Power in Simplicity

“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.

“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.”

- The Alchemist

A very good friend of mine, from JC, had presented to me the book The Alchemist for my birthday. That was in 2001. I had barely gotten past page 4 when I just couldn’t find the time to read it (unknown to this friend, but I’m sure she knows it now). So it just lay there, waiting for me for the last 7 years.

The book’s major premise is that what’s important is not the destination – it’s probably right under your feet – it’s really the journey. And in the journey one might find the most obscurest thing, but it might be the thing that changes your life forever.

I’ve never felt like reading the Alchemist – for reasons I don’t know. It’s not because it’s a bad book. My dear old friend has an excellent knack for gifts and she had chosen an international bestseller (no less) to present to one of her best friends. I’ve read in many articles that it is an acclaimed book. But I just couldn’t find time to read it. Perhaps it was my mistaken view that non-fiction books are more a worthwhile read than fiction.

Until… last week. For a while I’ve been undergoing a spiritual ebb. I’ve been reading many books familiar to me, but they are all too familiar to me. I know what they will say. They cover the same things I know, what I ought to know. But I was looking for something new, something fresh. Something that would appeal to something more than my mind.

The Alchemist spoke in very simple, but powerful language. I believe it would have given a different effect if read in another time or state of mind. Just like in the book where omens are shown at the appropriate times, I was brought to read this book not when first presented to me, but after 7 years, when it was the right time.

Among the many things that I got from the book, it was the very important fact that to worry about pain to come, is worse than the pain itself. What a simple yet true thing.

And of course, the journey towards the destination is always more important, and more meaningful, as my friend the Hoopoe always says. The Alchemist’s story says this in a powerful, yet simple and poetic way. I may not know the multitudes of other subtler messages that lie under the seemingly simple language, but what little I got from the book is enough for me for now.

Shining Light

Of late, I'd been feeling that I had lost track of who I was, what I stood for, and why I was here in the first place. Like what DJ says in Rang de Basanti: in university, I felt like somebody - but in the working world, I felt as though I was lost among the sea of the clueless, the nameless, and the faceless.

Although I seemed to be doing very well at work, I felt that I was beginning to lose control of my life. Many conflicting thoughts entered and exited my head, and I was not that cool-headed chap I had known myself to be. Sometimes, I would feel nervous, and anxious, worried. About exactly what, I had no clue.

But surrounding me, there are wonderful people to keep me sane. My wife is an amazing pillar in my life, and totally indispensible, maasha Allah. My parents and inlaws, always there to invite us over for food, food and more food. My friend, the Hoopoe, who's always around for lunch at work and sometimes for Friday prayers, is there to recite a few verses of Khalil Gibran's The Prophet or some weird English song that he like to post on his blog to reassure me that Reality is something more beautiful and meaningful that our small minds sometimes like to think. Then there are all my other friends whom I'd love to meet on a regular basis but I just seem to let Other Things get the better of me. Insha Allah I hope to get some priorities right in the coming weeks.

Today, during zuhr prayers, I prayed for light to enter my heart, and for wisdom to penetrate my mind, and for my soul to come nearer to Him, such that He protects me, and envelopes me, and keeps the big picture in my head. For He is the Source, and to Him we will all return.