Book Description
"My heart hesitates that it will need to suffer," the boy informed the alchemist one night as they searched for at the moonless sky." Inform your heart that the fear of suffering is even worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever before suffered when it enters search of its dreams.".The Alchemist is the magical tale of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who longs to take a trip searching for a worldly treasure as lavish as any ever before discovered. From his home in Spain he journeys to the marketplaces of Tangiers and throughout the Egyptian desert to a fateful encounter with the alchemist.
The tale of the treasures Santiago discovers along the way teaches us, as a few tales have actually done, about the important knowledge of listening to our hearts, learning to check out the omens strewn along life's course, and, above all, following our dreams.
Every few decades a book is released that changes the lives of its readers forever. The Alchemist is such a book. With over a million and a half copies sold worldwide, The Alchemist has actually currently established itself as a modern-day classic, generally appreciated. Paulo Coelho's lovely fable, now offered in English for the first time, will enchant and motivate an even wider audience of readers for generations to come.
Amazon Review
Like the one-time bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Alchemist provides a simple fable, based on simple truths and puts it in an extremely one-of-a-kind situation. And though we may sniff a bestselling formula, it is definitely not a new one: even the ancient tribal storytellers knew that this is the most successful technique of captivating an audience while insinuating a lesson or two. Brazilian storyteller Paulo Coehlo presents Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who one night imagine a remote treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. And so he's off: leaving Spain to literally follow his dream.Along the way he fulfills many spiritual messengers, who come in simple types such as a camel motorist and a well-read Englishman. In one of the Englishman's books, Santiago first discovers about the alchemists-- men who believed that if a metal were heated up for long times, it would free itself of all its specific properties, and exactly what was left would be the "Soul of the Globe." Of course he does eventually meet an alchemist, and the occurring student-teacher relationship clarifies much of the boy's misdirected agenda, while also emboldening him to stay real to his dreams. "My heart hesitates that it will have to suffer," the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they search for at a moonless night.
"Tell your heart that the worry of suffering is even worse than the suffering itself," the alchemist replies. "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."-- Gail Hudson.
Reader's Review
I checked this book out from the collection, however I'm going to get a copy and re-read it at regular periods.
I review it over the course of one day, thought "nice fable" & started checking out an additional book when I completed this one. But I found that the lessons contained in this easy story of a shepherd boy finding treasure, will not be dismissed so quickly. They should have taken up residence in my subconscious and kicked up some dust, because my mind keeps returning to the lessons of the tale to find new and more subtle insights having actually formed.
These are lessons that all of us know in our hearts, but that we forget as we get wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of our material lives. Lessons about paying attention to our hearts and following our dreams. Lessons about residing in the moment, the short-term nature of possessions and the impression that we could even "have" something to begin with. Lessons about releasing ourselves from fear and about comprehending our lives as part of the energy of the Universe and comprehending that everything will exercise the way it was intended to. Lessons about relying on signs, understanding that our lives have a marvelous purpose which the forces of the Universe will conspire to help us fulfill that function. And the lesson that all of the fortunes and misfortunes we experience in life belong to our spiritual education, and that it's not the earthly "treasure" we seek that is necessary however the lessons found out while in pursuit of it.
If you like to deliberate the meaning of life, then let your mind and spirit mull over the lessons in this book. It's a quick and delightful read that will provide some new insights, or remind you of some old one's that you have actually forgotten.
