The Zahir - I

The title comes from the famous author Paulo Cohelo who has unconventional ways of looking at things ,interpreting them in terms of Philosophy and Spiritualism.But this post is not a review of the book but a mere recollection of my interpretation and the way the book helped me in realising my true self .

The Zahir as the writer puts forth in the book

"In Beunos Aires , the Zahir is a common 20-centavo coin; the letters N & T and the number 2 bear the marks of a knife or a letter - opener; 1929 is he date engraved on the reverse.(In Gujarat , at the end of the eighteenth century, the Zahir was a tiger ; in Java , it was a blind man from the Surakarta mosque who was stoned by the faithful; in Persia , an astrolabe that Nadir Shah ordered to be thrown into the sea ; in Mahdi's prison,in around 1892, a small compass that had been touched by Rudolf Karl von Slatin...)

.....the story by Jorge Luis Borges, about something which, once touched or seen, can never be forgotten , and which gradually so fills our thoughts that we are driven to madness......"

I myself thought i was living with a Zahir and could never get passed it and that changed me completely i started creating my life according to it , accepting the fact that i was too weak and impulsive to get over it and it has to be in this manner that i will have to live with it for ever. The urge changed me completely into a person who never thought beyond his Zahir, which manifested his life to it and changed into a person who I actually was not . The persona that started to be reflected was like a dual personality that covered the actual desire to make my Zahir realize that i existed and that i was shattered by the Zahir presence.The Zahir made me become the person who did things that were obvious that pleased the society , it defeated the rebel in me.

I always tried to understand life ,the journey which is more important than the destination which probably is the end and the person seizes to exist either physically or mentally, but this Zahir was kind of obstructing my intellect; my true understanding.Actually before this book actually happened i couldn't recognise it as Zahir , which further complicated the issue as the things that are not understood always confuse us. And in that confusion i was shooting arrows in the dark but to no use as the aim probably was never in that direction.I had to get rid of my personal history , free myself from the burden of my past and start building my life brick by brick and that is what the author suggests and talks about Love to achieve that the love for life , the quest for knowledge and through various references suggests us to enjoy the journey called life.

He also suggests us to live life on our own terms , but the manner should be way different that we may actually interpret we don't actually have to upset people by living our life at our own terms but live in a manner that the people who are a part of your life are never hurt. The Zahir if taken in a positive essence can cause an experience which a person may never ever expect to know in his entire life span and that requires a level of conscience and understanding which this book provides. The new aspect of looking at things had eventually released me of my burdens, the pain i carried in the form of Zahir and the impulsive decisions i took because of it.I feel more controlled and balanced . This was something which i penned down few years ago ,

" We are the boats , sailing in the waters of life;

Facing the waves of fright ;

Pondering to give a fight;

Continue in our might.

Storms will come;

and lead us to our doom.

but we ain't done yet ;

for it's life we fetch."

Although it was in my early teens that i wrote the above lines when i was fascinated by rhyming sentences and the concept of Octets and Sonnets but the realization and depth they had could be well interpreted with what I am dealing with today. So I have to continue living ,building every moment of it ,for the time that has gone by shall never return but a new beginning has every possibility , for the boat damaged in a storm can always be repaired like new.