Café de Flore

By Karina Khubchand

Addressing the escalating global issue of mental health and suicide, Café de Flore is a serious book that provides inspiration and relief to those caught in the net of despair. Identifying the critical error made by mankind over the centuries. Café de Flore points towards an escape from the madness of the human condition.

An easily digestible form of philosophy, written with graceful authority, the book takes the reader on a journey that captures the sublime messages contained in the wreck of literature, poetry and prose.

Dostoevsky once said: “It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.” What more does it take?

Encouraging the world to stop thinking, to entertain a degree of madness, to live with passion and to laugh more. This book provides a fresh perspective on the perceived struggles and difficulties we find ourselves trapped in, in this sad and lonely world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398415584

Karina Khubchand

Born in Gibraltar, Karina Khubchand is a barrister by profession. She was educated at Prior Park College in Bath, Manchester Metropolitan University and the Council of Legal Education in London. Karina is a Crown Counsel, employed full-time by Her Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar. After a brief period in private practice, she joined Her Majesty’s Attorney General’s Chambers in Gibraltar, where she practised as a criminal prosecutor, developing specialist interest in anti-money laundering and international cooperation. After 11 years, she was transferred to the European Union and International department, where she was assigned to lead the international division on mutual legal assistance and extradition. In 2014, Karina was seconded to the Gibraltar Care Agency and was thereafter designated Crown Counsel to the Ministry of Equality and Housing in Gibraltar. In 2019, Karina decided to take a career break from full-time employment to focus on her personal soul growth journey. She has since successfully completed the MSEC Foundation Course in Metaphysics and Spiritual Studies at the Metaphysical Society for the Expansion of Consciousness.

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About the Author

Born in Gibraltar, Karina Khubchand is a barrister by profession. She was educated at Prior Park College in Bath, Manchester Metropolitan University and the Council of Legal Education in London.

Karina is a Crown Counsel, employed full-time by Her Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar. After a brief period in private practice, she joined Her Majesty’s Attorney General’s Chambers in Gibraltar, where she practised as a criminal prosecutor, developing specialist interest in anti-money laundering and international cooperation. After 11 years, she was transferred to the European Union and International department, where she was assigned to lead the international division on mutual legal assistance and extradition. In 2014, Karina was seconded to the Gibraltar Care Agency and was thereafter designated Crown Counsel to the Ministry of Equality and Housing in Gibraltar. In 2019, Karina decided to take a career break from full-time employment to focus on her personal soul growth journey. She has since successfully completed the MSEC Foundation Course in Metaphysics and Spiritual Studies at the Metaphysical Society for the Expansion of Consciousness.

Dedication

To Mum and Dad.

It is impossible to thank you adequately for everything you have done for me.

If karma has anything to do with my journey in this lifetime, then I must have a pretty unique account.

Few that I know are blessed with a dual parental energy that is both dynamic and magnanimous in nature and authoritarian and disciplinarian in loving nurture. I could not have asked for two greater pillars of support than the two of you. Your crowned spirits have touched my life with a humility, warmth and generosity that have no equal in this world. Your love has nourished and sustained me for longer than I can remember.

Thank you both for giving me the strength to reach for the stars and chase my dreams.

Copyright Information ©

Karina Khubchand 2023

The right of Karina Khubchand to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528978200 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398415577 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398415584 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I could not have written this book had it not been for the unfailing support of Nick McAuliffe whose encouragement and inspiration kept me going during my own moments of doubt. I came to depend on him for emotional and spiritual support throughout the birthing of this book. He is my personal Earth angel. I can never thank him enough. An extra special thank you to my beautiful sister and best friend, Kalpana Samtani, for her unconditional love and support in every aspect of my life and for her faith in me and in this project. Even though we live miles apart, she is my exclusive 24-hour lifeline. I love you. I also have to say a huge, and I mean really huge, thank you to my extra special brother, Kamlesh Khubchand. He is an extraordinary blessing from grace. Kamlesh encouraged me to follow my dreams and always listened to many of my non-conformist ideas with great interest and zeal. He read the first edition of this book at least three times and went on to successfully market it in Gibraltar, selling out all printed copies. Thank you, thank you, thank you to my precious twin nieces Karizma and Karenza Daswani who so willingly and generously gave up a small part of their summer holidays to do the final proofreading of this book for me, and that too within a very tightly defined time-scale. I love you both and I'm pleased you found inspiration in the assignment. My thanks and appreciation also go out to Levi Attias who took precious time out of his busy life to read the first drafts of this book and provided valuable insight. A warm thanks also goes to Roy Clinton, Ajay Nayar, Paul Blagden, and Rahul Jain for their contribution to this book. Thank you also to my nephew-in-law, Ananda B. Pandit (married to my adorable niece Sakshi Samtani), and to his colleague, Tamara Crasto, at AmberLab in Mumbai, India, for the beautiful design for the cover of this book. You were very patient with my ideas and produced a better design than I had imagined. I would also like to thank A.R and Jocelyn Risso, both of whom I have never met. They found me online and surprised me with their appreciation and personal resonance of the message in this book. Of course, I cannot forget my friends Johanna Gardner, Vinay (Vince) Thadani, and Adrian van Loon, as well as all the other readers of the first edition of this book who reached out to me personally to thank me for the inspiration, guidance, and knowledge they found in this book. The positive feedback I received from almost every reader known and unknown was the catalyst that encouraged me to publish this second edition. Finally, a big thank you to Austin Macauley Publishers Limited for acknowledging there was a crying need for this book to be reborn as we collectively navigate through troubling times towards our new beginning and emerge towards the light.

