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Outline
This unpublished book is originally written in English language. It is a mainstream novel, targeting a broad audience that could be also categorized as narrative non-fiction, intending to make a difference in readers' lives. The title is "Treasure Hunt" and it has cca. 153.000 words telling a contemporary story of a heroine's journey across the world to find the magic tree that fulfills every wish, but along the way she finds that achieving her dream alone it couldn't make her happy in the long run; it's who she becomes, as she overcomes the obstacles necessary to realize her dream that provides her with long-lasting happiness. On her treasure hunt that turns into a spiritual odyssey, she tries to realize her dreams in far and out-of-the-way places, in encounters with strangers, in peculiar circumstances, exceptional surroundings, in celestial spheres and mystifying tales, until her quest takes her to a place she would never dreamed of to look into, to the place where she takes readers with her, to find happiness and make dreams come true. On her quest, the heroine is often challenged, constrained and put in extremely difficult situations, where she needs to be resourceful in finding solutions. Her tasks always require finesse rather than force, which is in a way tribute to the sacred feminine.
It's a controversial novel for it endeavors to push our buttons of thinking outside the box, challenging our many prejudices that keep us locked in prisons of our own makings. The story dares us to shift our perspective while providing us with thought-provoking episodes. We are challenged to face up to our preconceived notions on prostitution, art, casinos, etc. Readers are given a front seat at an encounter with forces that shape our lives, and are encouraged to look outside their own culture, taken to a spectacular array of different realms, where societies defy easy assumptions, often to be challenged by the same questions on race, sex and tolerance that perplex the world we live in.
The story crosses over to our private life like no book before it, for it equips us with assets such as a treasure map, inner weapons and other powerful tools that will help us walk through our fears and ignorance towards our dreams. It has a universal appeal that transcends all cultural barriers. It's safe to say that it is a kind of a book one can read again and again with new eyes and fresh understanding each time. There are many encoded truths and concealed elements in it. The book is aimed at the same market as that of Paolo Coelho and James Redfield.
Synopsis
The story kicks off with an unusual query on what do birds sing about, what do frogs croak about and winds whistle about. The heroine's childish wonderment will take her on an adventurous journey chasing answers to her questions that she couldn't get from mainstream resources. Her quest takes us first to Canada, where she brushes up on her English language skills whilst working as an au-pair. Magda meets her alter-ego Lena there, who becomes her life-long companion and a personified treasure-chest holding many secrets, answers and solutions. The real breakthrough comes through meeting an extremely wealthy Chinese man, who reveals her the secret of both success and fortune. He told her that everything he owned was not inherited, nor earned owing to his college degree, but instead it all fell of a magic tree. That secret tree is told to fulfill every wish, including giving answers. Doing exactly the opposite what anybody else would do in their clear mind, she believes the guy and upgrades her quest to a mission to find that magic tree. In the start she broke the secrecy code and thus broke the magic spell, but not for long. The winds of fate will bring to her another interesting character, who will put her back on the track. He explains her all about the process of finding the tree that involves finding weapons first. The tree is guarded by ferocious dragons that prevent anyone to discover it. Those dragons are embodiments of destructive emotions and attitudes such as fear, ignorance, delusion, anger, hatred, worry, jealousy, greed, attachment, doubt, prejudice, pride, revenge, impatience, vanity, sloth and so on. On her journey she will learn how to combat and tame them with the appropriate use of weapons such us compassion, love, tolerance, patience, forgiveness, understanding, faith, honesty, modesty, generosity, detachment, humbleness, courage, imagination, positive attitude etc.
Her incognito treasure map reveals her next destination, Turkey. Through working as a show-girl among prostitutes and other characters that break most of the socially-imposed rules, she encounters her first demons - jealousy, prejudice and attachment. Together with her, we learn how to triumph over them and in doing so come closer to finding the fortune tree that soon becomes our common goal. In Istanbul we find another side of the coin called prostitution and we get a peek into the chambers of a belly-dancer, who shares Scheherazade-like stories with us, making us crave for more juicy details. We forget, tolerate and we learn to unlearn and relearn. A Muslim priest (khoja) shows us the way.
We follow our heroine first to her Italy tour, where she engages herself as an assistant to a magician, and then across Mediterranean and Caribbean Sea, aboard a cruise-liner working as a cocktail-waitress. The job doesn't bring her the rewards she hoped, so she engages herself in a vindictive enterprise against her superiors, who mistreated her. Her new role of Double-O-Seven takes her into a spying escapade full of danger and thrill. She gets defeated by dragons of revenge, hatred, worry and doubt and finishes her adventures all crushed. Just like the Little Red Riding-hood, she got distracted and thus got eaten by a 'wolf'.
It took another unusual character, in the role of a fortune teller, to set her back on the track. Together with her we get fairly enlightened by insights into the work of the principle of reciprocity that helps us to sharpen up our weapons of understanding, tolerance and forgiveness. That turned tables for our heroine and soon enough she's back on the road, this time in the Far East, looking for her treasures. In Japan she feels like being on another planet, coming across all kinds of cultural differences. We find out more about Buddhism, about the extravaganza of kabuki, about tastes of sushi, shabu-shabu and sukiyaki, about holistic approach to tea making, mystical temples & shrines, idyllic zen gardens, mysterious geishas and so on. We also make friends with local gangsters. Japan will bring her all the way up, put her on a pedestal, provide her with all the treasures she dreamed of, just to find out how frail and temporary it all is. Through working as a hostess in a karaoke lounge, many of her wishes come true, but it turns out they were not the ultimate ones. None of them could help when she finds herself behind the bars. There she gets further enlightened, by insights into true privileges in life and by mastering the use of weapons such us modesty, humility and understanding of karmic law. And there in prison she finds freedom. It just goes to show that every cloud has a silver lining.
