How do we find our inner treasure...

Let me ask you something, dear reader. What is common between Da Vinci Code, the Sound of Silence and The Alchemist?

Da Vinci Code (as you know) is a novel written by Dan Brown. It starts off with the murder of the curator of Louvre Museum, Jacques Sauniere, who is found shot inside the museum with a paper in his hand that says "P.S Find Robert Langdon". Looking at the letter, French Police suspects that the murder was committed by the world famous Symbologist 'Robert Langdon'. Langdon is called to look into the case. 

In the meantime Sophie Neveu, a French Police Cryptographer who is assigned to the case informs Langdon that the murdered person, Sauniere was her grandfather. He used to call her 'Princes Sophie' and the P S in the letter was not 'Post Script' as police thought, but it was meant for her. It was a way of the murdered man asking her to get in touch with Langdon.

Langdon and Sophie work on this case and the work takes them all over the world in search of Holy Grail which was considered to be the reason of the murder. After a lot of adventures, finally they realize that the secret that they were looking for was right in Paris in the Louvre museum itself. 

That was Da Vinci Code. Now to 'The Sound of Silence'.

You may not have heard of this beautiful book. This is written by the Japanese author Katrina Goldsaito. This is the story of a Japanese boy Yoshio. While walking in the streets of Tokyo, he sees a 'Koto' player playing melodious music. At the end of the performance, Yoshio tells the Koto player that 'that was the most beautiful sound he had heard'.

The old Koto player tells him that the most beautiful sound is Ma, the sound of silence between words. 

Yoshio goes everywhere in search of silence. He goes to the park and listens to the chirping of birds. He goes to different parts of the city in search of silence, but he couldn't find it anywhere.

Dejected he comes home and starts reading a book. He is so immersed in the story that he suddenly 'hears' the sound of silence. It was there at his home all the time. He was wasting his time outside when 'Sound of Silence' was right there in front of him all this while.

And finally, 'The Alchemist'

The book The Alchemist, written by Paolo Coelho, tells the story of an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago. Santiago has recurring dreams of a hidden treasure that he should go in search of. He talks to an Oracle (Why not SAP, just kidding...) about his dream and the Oracle suggests that the treasure is in Egypt, in Cairo, below the pyramids. 

So Santiago sells his sheep and starts his long journey in search of his treasure. The book tells the story of his multi-year journey as he travels the world doing different jobs till he makes it to Egypt. There his robbed by a group of bandits. The leader of the bandits tells him that the treasure he is seeking is at his village.

So Santiago makes his long journey back to his village. In his village there is a dilapidated church. He digs up the church and discovers the hidden treasure.

That is the book The Alchemist. 

What is common between all the three books is that the lead characters in the books go all over in search of a treasure and finally find that the treasure was always with them. The treasure was right in front of them all this time. Only they refused to look inward.

'They' were the treasure they were looking for.

It happens to all of us. Our entire life is a journey in search of our treasures. We are always looking 'outside' for the treasure. We look for it in our jobs. We don't find them. We look for it in our successive promotions. We don't find them. We look in our boss's approval, our salary, our customer's satisfaction, in all the places that we visit, all the beaches that we go to relax, in the clubs, hotels...

Even in our homes.

But we don't find our treasure. Do you know why?

We don't even know what we are searching for. We are like the blind sparrow, thrashing about our wings in search of something.

So first step is identify our treasure.

Whatever be the treasure that we seek it is inside us. It is us. The treasure is generated by the decisions and the choices we make. Instead of the outward journeys that we undertake, we should start our inward journey. 

But we don't do that. We focus outside. We wait for a god or a messenger to get us our treasure. We buy lottery ticket, we go gambling. We take the 'treasure' at its 'literal meaning'. We don't realize our power or our potential to generate far greater treasure for ourselves.

I am a practicing Hindu. As per our belief system, we are god. In fact we are more powerful than god. We do everything that a god does. We create, we maintain and nurture and we are capable of unleashing great destruction to ourselves and our world.

The prayer that I make everyday is 'Aham Brahmasmi', which means 'I am Brahman'. In our belief system, even gods are in search of Brahman, the most powerful of all entities. Brahman lives inside me, you, everyone. 

Each of us is a god. We are capable of creating great treasures for ourselves and for many others. A businessman who gives a job to 10 people is creating treasures for 10 families. 

So, in summary, the treasure that we seek is inside us. It is us. Instead of looking outward for our treasure, our peace, our happiness, let us create our treasures.

We must always ask ourselves, what is the treasure we seek? How can we create that treasure?. 

Einstein came out with his theory of E=MC2. Considering the mass of an average individual is 80 Kilos, can you even imagine the kind of energy that we have every second of the day? We have enough and more of energy to create millions of treasures for us. And for others.

Lets do it.