The Zahir

I just finished reading "The Zahir" by Paulo Coelho on Adi's recommendation. And I now do know why you recommended me that book Adi. I can identify with each and every word written in the book. I mean it is a very strange coincidence - did Coelho write it for me, for I have the exact same questions as he does? Is Coelho the hero, or is Coelho me? No, well, the novel is written for the likes of me, and for the likes of him. It ended up telling me exactly why my Zahir wasn't disappearing from my life, and what I could possibly do to make it disappear. I have realized that it feels like exactly how I was feeling for what seems to be forever, when the life is occupied by something more correctly referred to as obsession, and when the Zahir takes over every moment and every space of your life. Zahir, the word in itself means "clearly visible". As Coelho explains in the beginning of his book:

Zahir, in Arabic, means visible, present, incapable of going unnoticed. It is someone or something which, once we have come into contact with them or it, gradually occupies our every thought, until we can think of nothing else. This can be considered either a state of holiness or of madness.

It did not take me quite a lot of effort to understand the Zahir. It did not take me quite a lot of effort to understand what I needed to do. What is taking a lot of effort was to understand how a person who talked about the freedom to follow our dreams could think of things like being affected by what people would think about him. Yes it is humane, but what his books refer to is not humane. You have to be above humans, or at least decide to go against the crowd. And if you decide to do so, why would you care in the least as to what people think - they would already think you are mad enough! Or is it that it wasn't him - it was one of his characters who was being bothered by the Zahir. I do strive to write sometimes, and I know that what a writer does is manipulates most of her own life and experiences and of those around her to come up with a breathtaking work of non-fiction. And if that is how The Zahir is born, I find it very hard to understand that the author and the lead character of the story is the very same, extremely humane person.

Apart from the confusion, The Zahir is an extremely engaging novel, something that I could not get my eyes off from ever since I started reading it. It teaches you to realize that there's stuff that holds you back, that prevents you from moving on, it teaches how everyone of us is capable of leaving our "personal history" behind, at the same time carrying with us just a story. It teaches you how love is not meant to be possessed, and how distance at times, is important to be able to rediscover love. It talks about the love minus humanism... I have no problems agreeing to the rupture of a variety of social taboos in the book. And I have no problems identifying with "sects". People in his novel are usually able to find people from whom they could "learn", if you know what I mean. Where can I find such a guru? Or such a sect? Why does it never happen to me that people talk to me about that Energy? or The Lady? or the numerous different ways of becoming closer to the One?
Perhaps it will be a while before I portray one of his characters in his book - remember, I hope to be free someday!