The Alchemist ...

...still haunting! I liked it in toto.. In fact it is not liking, it was a sort of self-identification. It was possibly because I didn't read many books or I happened to read that book when I was really ready to read something. Not exactly! The other books I came across didn't appeal me and I didn't even continue reading beyond a few pages.

...there is something that is very similar about the book and myself. Although I did not like the idea that I am similar to something that is just fiction, I have to admit that it is true! Dreams, Destiny, Universal language ...exactly my kind of stuff.

I cherish many sentences therein, but I don't have the patience to read it again, so I pick up those particular sentences I like and put them here, of course, with some concept classification. Habits die hard! A new kind of Content Indexing? Or perhaps very old...a concordance!


Dreams:
Dreams are the language of God p. 13

Whoever believes in dreams also knows how to interpret them p. 112

People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they will be unable to achieve them. P. 136-137 [I very much deserve my farm house dream. It might appear now that I may not achieve it at all. But I am waiting and watching for something to really happen! The Universe has to conspire to help me - the book says "When you want something , all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it" p. 23. I trust it. It happened to me thrice before.]

Never stop dreaming…follow the omens. P. 64

“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. p. [137 ?]

Why don’t people’s hearts tell them to continue to follow their dreams? ..Because that’s what makes a heart suffer most, and hearts don’t like to suffer p. 138

[There appears to be some contradiction in the above two sentences. Did I understand it right? But in experience, both are true. Suffering seems to be a continuum. We do suffer because of having dreams and at times, if not always, it is literally an encounter with God and with eternity. It is my form of worshiping God!]

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve the fear of failure. P. 149 [also the fear of Success. May be I wish that it remains a dream and do not want it to become a reality. The moment it becomes a reality, it ceases to be a dream. Not only that the charm is lost, it becomes a burden. Dreams should never become true? I didn't join my dream job with AME because I didn't want to shatter it with real world problems]

I am not wrong ... the following sentences in The Alchemist also say something similar. That is why I liked this book. It is in tune with me.

I am afraid that if my dream is realized, I ‘ll have no reason to go on living p. 57

He had worked for an entire year to make a dream come true, and that dream, minute by minute, was becoming less important. May be because that wasn’t really his dream .may be it is better to be like the crystal merchant: never to go to Mecca, and just go through life wanting to do so. P.66 [Is it true with my farm house dream? It is hurting! I still have hope. Better late than never!]


The desert is a capricious lady, and sometimes she drives men crazy – p. 74
Arms are as capricious as the desert, and if they are not used, the next time they might not function. P. 113 [!? earlier it is compared to a capricious lady?)
In the desert disobedience means death p. 74
But the desert is so huge and the horizon so distant, that they make a person feel small, and as if he should remain silent. P. 76 [I remembered watching the sea from the ship (from Bombay to Goa in 1986)and the very next sentence in the book was this..]
Whenever he saw the sea, or fire, he fell silent, impressed by their elemental force. P. 76
Once you get into the desert, there’s no going back, said the camel driver, “And, when you can’t go back, you have to worry only about the best way of moving forward. The rest is up to Allah, including the danger. – p. 81 [yeah! true with marriage and kids and partly with profession as well!]
Maybe God created the desert so that man could appreciate the date trees, he thought. P. 91
The dunes are changed by the wind, but the desert never changes. That’s the way it will be with our love for each other. P. 102 [I change flavors in Complan but never the complan, in good old days. But now it is Coffee - jars changed by offers]

Here and there, he found a shell, and realized that the desert, in remote times, had been a sea. P. 104

He had heard people speak of mirages, and had already seen some himself. They were desires that, because of their intensity, materialized over the sands of the desert. P. 105
This time the desert was safe, and it was the oasis that had become dangerous. P. 105
If I could, I’d write a huge encyclopedia just about the words luck and coincidence. It’s with those words that the universal language is written – p. 73 [Even I have tales to tell about luck and coincidence. I very much agree that the universal language is written with these words]

They believe that if they have to know, someone will tell them about it. It happened many times before. But this time the person is you. P. 109

When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I’ve discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve. P. 137

..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” p. 139

The boy remembered an old proverb from his country. It said that the darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn p. 139

Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time. (an Arab proverb) p. 164
Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it’s all written there. ..Maktub- p. 77
Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own. p. 16
When someone sees the same people every day,…they wind up becoming a part of that person’s life. And then they want the person to change. P. 16
People say strange things, the boy thought. Sometimes it is better to be with the sheep who don’t say anything. And better still to be alone with one’s books. They tell their incredible stories >at the time when you want to hear them. P. 20

Anyone who interferes with the destiny of another thing never will discover his own. P. 143

Simplicity:

It’s the simple things in life that are the most extra-ordinary; only wise men are able to understand them. P. 15

Master Work could be written simply on an emerald. But men began to reject simple things, and to write tracts, interpretations and philosophical studies. P. 133

When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed p. 141 [I don't know why I felt like putting this sentence under simplicity but somewhere I am convinced]

Incidents - dangerous and disastrous:

One day, the earth began to tremble, and the Nile overflowed its banks. It was something that I thought could happen only to others, never to me. P. 79 [I felt exactly the same way when earth trembled during Latur Earth quake and When we jumped out of the Burning Gautami Express]

All this happened between sunrise and sunset, the boy thought. He was feeling sorry for himself, and lamenting the fact that his life could have changed so suddenly and so drastically. – p. 41 [It reminded me of my Father's death. Everything was over in a single day! I have the same feeling whenever I see a road accident]