Extremely Motivating and Full of Wisdom. Review on Fifth Mountain, The - Paulo Coelho

Hey Friends,

The Fifth Mountain is an inspiring story of Elijah. He lives in Israel and he is a prophet. Due to certain circumstances he has to flee away from his home to a town called Akbar. In Akbar he faces the challenges of his life that transform him and prepare him to go back to Israel and rebuild his home country.

Elijah is a carpenter in Israel. He gets visions and is visited by angels of God. Since childhood he had heard voices and spoken with angels. When he was taken to a priest by his parents he was identified as a ?nabi? which means a prophet or a man of the spirit or one who exalts himself with the word of God.

But he was forced by his parents to become a carpenter and due to that the visits by angels and the visions started to get less frequent. He started to consider himself a common man and started to talk like common folk.

Then something happened that changed the life of Elijah. The princess of Tyre, Jezebel, married Ahab, the king of Israel. Other kings had also done the same things and this has resulted in peace in the region. After ascending to the throne Jezebel asked Ahab to replace the worship of Lord with that of the Gods of Lebanon. Jezebel was hell-bent in changing the religion being practiced in Israel.

So she started to slay all the priests and prophets of Israel, so that there will not be anyone left to preach the worship of the Lord, the god of Israel.

Elijah with another prophet tried to flee Israel. The other prophet was killed by Elijah was able to run out of Israel. Then his guardian angel descended upon him and guided him to go to the town of Akbar where he will be received by a widow woman who will feed him and give him shelter.

He did so and was received by widow.

But the people of town of Akbar were against providing shelter to an Israelite prophet because they not wanted any confrontation with princess Jezebel. But because of the tradition of the town they had to shelter him.

Soon the son of the widow who sheltered Elijah became very ill. People said that it is because of the curse Elijah has bought to Akbar that the son of widow has become ill. Soon, widow?s son died. High priest of Akbar ordered Elijah to climb The Fifth Mountain so that the gods will kill him. He did so but on the peak of the mountain he was descended upon by the angel of the Lord who guided him back to the town and said him to perform a miracle to bring back widow?s son from dead.

Elijah did so and the son of widow was again alive. Everyone in Akbar was taken aback by miracle he performed and they all started respecting him and treating him like a man of God.

Soon the army of Assyria was on the border of Akbar to invade the city. But Akbar was a business town and their army was not very strong. Besides they had been in peace for more that 200 years. Elijah was appointed counsel to Governor and they both started to consider dialogue and peace measures. But the commander of army and high priest wanted war. Finally there was war and Akbar was destroyed. The widow whom Elijah came to love also died.

Elijah took his son with him and started to reconstruct the city of Akbar. The only inhabitants of Akbar were now the old, the children and the widows and ladies. Men and adults had run away and youth was slain in the war.

Elijah rebuilt the city, became commissioner of the city, taught everyone to read and write and built a library where they kept the written record of their history. They wrote it all because they wanted their coming generations to know that defeat was not accepted and they rebuilt the city.

Elijah fought against god and just like Jacob was blessed by the Lord after a night of struggle when Jacob refused to accept defeat, Elijah was also blessed by God.

The angel of Lord returned and said to Elijah that Lord is pleased by his struggle and he is blessed by lord. The angel said unto Elijah that the Lord has ordered him to go to Israel and restore the religion and worship of Lord and remove Jezebel.

Elijah did so. He returned to Israel, performed the granted miracle and restored the faith. He ordered the execution of prophets who had betrayed the Lord. Jezebel sought him everywhere but he fled to The Fifth Mountain and remained there.

Later Syrians invaded the country and killed Ahab and Jezebel took refuge in her palace. She was later captured.

According to Bible, Elijah remained on the mountain and later went to heaven.

This is the story of Elijah. As far as my knowledge of this matter is concerned, Elijah is a character in Bible and Jesus has spoken of his John the Baptist. I am not sure whether Paulo talks about these characters or he wants to tell something about the history of Israel but one thing that I made out of the book was the amazing struggle that Elijah makes against life.

The life of Elijah gives me motivation and deep lessons of highest order. This man flees from his country, barely escapes death, goes to a hostile place, lives and wins their people, witnesses the destruction of the very place that gave him shelter and then rebuilds that place. Imagine the kind of moral strength such man will have. He is visited by his guardian angel and the angel of the Lord and at the time when Akbar is destroyed there are no visits and guidance by angels. This man fights against the God and God has to bless his finally.

In our lives we are boggled down by small things. We start to curse from our pens to notebooks and our teachers if we are not able to get good marks in exams. We curse our boss and our job and God if we are retrenched or demoted. We leave everything to fate, curse it and go to states of depression and anxiety. And see this man Elijah who fought with God and his fate for three years before he was blessed.

This was the most important lesson I made out. Never accept defeat. Everything that happens is for good. At current times it may seem bad but in the bigger scheme of things God has planned everything good for us.

Another very interesting thing was this statement ? Blessed are thee who go through moments of indecision. This made me think very deeply. At times we decide ? our future, our career and our lives. They say we must be very sure about our goal. But despite of being very sure who will guarantee that what I have decided is correct? I mean one must be very sure about his goal but he might not be correct. And if such a person goes through a state of indecision he will feel strange. Such person has never felt what a dilemma is like. So he might start to question his skills. But that is not true. If you go through indecision means you have the ability to reconsider your options which is a very valuable strength. Even Jack Welch has said it in his autobiography ? Jack Straight from the Gut.

There are other similar things, small things of wisdom which have very deep philosophy and that can be discussed at length but not here! These things are really long, especially when you read philosophy and like it!!

All in all it was a very good book, very motivating, very insightful and very satisfying. It is a small novel ? just 245 pages. Might appear to be slow to people who are in a habit of reading thriller writers like Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, Robert Ludlum etc but it is not a novel of such type. It is a philosophical type of story and it needs a lot of thinking. You can not just read it f