The Zahir by Paulo Coelho

Note: Currently this book can be read for free HERE!

Coelho’s The Alchemist gets all the press, but I enjoyed this book so much more. The biggest difference for me was that I connected to the characters in The Zahir, whereas those in The Alchemist were too broadly drawn — like the stars of Aesop’s fables, I learned from them, but I did not feel for them.

Other than that, Coelho’s trademark style and simplicity, his worldliness, his intimacy — these are all intact in The Zahir, and effective as ever. He’s really a wonderful writer, and a great storyteller, and a lot of things that I aspire to be.

I can’t say that I agree with everything Coelho posits in The Zahir, but I can say that I think people need to know and understand points of view that do not agree with their own, in order to better understand themselves and the world.

(In this book he writes a lot about love and what he thinks it the right way to live/love vs. what he thinks is the wrong way to live/love, and I think he makes a lot of valid points, but he doesn’t necessarily account for all the types of people in the world. Then again, who could?)

So far this is still one of my favorites of his (along with The Witch of Portobello, which I will add a review of later), so I highly recommend it.

Excerpts:

In order for the true energy of love to penetrate your soul, your soul must be as if you had just been born. Why are people unhappy? Because they want to imprison that energy, which is impossible. Forgetting your personal history means leaving that channel clear, allowing that energy to manifests itself each day in whatever way it chooses, allowing yourself to be guided by it…

No one nowadays can spend their whole life travelling.

Not physically no, but they can on a spiritual plane. going farther and farther way, distancing yourself from your personal history, from what you were forced to become.

–

There is just one other thing: as those spaces grow, it is important to fill them up quickly, even if only provisionally, so as to not be left with a feeling of emptiness.

How?

With different stories, with experiences we never dared to have or didn’t want to have. That is how we change. That is how love grows. And when love grows, we grow with it.

Does that mean we lose things that are important?

Never. The important things always stay; what we lose are the things we thought were important but which are, in fact, useless, like the false power we use to control the energy of love.

–

That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose. People need to understand that no one is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Don’t expect to get anything back, don’t expect recognition for your efforts, don’t expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inablity, or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.

(Note: these quotes were actually stolen from Tu’s site, because I was too lazy to leave bed and go get my copy of the book with the underlines and the notes and copy my favorite passages. :P)

- Kristan