Personal Legends
Let us accept first the truth that everyone has his or her Personal Legend. This word came from The Alchemist. Personal Legend means that everyone's life must be meaningful and have the purpose in one way or another. There is no such a thing as meaningless life. Just everything has its own purpose to be here in this world, so does everyone in his or her life. Once we truly see God, we can also recognize that nothing is meaningless; everything and everyone are meaningful even including evil ones. Even if a newborn infant has passed away right after seeing the world just for a few hours, then his or her life was still meaningful. God has the reason for doing so. Only our eyes have limited and cannot see the Personal Legend of that newborn-passed-away baby.
Suppose you have accepted the truth that everyone has his or her Personal Legend and you also have your own. Then, the problem is not the question whether or not there is the Personal Legend, but how to search and find your own Personal Legend correctly. This is the most difficult part. According to the Alchemist, to see your Personal Legend that brings you to your hidden treasure, what you need is to master how to listen to your heart; how to follow your heart. And, once you could learn how to listen and follow your heart, then the second thing you need is to master how to let go of yourself (your ego); how to surrender yourself to something higher or your Personal Legend itself. The Alchemist explains this in such a way that you have to turn yourself into the wind. He told Santiago that he had to turn yourself into the wind, or you have to die. Though this is a kind of metaphoric, symbolic expression, eventually he was able to listen to his heart; turn himself into the wind; and find the treasure in his Personal Legend.
The story was so symbolic that it could give us the profound wisdom how to face our own lives. This is really good. And yet, just the story taught us, mastering how to listen to your heart and find your Personal Legend is so difficult (in a way it must be too easy to find it paradoxically). It seems that we always fail to listen to our heart to find our Personal Legend. For, though it is irony, the very terms like "your heart" or "your Personal Legend" can also feed our ego-oriented identity. In other words, because of such terms, we tend to be quite narcissistic. Just in listening to "your heart" and "your Personal Legend," unintentionally you tend to indulge yourself with them and we tend to daydream them.
A boy has just been waiting for the woman in his life and dreaming to meet her someday just as Santiago was able to meet Fatima. A girl has just been waiting for the Prince Charming who can love her wholeheartedly as she is. Probably it is true that when we meet someone like that, we may feel as if the entire universe conspires to help us to realize our dream. But, the problem is that we might misunderstand and get confused the true sacred "conspiracy" with the narcissistic self-storytelling. If we fail to listen to our heart, then instead, our ego may tell us our Personal Legend that is false and keeps us from the real, true Personal Legend.
In certain moments of our lives, we have to make our crucial decisions. When we find our new job, we have to see how this job will be related our true Personal Legend, but it is almost impossible to predict this unless we can listen to our heart. Santiago had to work as an assistant of the crystal merchant. It seemed that such was an unnecessary detour to reach his Personal Legend, but in the end such detour had revealed as the truly part of his Personal Legend – nothing is meaningless.
But what if he had quitted working as the assistant? Could he still find his Personal Legend? Probably he could. And yet, it is also true that many people have to die without finding their Personal Legends since they could not know how to listen to their hearts and could not see the correct omens in their paths. Still, in the larger perspective, even those people who have died without finding their own Personal Legends must have the reasons and meanings for that because nothing is meaningless but at the same few can see the meaningfulness.
This also tells us that we may fail to find our Personal Legend unless we master how to listen to our heart and surrender ourselves to the Hand that wrote everything. As for myself, I do not know if I really know how to listen to my heart. Reflecting on my past events, it seems that I have made so many wrong decisions. My talent that I thought of the gift to lead me to my Personal Legend has now been recognized that it was NOT the gift, or else it was that I had really failed to explore my talent as the gift. The woman I met and thought that she was my "Fatima" has now been recognized that she was NOT my Fatima. Or, even I do not know whether I have met her but could not recognize her as the one, or I have not met the one really yet. Of course, making wrong decisions was not what we should totally avoid. Without wrong decisions, we cannot see the right decisions and probably cannot train ourselves to truly listen to our heart.
One thing I am sure is that listening to your heart is far from indulging yourself with your ego-oriented self-consciousness. Therefore, the dilemma is that the more we struggle with how to listen to our heart, the more we keep us from the true listing to our heart. This is somewhat similar to what we discussed in Two Voices. Listening to your heart is the same as listing to the true inner voice. Thus, the tip to listen to your heart, first of all, is to shut down your inner chatting that looks like listening to your ego, instead listening of your heart.
I still do not know what my Personal Legend is. In the past and even now I tend to discover that "this must be the one" or "that must be the one," etc. However, immediately after such "discovery" I have also realized that I had not listened to my heart; I had just followed my ego that sought for the external approvals. And then, after such "realization" I have also rediscovered that this "realization" had been my ego-oriented inner chatting.
