are to bear fruit, the basic condition is that we raise the level of the life that God gives us in Jesus to share it with all men and women in the world. That was Jesus’ mission: “I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” The gospel of spiritual vitality.
Pags: 200
DO NOT FEAR!
An Analysis of the Worst of Emotions
When the angels announced the coming of Jesus to the shepherds of Bethlehem, their first words were, “Do not fear!”; and when they brought to the women in Jerusalem the news of the Resurrection of Jesus, they began again, “Do not fear”. It would seem that the message that Jesus comes to bring to men and women with his presence on earth and his death on the cross is the abolishing of fear from our hearts. And it would also seem that the message goes largely unheeded, as the angels had to repeat at the end what they had said at the beginning. The last lesson in the angelic manual for humanity’s salvation is the same as the first: “Do not fear!”
Pags: 188
FAITH FOR JUSTICE
Liberation through Faith
Faith is the measure of a man’s life. “Woman, great is your faith!”, were about the most beautiful words ever to come from the lips of Christ. To hear one day a similar praise from him is the prayerful hope of our best efforts and fondest dreams. Faith-building, in ourselves and in all we reach with our lives, is our main task while here on earth. Faith is here contemplated in its great biblical models: Abraham, Moses, John the Baptist, Paul, and is then analysed in the personal experiences we all have gratefully lived day by day, which are given their full importance in the light of our personal growth for the service of all.
Pags: 175
TALES OF THE CITY OF GOD
Wisdom Stories of All Peoples
This is a book of stories, or, as I prefer to call them, “wisdom stories”. They are stories, because they entertain us with their wit and informality, and they are wisdom stories, because each of them contains a small seed of hidden reflection which can makes us think and reflect on the deep things of life and existence. We learn while we enjoy. The story tells everything while it says nothing, opens windows without forcing us to look through them, mentions nobody while it means all humans, makes us smile while inside we ponder. That is the art of the Orient, the gentle invitation to wisdom and love with the formula: “He who has ears to hear with, let him hear.”
Pags: 211
LIVING TOGETHER
A Handbook for Community Living
This is the first book I wrote in English… after having written about seventy-five books in Gujarati. I gave a course of lectures to the Jesuit staff of the Loyola College in Hyderabad about group living with all its blessings and its challenges, and the vigilant publisher of Gujarat Sahitya Prakash and personal friend, Javier Diaz del Rio, urged me to work those lectures into a book. I did, and the result was this book, which launched me into a career of writing in English, and later in Spanish via English. The book is a help to any group of persons who live together and want to enhance their personal value and their professional worth with the help of their companions.
Pags: 119
ANGELS IN MY LIFE
Dialogues with Wings
I talk a lot with my Guardian Angel – as all my friends know – and I’ve told here – with his permission, of course – some of his interventions in my life, his pranks, his humour and his wisdom. “Put an angel in your life” is the practical advice to get guidance in perplexities, strength in trials and friendly companionship always. This book on “Angels in our Lives” can bring joy and cheer to all those who well can do with a healthy sense of humour and an innocent faith in our troubled days. Guardian Angels are not only for children. In the book, I’m most happy to introduce my Angel to you. Meet my Angel.
Pags: 164
HAPPY NEW CENTURY!
The Millennium of Hope
What will be the impact of Internet on the Church? How will digital language affect all languages? What will religious life in the next century be like? How will the institution of marriage evolve? What will become of humankind’s sense of guilt in the new millennium? What are the prospects for a solution to the problem of drugs? What are the hopes for ending international terrorism? How shall we be treated in sickness and accompanied in death in the future? Nobody knows the answer to these questions, but the courage to pose them is the first step towards the wisdom to answer them. Welcome to The Millennium of Hope.
Pags: 265
WE HAVE SEEN THE LORD!
Experience of God in daily life
To speak of God not out of books but out of experience is the need of the day. To bring ancient teachings into present relevance is the challenge we are called to meet. “Give me the Goodnews in the present tense” is the cry of the young religious person today – and the task of all of us to update our practice and to enliven our faith so as to satisfy that legitimate and heartfelt demand. In this book, testimonies of daily life, experiences of great personas and of simple individuals, young witnesses and traditional scenes are brought to bear on the living reality that God is in himself and wants to be in our lives.
Pags: 159 | ISBN: 81-87886-02-1
PILGRIM AMONG HINDUS
A Cultural Adventure
This book is the story of a Catholic priest living as a member of Hindu families in heartfelt harmony on both sides. That way of life was undertaken with a view to achieve closeness, intimacy, and mutual understanding with people of a quite different language, culture and religion, and it did much good to all those who too, part in that happy adventure. Housewives, children, religious feasts, weddings, strikes, police curfew, births and deaths are chronicled with the closeness of the eye-witness and the open heart of a member of the family. In our days of inter-cultural strain, this book can be a witness of hope and a guide of understanding for a new humankind.
Pags: 198
IN PRAISE OF DAILY LIFE
Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread, and we carry out his divine injunction by living in practice our daily life day by day as it comes to us from his hands.
A poet’s favourite prayer was, “Oh dawn, cleanse me from all that stuck to me yesterday” Let today be only today!”
Examples, experiences and considerations set out in this book help us to realise in our lives what we yearn for in our minds, which is the proper and happy use of every day on our life and every moment in our day throughout the daily life that is our existence on earth.
A poet’s favourite prayer was, “Oh dawn, cleanse me from all that stuck to me yesterday” Let today be only today!”
Examples, experiences and considerations set out in this book help us to realise in our lives what we yearn for in our minds, which is the proper and happy use of every day on our life and every moment in our day throughout the daily life that is our existence on earth.
