The Alchemist within Us

When the boy gets the vision of an army attacking the oasis in desert, he goes and tells the camel driver about it. The camel driver tells him in what circumstances God would allow him to see the future:

"Only when he, himself, reveals it. And God only rarely reveals the future. When he does so, it is for only one reason: it's a future that was written so as to be altered."

This made me think, how in life sometimes we are put in situation where others make decisions for us. Sometimes we feel so helpless in the situation we are in and end up listening to our hearts or may be someone we trust or we think we trust.

Another interesting quote that I liked was by the alchemist himself. When the boy is so afraid to leave to oasis because he thinks the woman he loved at the oasis was the treasure that he had been looking for. Or at least she was bigger treasure in his view than any other treasure hidden at the pyramids. He tells the alchemist that his heart was afraid that it will have to suffer. To which the alchemist replies:

"Tell you 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."

At another instance, when the boy finally manages to talk to his heart:

“Everyone on each has a treasure that awaits him. We, people’s hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, toward its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them – the path to their Personal Legends, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place, and because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.”

How so very true! We are so afraid to take risks we forget to see the world as bigger place than what our minds think it to be. If we actually think about it, it’s only the initiative that is difficult, once we are on the way, the path to pursue the dream becomes much easier and we have to be prepared for that final test, that tests us for everything we have learned in the path of life. As the alchemist says:

“Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every search ends with the victor’s being severely tested.”

A friend once said to me, what doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger. And then it’s that darkest hour of the day, tell yourself, this too shall pass.

And finally the wise one says: “When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.”