Last week I was called to revisit a classic read, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.  I had been enthralled with Coelho’s writings in the early 2000’s and had read most of his work.  I had actually picked up a new copy of the book hoping to entice one of my young seekers, but not yet. I tend to read a lot of nonfiction, so hunkering down with a wisdom steeped fiction was a real treat for me. 

I often dog ear book pages at the bottom when I am touched by the sentiments of the author.  So, there were several page turners in this beauty!   An overall theme that I found running through the main character ‘the boy’ was his keen sense of observation, of his self, others and the natural world.  He was also a quick learn when he was imparted wisdom and knowledge from the many teachers he encountered.  He was humble and accepting of others, always discerning what resonated with him.

  I really digress here, if you have not read this classic, please do, but a quick plot summary might be in order!  The boy is seeking treasure. The story begins in rural southern Spain where he is currently a shepherd. He loves this life, the animals and the land but he is seeking his ‘personal legend’ and treasure. He is led by omens that beckon him across the sea and across a continent to the pyramids of Egypt where he intuits that he will find his treasure.

The boy met an Englishman who studied alchemy primary through the study of books, the Englishman was seeking a master to take him to the next level also in Egypt.  He learned many things from the Englishman, most importantly that all knowledge cannot be found in books, the Englishman always had his head in a book even as he traveled the magical journey to Egypt.  Coelho says this of the boy and his observation of the Englishman:  The boy too had his book, and he tried to read the first few days of the journey.  But he found it much more interesting to observe the caravan and the sounds of the wind.  As soon as he had learned to know his camel better and to establish a relationship with him, he threw away his book.  Although the boy had developed a superstition that each time he opened the book he would learn something important, he decided it was an unnecessary burden.

This speaks to me a bit about my own personal journey and to human nature in general.   We often distrust our basic instincts and intuition.  We feel that there is always an expert that can guide up deeper to the self or we can become so enamored with knowledge that we do not fully live and interact with the world.  When I was a yoga teacher and teaching students to be teachers, there was this urge with students to seek more and more trainings to feel worthy, to be better equipped.  While there is some credence to this, we need to be careful of bowing too deeply to the ‘experts’, as they too are having a human experience.

  We teach and interact with the world from our own uniquely lived heart, body and story and never from anyone else’s.   The basic wisdom of yoga philosophy can be learned but also must be lived, felt and expressed.  Sometimes a headful of knowledge can be a burden and we must choose to set it down to authentically interact with each moment as it unfolds, as the boy suggests.

The boy to me is an ‘old soul’ and exemplifies mindful awareness applied to one’s life.   This was modeled and reinforced by one of his teachers, the alchemist.  How do I guess at the future?  Based on the omens of the present.  The secret is here in the present.  If you pay attention to the present you can improve upon it.  And if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better.  Forget about the future and live each day according to the teachings, confident that God loves his children.  Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity. 

Such a gentle reminder steeped with God’s love that we are right where we should be even if it feels like anything but.   God’s presence can only be felt in the present moment.  All of our moments are ours, even in the mundane there can be a sacredness and levels of newness and rising self-awareness hopefully steeped with compassion as we meet ourselves and our God right where we are.   If we are always lamenting over the past or planning for the future we really are not in touch with our spiritual self which has so much to teach us in the now. 

As we close, I have a sense of zooming way out watching the boy ride along with the caravan and witnessing all of his encounters along his journey, seeing it with an even wider lens, a lens that speaks of interconnectedness.   I see life lead by intuition that whispers like the wind connecting all whose ears are open to here and eyes open to see that there are no coincidences.   We are all woven together in a large web or a calm clear pool, the days of our lives somehow already written. 

The boy knew this very well and jumped in with two feet.  The boy was beginning to understand that 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 is all written there.   This idea whispers of faith and a deep belief the unseen forces and threads unite, protect and guide us all.  Alas, we do not need to have a physical journey across the world to achieve the results and the depth of life and character that the boy developed. We simply must show up for ourselves in each moment and have faith in the journey, which is always taken one step at a time.