Pags: 159 | ISBN: 81-87886-51-x
WHY DO I SUFFER WHEN I SUFFER?
Suffering is universal, but the way we react to it is strictly personal. And our own welfare depends on it. Most of the time we cannot change the circumstances that lead to pain, but we certainly can change the way we accept or refuse the pain, we can choose between rebelling against it on one hand, or learning how to integrate it in the web of life on the other.
This book proceeds through healthy psychology and commonsense wisdom, and combines the experience of sages with the teachings of the Scriptures to help us recover the joy that should always be ours in the midst of a world that needs it more than ever.
Date of Publication: June 2003
Editorial: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash
ISBN: 81-87886-69-2
OUR LADY OF JOY
This book rescues a feature that is almost forgotten in the life of Mary, that is the joy that marked her life in the angel’s greeting, in her own canticle of the Magnificat, in her dance at a wedding feat in Cana of Galilee, in her first and privileged encounter with the risen Christ. We learn to tell her joyfully, “Rejoice, Queen of Heaven!”, and to rejoice with her in our hearts.
Date of Publication: September 2004
Gujarat Sahitya Prakash
ISBN: 81-87886-83-8
THE TRUE DIAMOND
Jesus spoke in parables. The brief description, the quick image, the flight of fancy, the open-ended story. So that those who want to hear may hear, and those who want to understand may understand. This is the role of the wisdom story in the East. The Buddha was asked: ‘You have ten thousand disciples. How many of them have attained enlightenment?’ He answered: ‘All of them. But they don’t know it.’ It’s time we knew.
ISBN: 818788697-8
CHRISTIAN SELF-ESTEEM
“You are precious in my sight”, says the Lord. Am I precious in my own sight too? John called himself “the beloved disciple”. Paul asserted, “He loved me.” Do I feel loved? Do I sense that when I say to a friend “pray for me”, what I am in reality saying is “love me”?
We can find out to our advantage why scripture calls us “saints”, why sex has come to dominate the moral scene, why the Council of Orleans decreed that the sacrament of reconciliation cold be received only after 35 years of age, why an aboriginal language in Africa has no word to say “guilty”. And we may like to join in spirit a prayer group of Sounth American Catholics who have their own home version of the Hail Mary.
We can find out to our advantage why scripture calls us “saints”, why sex has come to dominate the moral scene, why the Council of Orleans decreed that the sacrament of reconciliation cold be received only after 35 years of age, why an aboriginal language in Africa has no word to say “guilty”. And we may like to join in spirit a prayer group of Sounth American Catholics who have their own home version of the Hail Mary.
ISBN: 818931712-1
DISCOVER YOUR RHYTHMS
To Improve Your Life
Life is full of rhythms and it is important to feel them in order to benefit by them. Day and night, summer and winter, heartbeat and breathing, exultation and depression…, all those are rhythms built into our bodies and our souls; they rule our life for us and with us, often without our realising it. Why are we one day joyful and another sad without a special cause? To discover and to ride the rhythms of life is the secret to enjoy it. And the secret to harmonise with the rhythms and the lives of all people around us too. Let us all dance together.
ISBN: 978-81-89317-53-9
TWO COUNTRIES, ONE LIFE
Encounter of cultures
Emigration is the problem of our times. The first-generation immigrant faces the dificulties of a beginner, but they know who they are, and climb fast in their new circumstances. The second-generation immigrant has been born in a new country and wants to be taken just as any other native of the country, though they don’t quite succeed in it. This creates tension and confusion. Terrorist attacks that have shaken the world have taken place at the hands of second-generation immigrants. This is significant. On the other hand, this very double belonging to two cultures can broaden horizons and enrich life. Two lives in one with all their richness and their blessings. It is in our hands to avoid the threat and to invite the blessing. This is the purpose of this book.
ISBN: 973-93-8006-04-2
NINE NIGHTS IN INDIA
“It was on the first day of Navratri that I landed in India. The first night, I am not referring to my first arrival many years before, but to the recent call I now got from my friends there. I had retired back to Spain after fifty years in India, and now on this occasion they had called me from Ahmedabad for a formal farewell form the city and the friends and the land that had been mine for so many years and continued to be so in my heart. I readily agreed. I myself had missed such a farewell. After my retirement form teaching at St Xavier´s College I had come out to Spain only for a time to take care of my mother who, on turning 90 and being alone, had called me to take care of her. I went to Spain to keep her company, always with the idea of returning to India in the end. My mother must have been rejuvenated with my presence by her side because she happily lived to be 101, and by them my field of work had shifted to Spain. I stayed, and the years went by. So now, when the opportunity arose and the invitation came, I welcomed the idea of coming for a visit back to Gujarat where I would hug friends, make apeeches, neck garlands, record the event in my web site, and formally close the best chapter of my life….” (Abstract from the book)
ISBN: 978-93-80066-24-0
GANDHI
The alternative to violence
I wrote this book in India, in Gujarati which is one of the main languages of India in the year of Gandhi’s centenary (1969). He was precisely a native of that state, Gujarat, in it was in Gujarati that he wrote his autobiography (A story of my experiments with truth) which his secretary, Mahadev Desai, translated into English from where it went to all the languages of the world. Now I’ve translated my own book into English. Gandhi’s teaching and example on non-violence, sealed with his own death, are more and more necessary with the increase of violence in our days: terrorism, wars far and close. More intimately, they help us to subdue the seeds of violence we all bear within us: ill temper, anger, secret hate. We all need Gandhi close to us.
This book in its Gujarati original received the first price of the Indian government for Gujarati literature in 1969.
ISBN: 978-81-7229-445-8