The Pilgrimage

  "It was she...it was she who helped me," I murmured, as my dizziness grew worse.

  "Don't start creating fantasies in a world that is already extraordinary," said Petrus, supporting me by the arm. "She comes from a convent in Canas, three or four miles from here. You can't see it from here."

  My heart was still pounding, and I was sure I was going to be sick. I was too upset to speak or ask for an explanation. I sat down on the ground, and Petrus threw some water on my forehead and on the nape of my neck. I remembered that he had done the same thing after we had left the woman's house--but that day I had cried for joy. Now the sensation was just the opposite.

  Petrus let me rest a bit. The water brought me around, and the nausea began to subside. Things slowly returned to normal. When I felt restored, Petrus said we should walk a little, and I obeyed. We walked for about fifteen minutes, but the exhaustion returned. We sat down at the foot of a rollo, a medieval column supporting a cross. Such columns marked a number of stretches along the Jacobean route.

  "Your fear has hurt you much more than the dog did," said Petrus, as I rested.

  I wanted to understand that absurd encounter.

  "In the life on the Road to Santiago, certain things happen that are beyond our control. When we first met, I told you that I had read in the gypsy's eyes the name of the demon you would have to confront. I was surprised to learn that the demon was a dog, but I did not say anything to you about it at the time. Only after we arrived at that woman's house--when for the first time, you showed the love that consumes--did I see your enemy.

  "When you chased away that woman's dog, you did not place him anywhere. You didn't hurl the spirits into a drove of pigs that was thrown over a precipice, as Jesus did. You simply chased the dog away. Now his force wanders along behind you, without a destination. Before finding your sword, you are going to have to decide whether you want to be enslaved by that force or whether you will dominate it."

  My fatigue began to pass. I took a deep breath and felt the cold stone of the roll against my back. Petrus gave me some more water and went on:

  "Cases of obsession occur when people lose their mastery over the forces of the earth. The gypsy's curse had frightened that woman, and her fear had opened a breach that the messenger of death was then able to penetrate. This doesn't always happen, but neither is it rare. Your confidence and your sense of mastery depend a great deal on how you react to threats made by others."

  This time it was I who remembered a passage from the Bible. A verse in the Book of Job says, "For the thing that I greatly feared is come upon me."

  "A threat leads to nothing if it is not accepted. In fighting the good fight, you should never forget that. Just as you should never forget that both attacking and fleeing are part of the fight. What isn't a part of the fight is becoming paralyzed by fear."

  I had not felt fear when the dog was there. This had surprised me, and I told Petrus about it.

  "I could see that you felt no fear. If you had, the dog would have attacked you. And without a doubt, he would have won the fight. Because the dog was not afraid either. The strangest thing, though, was the arrival of that nun. When you sensed the presence of something positive, your imagination concluded that someone had arrived to help you. And this, your faith, saved you. Even though it was based on an assumption that was absolutely false."

  Petrus was right. He laughed at me, and I laughed, too. We got up to resume our walking. I was already feeling better.

  "There is one thing you have to know, though," said Petrus as we moved on. "The duel with the dog will end only with a victory for you or for him. He will be back, and the next time you must try to take the fight through to the end. If you don't, his presence will worry you for the rest of your life."

  In the encounter with the gypsy, Petrus had told me, he had learned the name of the demon. I asked him what it was.

  "Legion," he answered. "Because he is many."

  We passed through fields that the farmers were preparing for sowing. Here and there, some peasants operated crude water pumps in the centuries-old fight against the arid soil. Along the edge of the Road to Santiago, stones had been piled into endless walls, crisscrossing the fields. I thought about how, in spite of all the centuries during which that soil had been worked, stones still surfaced--stones that could break the blade of a plow, render a horse lame, and leave calluses on the peasants' hands. It was a battle every year, a battle that would never end.

  Petrus was quieter than usual, and I realized that he had said almost nothing since morning. After our conversation at the medieval rollo, he had been mute, not answering any of the questions I had asked. I wanted to know more about the "many demons," because he had already explained to me that each person has only one messenger. But Petrus was not interested in talking about it, and I decided to wait for a better time.

