The right books fall off the shelf when we’re ready to read them. I believe that. This has been such a book for me. My best friend mentioned The Celestine Prophesy by James Redfield in passing without revealing much and it sat on my rotating book list for a while. I chose the title at random 2 weeks ago and was stunned when I opened to the first page.

If you’ve ever read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, this book very closely resembles that story and structure. Redfield has a set of principles he believes apply to our world and developed a story around that. It’s a parable. So, to be totally honest and upfront, this isn’t a page turner to find out more about the story. Yes, it’s entertaining for sure, but it becomes apparent very quickly the story is secondary to the message itself. So if you go in with this in your mind, it will be a far more delightful read.

The Celestine Prophesy is a fictitious historical manuscript with 9 insights about the universe and our existence. Each insight is revealed chapter by chapter. There is a mystery component to the prophesies: the Peruvian government, where the manuscript was discovered, is trying to suppress its materiel for fear it undermines religion and the rest of the structures that keep society in order. The manuscript is in pieces and our hero comes upon each insight by coincidence and divine timing.

I do feel, as I did while reading The Alchemist, that each insight in the book transcends the page into my own life. The same idea, concept or principle begins to manifest itself in my day-to-day. It’s as if an imaginary world collides with my own, and this is by far the book’s best attribute. Many people who have read it report the same. It’s easy to see yourself in the story and apply the insights to your life. The journey becomes your own.

This is an old book, but still, I won’t give away its content. However, I will reiterate the principles the author describes in The Celestine Prophesy are based off of well known theories and modern-day thought. It’s what makes the material all the more compelling. Redfield describes a spiritual awakening towards higher consciousness, and I believe this is happening now. Yes, there’s a ton of terrible things happening in the world too, but we live in a time when people are waking up… little light bulbs are turning on over more and more people’s heads as we make a collective shift towards creating a better world.

There is war, yes, but there is a growing number of people committed to creating peace. This is where he begins The Celestine Prophesy and to be honest, though it is fiction, I found myself feeling good about where I am in this space and time. It’s a refreshing thing to remember that we don’t live in doomsday as our news would have us believe. Yes, we’ve got big issues to sort through that have been a long time coming (and we will solve them), but we have so much good happening too.

I will leave this post on one last thought that is echoed in the book: there is no such things as coincidences. I know you, as I, have had moments where we are in flow, surrendering to life and we experience these serendipitous moments that bring us forward on our journey. We can’t explain how or why things shifted to make it work for us, but they did. Pay attention to the coincidences enough and you will discover how it’s all related, how you, in fact, co-created those circumstances, and how it’s possible to consciously participate in the process.