The two were taken to a nearby military camp. A soldier shoved the boy and the alchemist into a tent where the chief was holding a meeting with his staff.
"These are the spies," said one of the men.
"We're just travelers," the alchemist answered.
"You were seen at the enemy camp three days ago. And you were talking with one of the troops there."
"I'm just a man who wanders the desert and knows the stars," said the alchemist. "I have no information about troops or about the movement of the tribes. I was simply acting as a guide for my friend here."
"Who is your friend?" the chief asked.
"An alchemist," said the alchemist. "He understands the forces of nature. And he wants to show you his extraordinary powers."
The boy listened quietly. And fearfully.
"What is a foreigner doing here?" asked another of the men.
"He has brought money to give to your tribe," said the alchemist, before the boy could say a word. And seizing the boy's bag, the alchemist gave the gold coins to the chief.
The Arab accepted them without a word. There was enough there to buy a lot of weapons.
"What is an alchemist?" he asked, finally.
"It's a man who understands nature and the world. If he wanted to, he could destroy this camp just with the force of the wind."
The men laughed. They were used to the ravages of war, and knew that the wind could not deliver them a fatal blow. Yet each felt his heart beat a bit faster. They were men of the desert, and they were fearful of sorcerers.
"I want to see him do it," said the chief.
"He needs three days," answered the alchemist. "He is going to transform himself into the wind, just to demonstrate his powers. If he can't do so, we humbly offer you our lives, for the honor of your tribe."
"You can't offer me something that is already mine," the chief said, arrogantly. But he granted the travelers three days.
The boy was shaking with fear, but the alchemist helped him out of the tent.
"Don't let them see that you're afraid," the alchemist said. "They are brave men, and they despise cowards."
But the boy couldn't even speak. He was able to do so only after they had walked through the center of the camp. There was no need to imprison them: the Arabs simply confiscated their horses. So, once again, the world had demonstrated its many languages: the desert only moments ago had been endless and free, and now it was an impenetrable wall.
"You gave them everything I had!" the boy said. "Everything I've saved in my entire life!"
"Well, what good would it be to you if you had t6 die?" the alchemist answered. "Your money saved us for three days. It's not often that money saves a person's life."
But the boy was too frightened to listen to words of wisdom. He had no idea how he was going to transform himself into the wind. He wasn't an alchemist!
The alchemist asked one of the soldiers for some tea, and poured some on the boy's wrists. A wave of relief washed over him, and the alchemist muttered some words that the boy didn't understand.
"Don't give in to your fears," said the alchemist, in a strangely gentle voice. "If you do, you won't be able to talk to your heart."
"But I have no idea how to turn myself into the wind."
"If a person is living out his destiny, he knows everything he needs to know. There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."
"I'm not afraid of failing. It's just that I don't know how to turn myself into the wind."
"Well, you'll have to learn; your life depends on it."
"But what if I can't?"
"Then you'll die in the midst of trying to realize your destiny. That's a lot better than dying like millions of other people, who never even knew what their destinies were.
"But don't worry," the alchemist continued. "Usually the threat of death makes people a lot more aware of their lives."
Replies
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”
It’s very important for us to achieve our dreams, but this line is saying that the fear of failure makes a dream impossible to achieve.
I think it’s true and it’s very important to know about the factors of this fear.
What are the factors of failure in your idea that make a feeling of fear in us?
Most of the times the sense of fear in our mind is more than ghastliness of the things which we are afraid of. We rarely think about a useful method for facing with problems concern to our fear.
As Dr. John Marden (1855-1924) said :
"Knowing how to enter a problem to solve it, would be much better than 1000 pound income"
What's fear and How dose it work in our mind ?
To answer this question let me make an example :
Imagine you are in an unknown place blindfolded and you are forced to walk around.You not only know where everything are but also its size and quality. In this case you walk very cautiously and slowly.
In the other case imagine you are at your home blindfolded and exactly same as first case you should walk.For sure you can do it much better and more confident although your steps still are close to each other and your speed is not as usual.
In the third test try to check your walking in an unknown place and in a familiar place with open eyes.
To get a result you see the origin of fear could be unawareness. I mean as you try to consider all sides and aspects of a problem and as you try to simulate all possibilities you've reduced the effect of fear which can affect and canalize your mind to push it toward failures.
It seems so hard at first but as other things it needs practice to be expert about that .
Good examples!
Yes, you are right exactly.
And it's the only thing that makes me a feeling of fear. I mean being in an unfamiliar place or situation in the first time.
So we must increase our information about unknown things or place in our mind or in out. But there are some situations that might happen suddenly and we don't have enough time to ready ourselves for facing it. What must we do in that conditions?
It's got only a key :
Practice !
We usually are trying to keep ourselves away from those kinds of situations. It could be the worst thing for us to improve our abilities to face with problems. You can try to push yourself to problem in an under control situation as a simulator.
It could be considered as an isolated condition.Think about a baby who's grown up in a sterilized condition and there is no kind of organisms around him/her. For sure this baby couldn't be ready for a natural life. we should try to increase the immunological abilities of our.
Achieving good and useful strategies about problems could be emotional and mental immunologic ability.
I saw a documentary which called "A boy in the Bubble". It was about a boy who lived in a bubble because of his special body.
His doctors said that he couldn't be alive in the outside of that bubble because his body doesn't have any defensive system against the microbes.
It wasn’t any problem for him until he was baby, but his parents were very sad because of that. When he grew he found something different about himself and others. When he was 9 he started to be sad and he was so heartsick. His wish was going out of his prison. His parents brought a psychologist for him and he said that he can’t do any thing for the boy, and they must take him out. It was so dangerous for him and his doctors didn’t let them at all. So the parents had someone to make a special cloth for him that it had covered completely just like astronaut cloths. The boy could go out with it and he was so glad that his wish came true. But after some years when he was 12 he couldn’t accept this kind of going out. Then he started to be in a very bad mood. Nobody could do anything. His parents asked the doctors to do something for him, but they really couldn’t. Finally one of them said that he must come out from that bubble otherwise his situation will be worse mentally. They decided to operate his body to give him better life. They wanted to make his body insistent against microbes.
But when they want to inject something to his body less than some seconds all of his body reacted and he died.Yes, it is a good example, but I meant we mustn’t try to kill ourselves! Problems are enough around us. I think it is enough for making our personality. Injecting problems to our life may paralyze our life.