There is no more time to waste.

Think about it…

Screenshot 2023-01-16 094829

These are questions which most of us are being forced to ask ourselves.

2020 will forevermore be hailed as a landmark year for the beginning of the evolution of humanity towards spiritual consciousness. As we bear witness day after day, minute after minute, second after second to news of the spread and risk of the coronavirus, we can no longer escape even a sneaky peek into discovering answers about the True Reality. We can no longer avoid facing up to the fragility of life as we know it. We are mere observers at a time in history. The old paradigm of complacency is crumbling. Old structures and belief systems are collapsing. We are individually and collectively being forced into an awakening of the self. We are going through a rebirth. Energetic shifts in the planet are lifting the veil of illusion, so that we can ask ourselves…what really matters? What is life all about.

When you see how swiftly the sand in your hourglass is running out and acknowledge the faintness in the enigmatic promise of tomorrow, you will be overcome by a heady scent and will quickly wake up to this one truth:

Wisdom, above all else, is what truly matters. The days are long gone when wisdom was reserved for old age by which stage it was too late to be put to good use. Instead of anxiously anticipating tears of regret you can, if you choose, fall madly in love with wisdom right now.

When you are fully aware and present in the sweetness of each moment, your every action will unfold into the delicious, refreshing and enriching experience that life, however short, is meant to be.

The words expressed in this book provide an insight into escaping the madness of the human condition.

"Man was born to be free, to dwell in liberty.

He was not born to be a slave, bound and fettered. His life should be full of richness, the richness of mind and body and spirit. All knowledge should be open to him, all truth, all wisdom, all aspiration.

He should dwell in the splendour of the spirit with none of the cramping, irksome, vexatious restrictions imposed upon him by those who would deny his heritage and thwart his destiny.

The power of the spirit is the power of life.

The reason why there is life is because spirit is there. The power that fashioned the whole universe, majestic, though it is and stupendously vast, is the same power which enables you to exist here and hereafter for all time.

The power that enables you to think, to care, to judge, to reflect, to decide, to weigh, to ponder, to be inspired, to reach the heights and depths of the whole gamut of human feelings – that power is the Spirit."

‒ Silver Birch¹

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¹ Silver Birch, spirit guide who passed on over 3,000 years ago. He channelled his wisdom through Maurice Barbanell, 1902–1981, founder and editor of a weekly spiritualist newspaper Psychic News.↩︎

Introduction

Enlightenment at the Café De Flore

We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

‒ Marcel Proust²

My first visit to Café de Flore in Paris was in the spring of 1988. I was a student of French Literature.

Standing in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, at the corner of Boulevard Saint Germain and Rue Saint Benoit, I knew I had never been there before and yet, from the moment I walked inside, I had the strangest feeling of déjà vu.

I ordered a café crème and a pain au chocolat. I sat on one of the round sidewalk tables in awe for what seemed like hours. The café had that ‘je ne sais quoi’ feel to it, almost as if a magical allure from the past still lingered in the air. I felt a surge of excitement run through my body, like a sudden intuition, as I kept thinking to myself, This is where it all happened. This is the cradle of the French Existentialist Movement!

What can only be described as unseasoned innocence made my visit to Café de Flore, a momentous occasion. I was intrigued beyond words by the simple thought that renowned intellectuals like Jean-Paul Sartre³ and Albert Camus⁴ had sat there, in that very same café, pondering over the perplexities of life and the human condition.

