The Seeker :Book review:  By Amna Zaheer

Book: The Seeker By Dr. Khalid Sohail

We, humans, are meaning seeking creatures. Some choose to live by the meaning predetermined by others, without ever questioning its veracity, while some others dare to venture on their own to seek the meaning and find value in life themselves. The Seeker by Dr. Khalid Sohail is such an attempt, an individual’s endeavor to find his personal truth.

The book is an autobiography, but Dr. Sohail has chosen to trace the trajectory of his life through his alter ego Khizr, as unlike conventional autobiographies The Seeker does not trace a linear physical timeline of biological growth but the growth of inner self. By using this allegorical technique he has managed to create a distance between his physical self and his evolving conscious self and is thus able to see himself both objectively as well as subjectively.

Khizr calls life a ‘special gift’. The inspiration to ‘give birth’ to The Seeker’ also came forth to appreciate the value of life despite its elusive purpose and meaning. Khizr calls himself ‘fortunate’ because he doesn’t see his earthly existence as something mundane- he refuses to give in to the false assurances of those hypocrite scholars who teach their followers to despise this earthly existence as something valueless in comparison to what awaits them in the afterlife. Instead, Khizr perseveres in defending his own perspective and is thus rewarded with the discovery of this earthly existence as something, ‘mysterious, mystical and magical.’

The mystery, the magic exists around us all but not everyone has the ability to see and  translate that experience into words, but The Seeker not only manages to capture that magic; it goes further by including the readers in that experience by providing a template of familiar metaphors and symbols so they can also discover the magic on their own. Many modern writers try to avoid allegorical techniques because they are not-too-subtle, and they tend to impose a single,conspicuous interpretation on readers, thus restricting their freedom. But The Seeker skillfully combines the directed guidance of allegory with the potency of its symbols and metaphors. It restricts yet liberates at the same time. It lets the reader enter the world of the writer, the familiar metaphors become like familiar faces, and thus a personal experience becomes a shared experience. We are all tempted to search for Wisdom, Friendship, Serenity or Mysticism in our own lives. The simplicity of technique is actually illusive, once we experience how it triggers the complexity of our own thought processes.

The book begins with a humble acknowledgement, not a cynical complaint about the elusiveness of Truth, “He was never sure whether the truth did not fully reveal itself to him or he was not capable of absorbing the whole truth.’ ? And then comes the dilemma faced by all seekers,  ‘Should I continue the search, or should I stop? And if I stop, would it be a reflection of resignation or an expression of acceptance.’ There is an earnest longing to find Truth, not just exasperated skepticism.

The encounters and their sequencing are very thought provoking and meaningful and even the table -of- contents shows us that the journey will not follow any usual biological or chronological order but will flow like a meandering stream- changing courses, winding around bumps and recesses, not just flowing but also growing all the way with what the terrain has to offer. Consequently, the very first encounter pointedly begins with the evening, the time when the day is dying, and paradoxically the apprehension that grips Khizr at this dying hour is what if ” he would die before he was fully born,” thereby, emphasizing the fact that our physical birth is not synonymous with our spiritual birth. Unlike the physical birth, the spiritual birth comes through our own efforts, the metamorphosis cannot happen till we wiggle out of our cocoons. And very appropriately the very next encounter is called Books- for human metamorphosis is not possible without books.

The process of transformation requires weaning yourself off from many familiar things, and for Khizr first and foremost in the list came ‘Tradition.’ He, however, does realize that the comfort and the easy answers provided by tradition cannot be relinquished without anguish. Khizr recalls poignantly how he was impressed by his teacher’s( whom he calls Science) argument but he was still doubtful. “His mind agreed with his teacher but his heart wanted to believe his mother. Khizr anxiously started to wait for the rain….He wanted to believe his mother but he could not.’ Leaving the comfort zone of familiarity and tradition needs will and courage. Khizr’s first severance from tradition comes when he realizes the importance of questioning in a society that despised and discouraged questioning. He ‘realized that the question was more important than the answer. If he had the question, he would definitely find the answer.’ Once he feels liberated to question, the seeker is born.

Interestingly, before the readers embark on the journey with Khizr, they are informed  that it is going to be ‘a short, a very short autobiography,’ the reiteration of the word short kind of prepares or rather alerts the reader for experiencing some shutter speed images instead of exhausting details about the intimate personal life of the writer.

The brevity of this autobiography leads one to imagine the experience of the time near death. It is believed, and recently corroborated by some scientist working on epileptic patients, that our life flashes before our eyes near death, a kind of concentration of every valuable drop – like cream rising to the top! The trance that Dr.Sohail mentioned in the introduction seems to resemble that  clairvoyance when the spirit is drawn to lucidity as a result of encountering the immediacy of death. But nobody knows what our consciousness or subconsciousness has prepared for that finale, what will it choose to flash just before our departure from this earthly existence, would it choose the painful or traumatic moments, or the euphoric or ecstatic ones; or those quiet meaningful moments that transformed us. The Seeker, in its lucidity and brevity, seems to capture all that mattered in the life of Khizr, in kind of a flash, through quick succession of encounters.

 Though The Seeker  builds on metaphors with religious overtones, which remind me of Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, but unlike Bunyan’s Christain, Khizr of The Seeker is not limited by any religious or secular ideologies. Khizr traverses universal territories, drinking from every well in search of truth. His search is neither localized nor limited by any one ideology.

The Seeker has a feel of distilled purity in its brevity and wisdom. It shows the earnestness of the writer to convey what he received in a trance without interfering or sacrificing the content for form, and it is this sincerity coupled with warm sympathy that offers deeper layers of wisdom with every read.