Recordings of the renewed podcast episode on The Alchemist coming out soon. Meanwhile, find the new version written below.
You must have heard about it at least once. The Alchemist. The book praised by many as it helped them to open up to a new way of thinking. It made me curious. What is so interesting about this book? What knowledge does the author, Paulo Coelho, have that inspires many? Paulo Coelho describes in The Alchemist what the secret is behind realizing our dreams. He incorporates his teachings into an easy-to-read story in which the main character, Santiago, follows a path towards finding a treasure that he had dreams about. On his way, he has different encounters with people and finds himself in different situations which are all affecting him in one way or another. In this article, you read about the secret behind realizing our dreams, according to The Alchemist.
Have you ever experienced an event that turned your life upside-down? Often, after these experiences, people decide to change their lives tremendously as a result of another mindset they adopted. A psychologist I once met, referred to this as a form of shock therapy. What if these moments are actually enforced by a spiritual alarm that wakes you up? If you knew life would end soon, how would you look back at your life? Did you do what you were meant to do? Is this the way you were meant to live? To love? You can change your life any day. You always have a choice. Your life is yours. One day it will end, just like one day it began. Make it count. Make every day count. Love and live as you see it. You will learn on the way. You will be okay.
The recurring dream
When we were kids, things were so much easier. When we were kids, we knew how to dream. We could be anything. We would roleplay and imagine ourselves being a doctor, a parent, or a police officer. When we were children, our hearts spoke loud and openly about what our dreams entailed. But then, we got older and many of us forgot about our dreams. Our heart kept talking to us but we started to become more ‘realistic’. We started to degrade our dreams to smaller ones of which we knew how to accomplish them.
Paulo Coelho believes that we all have a destiny and that it is our heart that tells us what this is. Even though our hearts stopped talking to us as loud as they used to when we were kids, luckily they refuse to be silenced completely. So, if we listen closely, we can still hear what it wants. It is what we keep feeling and hearing in the background and fills us with enthusiasm. Sometimes we might forget about the dream, but somehow it always finds its way back in our minds. Our dream is our personal calling. It channels through our hearts and roots from the Soul of the World.
We are all one
Paulo Coelho believes that we are all one. We have inside of us all of the elements of the universe.
Like Santiago in The Alchemist said:
“I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything created in the Universe. We were all made by the same hand, and we have the same soul.”
– Paulo Coelho in The Alchemist
It’s not unusual that we spend most of our lives denying our dreams. We don’t listen to our hearts and feelings because we are afraid of taking a chance in a totally different direction. It feels for example like it is not the right time, we are not ready to take the leap, or it brings too much uncertainty. But the lesson we all need to learn is that, as Paulo Coelho says, “We will never be able to actually escape from our heart. So it’s better to listen to what it has to say”.
According to this philosophy, we could say that to live a successful and happy life, we actually need to listen to our hearts.
The Language of the World
It’s quite understandable that when we follow our hearts and thus do what the universe wants us to do, we get a little support. As Paulo Coelho wants to stimulate us to listen more to our hearts, he truly emphasizes in his book that we are not on our own when we follow our dreams.
“When you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the Soul of the Universe. It’s your mission on earth. (…) And, when you want something, all the Universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
– Paulo Coelho in The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho believes that the universe speaks a language. He calls this the Language of the World. He believes we are all connected through our souls and that we all have an individual purpose. But in order to fulfill our purpose, we first need to understand the Language of the World. This, we learn through experience and through making mistakes.
It’s not always easy. In reality, learning the Language of the World can lead to a lot of frustrations and disappointments on the way, just like learning any new skill would.
But when we overcome all obstacles, with the last obstacle usually being the hardest as Coelho believes, we show that we do understand the Language of the World.
Omens
The Language of the World is spoken through omens. Omens are little gifts from the universe that stimulate you to continue your course. They are bits of signs showing you that you are heading in the right direction. The right direction is the direction in which the universe wants you to go in order to fulfill your purpose. You could, for instance, think about someone who shares his insights with you, someone who came as a helping hand at the right time, or someone who said something to you that you never thought about.
I personally believe that the universe indeed gives us signs and offers us help to reach our goals, as long as they are goals that positively contribute to society as a whole. The louder our dreams get and the more positive energy we put into achieving these goals, the more support we get.
The secret
Once we understand the Language of the World, we can start to work together with the universe and will get into a natural flow. In other words, when you notice you are in a flow, you are on the right track.
The secret behind realizing your dream is first to listen to your heart to find out what your dream is. Think about what it is that gives you energy and makes you feel happy. Then, learn the Language of the World. Learn to recognize omens and make use of omens. Notice whether you are or are not in a natural flow. If you are not, think about whether there are any omens that you might have missed. If you are, continue.
Regardless, keep focused, work hard, pay attention, and get ready for the final challenge as this one is often the hardest. But whatever you do, always stay kind. I don’t believe the universe would point you in a direction that does not make the world a better place. Those kinds of dreams are only related to earthly desires. The Soul of the World needs you to do something bigger. Something that, once you leave the world behind, leaves an energy or lesson that will continue to inspire and teach others far after you’re gone.
What I shared about Paulo Coelho’s philosophy is based on his book. However, there is always a chance that I misunderstood some of the things he wrote. Do you want to get the philosophy straight from the source, make sure to read his book: The Alchemist.
Personal thoughts (contains spoilers)
I thought the book of Paulo Coelho was lovely. I loved his philosophy on the omens and it made me think back to the omens I experienced in my life. There were only a few things that confused me a bit.
Paulo Coelho’s most famous quote is: “When you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the Soul of the Universe. It’s your mission on earth. (…) And, when you want something, all the Universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” This made me wonder, if our desire comes from the Soul of the Universe and the universe helps us to pursue our desires, isn’t the universe just helping itself to pursue it and aren’t we nothing more than a tool? If we are a tool according to his philosophy, I would have loved it if Paulo Coelho shared a bit more of what the dream of the Soul of the Universe was.
In the first half of the book, all we know is that Santiago is going on a journey to find his treasure. However, nothing is said about what this treasure was. Santiago thought it was money but I was secretly hoping that his treasure had nothing to do with money. In the end, it did turn out that he found gold. I did like that on his way to finding his treasure, he gained really valuable insights and met the love of his life.
Last but not least, in the end, Santiago finds out that his treasure had been in the exact place as where he dreamt about his treasure. He found this out when he got to Egypt. I am not sure why Paulo Coelho decided that his treasure was back home after all. You would say it could be to emphasize that the journey itself was the main point of the book, but he never emphasized it in such a way that this became the obvious message.
Regardless, I think it’s amazing that Paulo Coelho wrote such an easy-to-read book in only two weeks and I enjoyed how it made me think about how the universe has our back. Thank you for sharing your book with us!
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