I am not a voracious reader. If asked, I'd say there are about three or four books that I really enjoyed reading from start to finish. That's it. The rest, I've never been inclined to read.
But Paulo Coelho's book, The Alchemist, is a book that inspired me many years ago. A lot of die-hard readers say that he has not said anything new and that what he has said was said centuries ago by Rishis and wiser persons. Since I have not read what they wrote, The Alchemist continues to inspire.
There is a conversation in particular that has always inspired me. It goes like this:
"Everyone on earth 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 them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed in its own direction, towards its own fate...What you need to know is that before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this no because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we've moved toward that dream. 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.'"
Another favorite -
"...a grain of sand is a moment in creation, and the universe has taken millions of years to create it."
Whenever I read these words or paragraphs from this book The Alchemist, it propels me to move forward and reach out to make my dreams come true, because as the book propagates, the whole spirit of the Universe can make it happen.