Following the camouflaged treasure map by her intuition, the heroine takes us to another exotic location, the enchanting India. We visit a spiritual guru there and stay in his ashram a couple of months. Sai Baba has so much to give us and we have so much to take in. We find many insights into nature of reality, along with the nature of dreams. Our heroine questions the role of her religion, but finds answers in another one. Hinduism is another belief system that she gets drown to, with their vast pantheon of fancy gods that speak to her louder than Christian saints. Something extraordinary happens to her there, in a strike-of-a-lightening fashion. She experiences epiphany. We also meet another great character, who gives us the key to the understanding of significance of tradition.
England becomes our base for next few years. Our heroine makes her living working in a karaoke club at first. We come across theosophy and get quite acquainted with it through volunteering in an esoteric library and meeting all sorts of mental challenges. Through the art of meditation we tame the dragon called impatience and come to terms with the perception of time. Once again we encounter the dragonish prejudice, but armed with understanding and courage we successfully tame it.
We take a break from London and follow our heroine to Germany, where she discovers artistic side of herself, selling paintings for an art gallery. She discovers her talent for sales, whilst selling stories rather than canvases. Balancing between art and trade will bring new adventures and challenges in her life, from which we will all learn something, especially how to find truth in lies. Falling in love takes her to another journey that ends up in faraway Hong-Kong. Smuggling diamonds and precious artifacts give her promises of better life, but some witchcraft propelled her soon back, alone.
The winds of fate carry her back to London, via Zagreb and Düsseldorf again, on a magic carpet woven by casino chips. We enter the world of hazardous games, which turn out to be not so hazardous after all. Believe it or not, we discover the secret of winning in casinos every time! However odd it might sound, playing poker strengthens her soul, by learning more about conquering dragons of fear, greed and vanity. She gets not only richer, but wiser through playing right. Like every story, this one also has its plot and it brings us some unexpected complications, which turn our quest off the road of opulence back to the bumpy road with dragons in ambush. It's all for the good, since we need resistance for our growth. Love replaces wealth this time, as there was no enough room in her heart for both.
Love has an expiring date like everything, so she moves again, but not too far. In Yorkshire she enrolls into a humanitarian program of a special college that takes people to Africa to work as volunteers. We stay there with her for 6 months learning about projects, but mainly about integrating into a group, as opposed to doing things on our own terms. There are many challenges to be met by developing a group spirit, along with dealing with pride as a dragon.
Arriving to Angola, we start a new intriguing adventure. Living with a tribe in a fishing village and working on a Child's Aid project, she encounters the works of black magic, meeting interesting characters such as local shamans, and learns a lot about divination and healing methods. But the best lessons she gets from those she came to teach. We learn that the ultimate joy and wisdom don't come through possessions but rather through our capacity to open, to love fully, and be free of attachments. We are challenged to combat the dragon of arrogance, but it gets down easily through the use of a proper weapon. Our heroine goes through another extraordinary experience, as she gets initiated into being a disciple of God in an occult ceremony. The Holy Spirit comes down onto her hands and she becomes a healer. From then on all the villagers revere her as some sort of deity and come to her when in need for some treatment. We meet her new love and through it face another dragon in form of discrimination, particularly racism.
After crossing the planet back and forth for about a decade, the heroine goes back to her roots to find an anchor, thus she finally settles in her homeland, Croatia. Against all the odds, she gets a great job in the war-torn country. Climbing the corporate ladder from being a financial consultant to mentoring managers, she wins laurels at both, home and abroad. The interesting detail here is that the narrator, who is male and goes by the name of Mario, at that point becomes a character in the story, helping our heroine in the business arena. Needless to say she gets her fair share of obstacles, which made her even stronger both as a leader and as a person. She loves her job, but only until she finds out what it takes to reach the top – play hardball and sleep with the boss. She learns it hard way what it means to be a woman in business. Not willing to compromise her values and prostitute her soul, she deliberately drops the ball. But not before we find out an alchemic formula, which turns failure into success.
Her interests turn back to developing her healing properties, so she joins the trend of Reiki practitioners and gets her new initiation. But it's the mental healing that she focuses on. She continues to explore her horizons and expand her consciousness through ongoing self-improvement, thus shedding new light on many things she questioned when she was younger. Her old resentments towards the mainstream education, religion, tradition and the rest are now seen from another perspective and dismissed.
One thing leads to another she discovers that her true mission in life has more to do with others than herself. Her true calling turns out to be enriching the world prior to finding her own riches. Writing an inspirational book becomes her ticket to the magic tree.
However, by the end we all treasure the hunt rather than hunt the treasure anyway. Bottom line, it's who we become as we overcome the obstacles necessary to complete our quest that can give us long-lasting happiness, more than the object of our quest in itself. While building a bridge from the three-dimensional world of senses to a four-dimensional super-sensuous world by means of artistic writing, she points out the symbolic quality of all things known by senses as the only real haven of peace and happiness, for the things of our world are transient, whereas the symbolism attached to those things is eternal and infinite.
All throughout the story we find many references to the possible meaning of the bird's singing that set her mission in motion, but the leitmotiv remains to be the magic tree. Both of them require using of third eye and third ear. We find that just like with the Holy Grail, the whole point is actually in the ethereal realm of fourth dimension, in the mere sense of wonderment and inspiration emanating from imagination. Whether our goal is the magic tree or anything else, its true value is in serving as the means to focus our attention & intention, and to move us in the right direction. The only reason we really chase our dreams is to prompt ourselves to expand and grow throughout the process. |
