The Alchemist has taught Santiago to believe in the notion of his Personal Legend. This concept is central to the book. Your Personal Legend is nothing less than the meaning of your life. You can look for signs to reveal it, but no one else can tell you what it is or achieve it for you. The Alchemist is wise and has given Santiago the benefit of his wisdom. But wisdom, beyond a certain point, cannot be taught. It must be acquired by experiences that cannot be delegated to anyone else.
It is for Santiago, like everyone else, to acquire wisdom through experience and to find his Personal Legend for himself. No one can spare him or accompany him on that journey. After all, the book aims to take the reader on a similar journey and, if we are to take the final steps alone, after finishing the book, without an alchemist to guide us except in memory, then it is as well to have a protagonist who has done the same.
Only Santiago can fulfill his Personal Legend and can achieve his own destiny in life. The Alchemist can certainly help him along the path, with wisdom, guidance, and moral support. But in the final analysis, it's Santiago who must take that final, crucial step. That's why the Alchemist leaves Santiago alone to complete his epic journey.
A Personal Legend means just that; something that is unique to each and every one of us. It is only right and proper, then, that each individual finally reaches their goal alone. And the Alchemist understands this better than anyone.
His role was to lead Santiago to his destination, but once it was clear that Santiago finally understood where he was going he had no further need of the Alchemist's assistance. The Alchemist's job is done, and so he fades from the picture as Santiago, at long last, fulfills his Personal Legend.
At the end of the story of The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, I believe that the alchemist leaves Santiago alone to complete his journey because he has done all that he can for the boy. Santiago has learned the Language of the World. He has already learned how to believe in his Personal Legend. He has also learned that if he wants something bad enough and works with the Soul of the World, he can realize his Personal Legend. The alchemist has nothing more he can share with the boy, nothing else to teach him. Santiago has learned, too, that he has found his true happiness and treasure in Fatima.
The alchemist taught the boy to look for God in all things.
Remember what I told you: the world is only the visible aspect of God. And that what alchemy does is to bring spiritual perfection into contact with the material plane.
I also believe that the alchemist knows that to realize his Personal Legend, Santiago must take those last steps himself: it cannot be done for him....
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In life, one must search for his dreams: no one can do it for him. So the alchemist leaves, though not without providing for the boy's well-being should he meet with trouble—which hedoes. Santiago comes to understand the secret to finding his treasure, he sees the Pyramids, and returns home to where it all began, all the "richer" for the journey.
In Paulo Choelho's The Alchemist, why did the alchemist leave Santiago alone at the end to complete his journey?
With regard to Paulo Choelho's novel, The Alchemist, my first reaction is that at the end, Santiago must go on in order to fulfill his Personal Legend—as as it is his—and he must do it alone: it is his journey of self-discovery.
Santiago has realized the connection he has to God, and the powerful miracles he can perform because he is one with God. However, he must travel to the Pyramids, which has been his goal all along, because of his dreams.
However, when he arrives, he is attacked and beaten by men who believe he has treasure. When they realize he has nothing, they prepare to depart, but one of his attackers turns to him and he speaks of a recurring dream he had had about going to Spain to find treasure in a churchyard with a large tree...but what a foolish thing that would be—to travel so far over a dream! What irony!
The boy is elated: he had done such a foolish thing...traveling to the Pyramids, and in doing so, the world opened up to him because he took the time to listen, learn, and pay attention to omens, as God was speaking to him.
The last pieces fall into place:
The boy stood up shakily, and looked once more at the Pyramids. They seemed to laugh at him, and he laughed back, his heart bursting with joy.
Because now he know where his treasure was.
Had he not followed the the path before him all along, he would not have realized that to fulfill his Personal Legend, he has to return home to Spain where it all began.