Probably your Personal Legend is what you can find in our effort of seeking, at the same time it has been always and already the part of your every trial including your wrong decisions, and yet at the same time it has to be what you still have to seek for. Only your wholehearted trials and errors in your life conditions can lead you to the total concentration, disappointment, and exhaustion and only in such extent we can shut down our ego-oriented inner chatting. We can never listen to our heart unless and until we have exhausted our ego-oriented self-indulgence that loves the false, narcissistic Personal Legend.
Suppose you have accepted the truth that everyone has his or her Personal Legend and you also have your own. Then, the problem is not the question whether or not there is the Personal Legend, but how to search and find your own Personal Legend correctly. This is the most difficult part. According to the Alchemist, to see your Personal Legend that brings you to your hidden treasure, what you need is to master how to listen to your heart; how to follow your heart. And, once you could learn how to listen and follow your heart, then the second thing you need is to master how to let go of yourself (your ego); how to surrender yourself to something higher or your Personal Legend itself. The Alchemist explains this in such a way that you have to turn yourself into the wind. He told Santiago that he had to turn yourself into the wind, or you have to die. Though this is a kind of metaphoric, symbolic expression, eventually he was able to listen to his heart; turn himself into the wind; and find the treasure in his Personal Legend.
The story was so symbolic that it could give us the profound wisdom how to face our own lives. This is really good. And yet, just the story taught us, mastering how to listen to your heart and find your Personal Legend is so difficult (in a way it must be too easy to find it paradoxically). It seems that we always fail to listen to our heart to find our Personal Legend. For, though it is irony, the very terms like "your heart" or "your Personal Legend" can also feed our ego-oriented identity. In other words, because of such terms, we tend to be quite narcissistic. Just in listening to "your heart" and "your Personal Legend," unintentionally you tend to indulge yourself with them and we tend to daydream them.
A boy has just been waiting for the woman in his life and dreaming to meet her someday just as Santiago was able to meet Fatima. A girl has just been waiting for the Prince Charming who can love her wholeheartedly as she is. Probably it is true that when we meet someone like that, we may feel as if the entire universe conspires to help us to realize our dream. But, the problem is that we might misunderstand and get confused the true sacred "conspiracy" with the narcissistic self-storytelling. If we fail to listen to our heart, then instead, our ego may tell us our Personal Legend that is false and keeps us from the real, true Personal Legend.
In certain moments of our lives, we have to make our crucial decisions. When we find our new job, we have to see how this job will be related our true Personal Legend, but it is almost impossible to predict this unless we can listen to our heart. Santiago had to work as an assistant of the crystal merchant. It seemed that such was an unnecessary detour to reach his Personal Legend, but in the end such detour had revealed as the truly part of his Personal Legend – nothing is meaningless.
But what if he had quitted working as the assistant? Could he still find his Personal Legend? Probably he could. And yet, it is also true that many people have to die without finding their Personal Legends since they could not know how to listen to their hearts and could not see the correct omens in their paths. Still, in the larger perspective, even those people who have died without finding their own Personal Legends must have the reasons and meanings for that because nothing is meaningless but at the same few can see the meaningfulness.
This also tells us that we may fail to find our Personal Legend unless we master how to listen to our heart and surrender ourselves to the Hand that wrote everything. As for myself, I do not know if I really know how to listen to my heart. Reflecting on my past events, it seems that I have made so many wrong decisions. My talent that I thought of the gift to lead me to my Personal Legend has now been recognized that it was NOT the gift, or else it was that I had really failed to explore my talent as the gift. The woman I met and thought that she was my "Fatima" has now been recognized that she was NOT my Fatima. Or, even I do not know whether I have met her but could not recognize her as the one, or I have not met the one really yet. Of course, making wrong decisions was not what we should totally avoid. Without wrong decisions, we cannot see the right decisions and probably cannot train ourselves to truly listen to our heart.
One thing I am sure is that listening to your heart is far from indulging yourself with your ego-oriented self-consciousness. Therefore, the dilemma is that the more we struggle with how to listen to our heart, the more we keep us from the true listing to our heart. This is somewhat similar to what we discussed in Two Voices. Listening to your heart is the same as listing to the true inner voice. Thus, the tip to listen to your heart, first of all, is to shut down your inner chatting that looks like listening to your ego, instead listening of your heart.
I still do not know what my Personal Legend is. In the past and even now I tend to discover that "this must be the one" or "that must be the one," etc. However, immediately after such "discovery" I have also realized that I had not listened to my heart; I had just followed my ego that sought for the external approvals. And then, after such "realization" I have also rediscovered that this "realization" had been my ego-oriented inner chatting.
Probably your Personal Legend is what you can find in our effort of seeking, at the same time it has been always and already the part of your every trial including your wrong decisions, and yet at the same time it has to be what you still have to seek for. Only your wholehearted trials and errors in your life conditions can lead you to the total concentration, disappointment, and exhaustion and only in such extent we can shut down our ego-oriented inner chatting. We can never listen to our heart unless and until we have exhausted our ego-oriented self-indulgence that loves the false, narcissistic Personal Legend.
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