The Alchemist (By Paulo Coelho)

This is a story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure- With courage he gives up his sheep from his home in spain, meeting the wise old king who gave him Urim and Thummim the two stones, which were always a part of treasure for him, he journeys to the markets of Tangiers, makes a friend who turns out to be a robber and betrays him , but doesn’t give up hope when he is completely robed at first, tries to live out his destiny, and is very enthusiastic when he works with the merchant at the crystal shop. And then he is into the Egyptian desert, where a fateful encounter with the alchemist awaits him.

In the beginning of the book he is waiting for the merchants daughter, for a year when he was the shepherd, and finally in the end he is going back to Fatima, waiting for him in the desert, whom he had met when in search of the treasure…..

It teaches us to listen to our hearts, read omens on life’s path and above all to follow our dreams……

Some points worth remembering therein were:

1.The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.

2. Now I’m sad and alone. I’m going to become bitter and distrustful of people because one person betrayed me. I’m going to hate those who have found their treasure because I never found mine.

3. “Maktub” Arab word, it would mean be something like ‘it is written.’ Words of Allah: People need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want.

4.When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream. When you want something with all your heart, that’s when you are closest to the soul of the World. It’s always a positive force. Everything on earth is being continuously transformed, because the earth is alive….and it has a soul. We are part of that soul, so we rarely recognize that it is working for us.

5.There was a language in the world that everyone understood, the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.
Whoever understands soul, can also understand the language of things.
Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the language of the world.
Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the soul or the world, and it will one day return there.
Everything has its destiny, but one day that destiny will be realized. So each thing has to transform itself into something better, and to acquire a new destiny, until, someday, the soul of the world becomes one thing only.

6.Love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it’s because it wasn’t true love…the love that speaks the Language of the World.’
Its not love to be static like the desert, nor is it love to roam the world like the wind. And its not love to see everything from a distance. Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the world. It is not perfect, but like other aspects of creation, has its own passions and wars. The world we live in will be better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that’s where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.

7.We are afraid of losing what we have, whether its our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and history of the world were written by the same hand.

8. Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.

9. Before a dream is realized, the soul of the world tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon’. As the old proverb: ‘The darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn.’

10. When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.

11. Even the Suns wisdom has its own limitations. The wind cannot help us always. The desert, the wind, and the sun were also trying to understand the signs written by the hand, and were seeking to follow their paths, and to understand what had been written on a single emerald. Prayer has got strength; the Soul of God is our own soul. And that, a boy could perform miracles.

12. Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.

13. No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn’t know it.

It was my old roomee, Shanthi, who inspired to read this book, told me about the Merchant who worked hard to go to Mecca, and when he had enough, did not go, thinking once he goes, there would be no other purpose or goal left in his life.

A good one, worth reading. …………