Now that it’s the
holidays, I read “The Alchemist" and it turns out it has a lot to do with Sikhi. It was also one of those books I had bought a
long time ago at the suggestion of a friend and forgot to read. I am glad that
I read it now because I was able to make a lot of connections to my journey and
to Sikhi. For anyone who hasn’t read it, it is a spiritual book about a
shepherd who travels to Egypt to seek out his “Personal Legend”. Just a spoiler
alert because I’m going to have to talk about the story to relate it to Sikhi (but
I still don’t think it’ll ruin the book if you haven’t read it because there’s
a lot more in the story).
To start the
journey, the boy had to give up his comfortable life to take a risk and try
something new. This required him to have faith. When he makes that decision to
walk on his path, he is given some advice. The first piece of advice is that he
has to follow omens. I initially had thought that omens were about
superstition, about forecasting the future. In Gurbani it tells us to stay away
from superstitions because they lead to duality. What omens meant in this
book was actually about keeping one’s eyes opens to the signs that God is
everywhere as our helper. It meant recognizing the Divine “God has prepared a
path for everyone to follow. You just have to read the omens that he left for
you”(1).
The second piece
of advice was “Don’t forget that everything you deal with is one thing and
nothing else” (1). It comes back to my recent posts about our connection- that
we are all connected by God. Gurbani says “O
Nanak, know this well: the True One Himself is All” and “there is only the One, the Giver of all souls. May
I never forget Him!.”
I think it is easy to forget, in ego, that we are all one. In the book it says
“The world is only the visible aspect of God” (1). Again, in Gurbani we know
there are both Nirankaar (formless) and Akar (formed) forms of God, and so this
quote refers to Akar, the God in each of us. This was really a major part of the book, and I found myself repeating
“everything is written by one hand” to myself all weekend. It ties into the
concept of sanjog- our destiny to meet people that we were previously
associated with in other lives. When the main character falls in love with a
girl he says “I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find
you” (1). When he has to leave her to go find his personal legend, she says “If I
am really a part of your dream, you’ll come back one day” (1).” She doesn't make him stay because it is important for him to complete his journey to find God within himself, yet she waits for him to return. After all, we are in each other’s lives because of God, and everything is
written by one Hand. Sometimes in life, our stories separate for a while. We
walk different ways so that we can discover our own personal legends because
God deemed that it was necessary for us to have that growth and perspective on our own. Then
sometimes God writes that we will meet again and connect again in a way that
would not otherwise have been possible without that growth, because God lives in all of our hearts. This really
resonated with me. There is no coincidence, that everything is DIVINE, both the meeting and the separations (as hard as those are).
The third piece
of advice was that he not give up his personal legend: “before a dream is
realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the
way…[so we can] master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that
dream” (1). He is also told “You’ve got to find the treasure, so that
everything you have learned along the way can make sense” (1). As he travels he
experiences hardships and finds himself lonely, sad and ashamed. It was very
relatable because we have all experienced those dips in our lives. Yet the
persistence of achieving our personal story (reaching God) is a stronger drive
and we overcome those like he did. Not giving up is really written into our
history as Sikhs, time and time again.
Near the end of
the story, the boy is required to turn into the wind to save his life.
Obviously the author had to have been very spiritual to have written it the way he did. The boy realizes that the power to change to the wind is
not under his control, but rather God, “[O]nly the hand could perform miracles,
or transform the sea into a desert… or a man into the wind” (1). So he speaks
to the desert, the wind, and the sun, and then he “reached through to the Soul
of the World, and saw that it was a part of the Soul of God. And he saw that
the Soul of God was his own soul. And that he, a boy, could perform miracles”
(1). This reminded me of when Guru Nanak
went into the river to bathe and disappeared for three days. The elements of
his body immersed back into God and he spent those days with God, then returned
out of the river saying “There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim.” There is also
a sakhi about Baba Ram Rai, son of Guru Har Rai (brother of Guru Harkrishan).
He was sent to Delhi to speak to Aurangzeb and there, Aurangzeb requested that
he show miracles. His father had warned him not to do this, because miracles are delivered out of need and it is up to God to deliver the miracle (2). In ego, Baba Ram Rai showed miracles to impress Aurangzeb and the
Guru then gave the Guruship to Guru Harkrishan Ji (2). Miracles are mentioned in Gurbani (ridhis, sidhis) because one needs to
overcome trying to just achieve those for ego, in order to get to God. I was
really impressed that this was part of the book because it really spoke to how
God himself is the one who changed him to the wind and he couldn't have done it himself.
Obviously alchemy is an important theme in
the book, and there is mention of the “Philosopher’s stone” several times. I
was interested because the Hukamnama I got yesterday also mentioned the
Philosopher’s stone! So I read Guruka Singh’s explanation: “Alchemy was a
secret language in the Western culture of the middle Ages used by adepts to
describe spiritual transformation. It concealed its teachings
under the guise of what we now know as ‘chemistry’. The Philosopher's Stone was
a stone that when touched to a base metal such as iron or lead, transformed the
metal into pure gold! Of course there is no such stone, but the lay people who
were not initiated into the spiritual mysteries of alchemy chased after the
stone in their greed, never understanding that it was a metaphor for the transformation
of consciousness” (3). In Gurbani, the word paras
is translated as Philosopher’s stone, and he explains that this is actually
about the inner transformation that happens when a person experiences Naam (3).
He states “The Guru, therefore, is the Philosopher's Stone. His touch
transforms us into gold. Our base worldly consciousness is transformed into
golden shining consciousness”(3). In Gurbani it says, “The
Guru is the philosopher’s stone and we are like iron; by meeting him, we are
transformed to (pure and valuable, likened to) gold (Ang 1114) and “O Lord,
please bless me with the Touch of the Guru, the Philosopher's Stone. I was
unworthy, utterly useless, rusty slag; meeting with the True Guru, I was
transformed by the Philosopher's Stone.” (Ang 1324) Thus, paras in Gurbani is about the power of the Guru to transform our
mind.
I was really moved by this book, by how much it both related to Sikhi and to my life! Even jus the main pieces of advice given to the boy were really useful for our lives.
References
1 Coelho, P. and Clarke, A. (2015). The alchemist. San Francisco: HarperOne.
1 Coelho, P. and Clarke, A. (2015). The alchemist. San Francisco: HarperOne.
Very nice!
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