The Fifth Mountain by Paulo Coelho

The Fifth Mountain by Paulo Coelho
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another good read from Paulo Coelho. The book is about how the inevitable happens. One does not realize immediately as to why the "unavoidable" happens and one feels bad. But what one should do is try to understand the lessons from the "unavoidable". This in short is the premise of the book.
The books is based in an era when a Phoenician princess has enamored and married an Israeli king. She is trying to convert the whole of Israel to start worshiping Baal and the rest of the Phoenician deities. In the process the prophets of Israel are being persecuted and being put to death by the Israeli army at her command.
Elijah is one such prophet. He manages to escape to Akbar one of the settlements of the Phoenicians. Initially he is admitted into the community, despite the fact that he is an usurper trying to oppose their princess and non believer in their gods, due to their age old maxim of treating their guest well. The governor of the community keeps him saying that they will extract a ransom for his head from their princess. He stays with a widow as was predicted by his angel on his way from Israel.
Soon he wins the hearts of the people of Akbar and that of the governor too while he manages to ire the high priest who in turn poisons the commander of the army against him. In the meantime the high priest is also worried about the spread of Byblos which is new and easy writing methodology that has been introduced to the world. The high priest is worried that the rituals that only he is privy to now would soon become public knowledge and he would lose his power over the people as now everybody would start performing the rituals. Elijah is all for propagation of the writing technique and this furthers the ire of the high priest.
The widow's son suffers from an illness and dies. The priest uses this opportunity to try and drive Elijah out of Akbar. He blames the death of the boy on Elijah. Elijah who has fallen in love with the widow is made to climb the Fifth mountain where it is expected that the fires of the gods would destroy anybody who climbs it. The rule is that if they manage to come back they will be executed by the guards at the foothills of the mountain. Elijah climbs up and meets his angel who gives him the method to bring back the boy to life. He comes down and asks the guards for a last chance to try and revive the child. The high priest allows him the chance and he manages to bring back the boy to life. This endears him further to the widow and earns him more respect from the community.
Soon the Assyrians are seen setting up camps outside Akbar. It is known that their intention is to attack and decimate the community. While Elijah is trying to convince the governor not to go to battle, the high priest provokes the ego of the commander and ensures that there is a war. Elijah is told by his angel that he can perform one more miracle and that he can either use to top stop the war or to free his people from the tyrannical rule of the Phoenician queen. He decides to use it for the latter after a great internal battle. The day the widows declares her love for Elijah and he for her, the war breaks out and practically the entire community is wiped out. The widow is one of the casualty of the battle while the boy survives.
Elijah first tries to go back to Jerusalem, but he is stopped by his angel. He goes back to Akbar and with the help of the community which now consists mainly of the old people and the children, builds back Akbar to almost its formal glory. He is made the governor and is respected by one and all.
At the appropriate time he goes back to Jerusalem and frees his people form the tyranny of the Phoenician queen by performing the miracle that has been granted by his angel.
There are a lot of great words of wisdom strewn throughout the book. Here are a few of those.
"It was then as he discovered that death could elude him that the fear of death returned. There was still a possibility of seeing the ocean, of finding a wife, having children, and completing his work in his shop".
Our souls are prisoners of the terror of death.
Every man has a right to doubt his task, and to forsake it from time to time; but what he must not do is forget it. Whoever doubts not himself is unworthy - for in his unquestioning belief in his abilty - he commits the sin of pride. Blessed are those who go through moments of indecision.
Souls too, like rivulets and plants, need a different kind of rain: hope, faith, a reason to live. When this did not come to pass everything in that soul died, even if the body went on living; and people could say "Here this body was once a man".
Freedom is to feel what the heart desired, with no thought to the opinion of the rest.
The Lord hears the prayers of thoese who as to put aside hatred, but He is deaf to those who would flee from love.
"Can a man cast from his heart the pain of a loss?" "No, but he can find joy in something won".
Tragedies do happen. We can discover the reason, blame others, imagine how different our lives would have been had they not occurred. But none of that is important: they did occur and so be it. From there onward we must put aside the fear that they awoke in us and begin to rebuild.
For many generations, man tried to impose their will by force; the spoke of what they wanted but cared not what the people thought - and all those empires have been destroyed. Our people have grown because they learned how to listen; this is how we developed trade - by listening to what the other person desires and doing whatever was possible to satisfy him. The result was profit.
"There is no tragedy only the unavoidable. Everything has its reason for being: you need only distinguish between the temporary and what is lasting." "What is temporary?" "The unavoidable". "What is lasting?" "The lessons of the unavoidable".
If you have a past that dissatisfies you, forget it now. Imagine a new story of your life, and believe in it. Concentrate only on thse moments in which you achieved what you desired and this strength will help you to accomplish what you want.
A child can always teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to to know how to demand with all her might that she desires.
Every human being at sometime had tragedy enter his life; it might be the destruction of a city, the death of a son, an unprovoked accusation, a sickness that has left one lame forever. At that moment God challenged one to confront Him and to answer His question "Why do you cling fast to an existence so short and so filled with suffering?. What is the meaning of your struggle?" The man who did not know how to answer this question would resign himself, while another one who sought a meaning to existence, feeling that God had been unjust, would challenge his own destiny. It was at this moment that fire of a different type descended from the heavens - not the fire that kills, but the kind that tears down ancient walls and imparts to each human being his true possibilities. Cowards never allow their hearts to blaze with this fire; all they desire is for the changed situation to quickly return to what it was before, so that they can go on living their lives and thinking in their customary way. The brave, however, set a fire to that which was old and even at the cost of great internal suffering, abandon everything, including God and continue onward. "The brave are always stubborn". From heaven, God smiles contentedly, for it was this that He desired, that each person take into his hands the responsibility for this life. For in the final analysis, He had given his children the greatest of gifts; the capacity to choose and determine their acts. Only those men and women with the sacred flame in their hearts had the courage to confront Him. And they alone knew the path back to His love, for they understood that tragedy was not punishment but a challenge.
Everythat that could have happened but did not is carried away with the wind and leaves no trace. Life is made of our attitudes. And there are certain things that the gods oblige us to live through. Their reasons for this does not matter, and there is no action we can take to make them pass by.
God was infinite in his mercy, and implacable in His severity with those who lacked courage to dare.
Children are able to overcome what took place because they have no past - for them everything that matters is only the present.
He had fled from doubt, from defeat, from moments of indecision. But the Lord was generous and had led him to the abyss of the unavoidable, to show him that man must choose - and not accept - his fate.
"Is it always necessary to leave". "It is always necessary to know when a stage of one's life has ended. If you stubbornly cling to it after the need has passed, you lose the joy and meaning of the rest. And you risk being shaken to your senses by God."


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