Sparked by this thought, I quietly considered the multitude of thoughts that had been given birth to in that extraordinary corner café in Paris. Once the philosophical nucleus of the world, Café de Flore was a magnet for the most influential artists, poets, writers and philosophers of yesterday.

Interestingly, ‘Flore’ is the French word for Flora, which originates from the Latin language. In Roman mythology, Flora was the goddess of flowers. She was associated with the spring season and the renewal of the cycle of life. It is hardly surprising to learn that it was at Café de Flore that seeds were sown, grown and harvested.

As a fountain of inspiration burst forth, drops of ink spilt onto paper and petals of the heart flourished excavating a plethora of literary and cultural gems.

Silently watching the world pass me by, I wondered about life, about the meaning of it all. Everything seemed so pointless. The struggles people go through, the drama, the pain and suffering in the world. The longing hope of a more promising tomorrow that, for whatever reason, never quite seemed to arrive. Life was a constant striving for something else, a blind chase towards…well, yes, that is what I privately asked myself.

And for what? At some point, when we least expect it, we will be summoned to the departure lounge, the gate number will be flashing, the flight will take-off and just like that, we will never be seen again. I struggled to understand why man’s search for meaning was so elusive.

And then, like a high explosive symphony it came to me. It was an orchestral repertoire playing in my mind. From the joyful awakening of the emotions, the piece gradually built itself up towards the most perfect and violent thunderstorm before finally giving way again to joyful and serene calm. Above the frenzied crescendo, I understood at that moment the value of melancholy and sadness. I realised, for the first time in my life, that it is only through experiencing profound darkness that one is able to welcome and truly appreciate the light. The human experience was about finding that balance and what was essential was to never forfeit the burning desire for love, goodness, beauty, truth, and justice. The entirety of life was a journey in search of illumination.

In the lucidity of that moment, I surreptitiously winked at life. For, as elusive as she may be, there was one thing that mattered as much as, if not more than, discovering her actual meaning, something without which would dissolve the very essence of living and being alive. That one thing was faith! Faith, that there was a greater reality invisible to the human eye. Inside my heart, I knew then, the answers I sought would emerge in the fullness of time.

I took off my sunglasses, folded them and placed them on the table. I looked up at the sky, took a deep breath and inhaled the experience of my inner world. No message came whispering on that afternoon breeze. Instead, I was overcome by a soothing stillness that caressed my entire being with the sweetness of falling in love for the first time. As I exhaled, I surrendered to the moment and at that moment, I could have sworn that life was winking back at me.

That is the memory I hold onto of my first trip to Paris: an afternoon of indescribable serenity at Café de Flore!

What else of Paris? Renowned as the great city of love you only need to hear the word ‘Paris’ and thoughts of flowers, romance, art, and literature immediately spring to mind. There is a certain nostalgia about Paris that is capable of evoking memories of a distant forgotten past. I am not quite sure if it is the ambience of casualness that can be felt whilst ambling through her streets or the magnificent culture of the city, but underlying the mystery, a poetic charm defines her character.

The one thing that impresses upon me the most is the laissez-faire attitude to life and to the way other people go about theirs.

‘Laissez-faire’ as a philosophical concept is defined as ‘the practice or doctrine of non-interference in the affairs of others, especially with reference to individual conduct or freedom of action’.⁵

It is a strict adherence to the primary law of life that overrides all subsidiary laws: ‘Live and Let Live.’

That is the ultimate respect that can be afforded to any human being, animal or plant in the world. It requires a celebration of differences in the name of peaceful coexistence.

I chose the name Café de Flore as the title for this book because I want to create an atmosphere for my readers to think about their own lives. Like the independent thinkers who frequented the café, I want you to spend some time asking yourself whether the blood running in your veins counts for something.

The way I see it in its most simplistic form is this: when you go somewhere, you go for a reason. When you go to school, for instance, you go to learn the basic academic education required to enable you to secure a job in later years. Similarly, with college or university, you want to gain mastery in a particular field. If you go to see a doctor, there is a concerning health issue that you want to be remedied. If you go to the cinema, you go to watch a movie. And so on.

There is usually a reason behind any decision we make to go to a particular place. In the same way, there is a reason we were born and a reason we are alive. We are all here by choice. Having entered into a sacred contract with the life, we have agreed to come here for a specific purpose. The question, however, that always fails to provide a satisfactory answer is: what is that purpose?

We all have a