  We climbed a small rise, and from the top we could see the main tower of the church at Santo Domingo de la Calzada. I was glad to see it; I began to think about the magical comfort of the Parador Nacional. From what I had read about it, the building had been constructed by Santo Domingo himself as a shelter for pilgrims. Saint Francis of Assisi had stayed there on his way to Compostela. Everything about it excited me.

  At about seven o'clock that evening, Petrus said we should stop. I was reminded of Roncesvalles and of the slow pace we had taken when I had needed some wine to warm me, and I was afraid that he was preparing something like that.

  "A messenger would never help you to defeat someone else. Messengers are neither good nor bad, as I have already told you, but they have a sense of loyalty among themselves. Don't rely on your messenger to help you defeat the dog."

  Now it was my turn not to want to talk about messengers. I wanted to get to Santo Domingo.

  "The messengers of people who have died can occupy the body of someone who is dominated by fear. That is why, in the case of the dog, he is many. Messengers were invited in by the woman's fear--not just the murdered gypsy's messenger but all of the many messengers who wander in space, seeking a way to establish contact with the forces of the earth."

  He was finally answering my question, but there was something in the way he spoke that seemed artificial, as if this were not what he really wanted to say. My instincts told me to be wary.

  "What do you want, Petrus?" I asked him, a bit irritated.

  My guide did not answer. He walked into the field toward an ancient, almost leafless tree that stood about thirty yards from us. It was the only tree visible on the entire horizon. Since he had not given me the signal to follow, I stood where I was. And I saw a strange thing happen: Petrus walked around the tree several times and said something out loud, while he looked at the ground. When he had finished, he gestured for me to come over.

  "Sit here," he said. There was a different tone to his voice, and I couldn't tell whether it was friendliness or irritation. "Stay here. I will see you tomorrow in Santo Domingo de la Calzada."

  Before I could say a word, Petrus continued, "One of these days--and I guarantee you that it will not be today--you are going to have to confront the most important enemy you will meet on the Road to Santiago: the dog. When that day comes, you can be sure that I will be close at hand and will give you the strength you need to fight him. But today you are going to confront a different type of enemy, an unreal enemy that may destroy you or may turn out to be your best friend: death.

  "Human beings are the only ones in nature who are aware that they will die. For that reason and only for that reason, I have a profound respect for the human race, and I believe that its future is going to be much better than its present. Even knowing that their days are numbered and that everything will end when they least expect it, people make of their lives a battle that is worthy of a being with eternal life. What people regard as vanity--leaving great works, having children, acting in such a way as to prevent one's name from being forgotten--I regard as the highest expression of human dignity.

  "Still
, being fragile creatures, humans always try to hide from themselves the certainty that they will die. They do not see that it is death itself that motivates them to do the best things in their lives. They are afraid to step into the dark, afraid of the unknown, and their only way of conquering that fear is to ignore the fact that their days are numbered. They do not see that with an awareness of death, they would be able to be even more daring, to go much further in their daily conquests, because then they would have nothing to lose--for death is inevitable."

  The possibility of spending the night in Santo Domingo was looking more and more remote. But now I was interested in what Petrus was saying. The sun itself was dying beyond the horizon there in front of us.

  "Death is our constant companion, and it is death that gives each person's life its true meaning. But in order to see the real face of our death, we first have to know all of the anxieties and terrors that the simple mention of its name is able to evoke in any human being."

  Petrus sat down beside me under the tree. He said that he had circled its trunk a few minutes before because it reminded him of everything that had happened to him when he had been a pilgrim bound for Santiago. Then he took from his knapsack two sandwiches that he had bought at lunchtime.

  "Here, where you are now, there is no danger," he said, giving me the sandwiches. "There are no poisonous snakes, and the dog will return to attack you only after he has forgotten this morning's defeat. And there are no bandits or criminals around here. You are in a spot that is absolutely safe, with one exception: the danger created by your own fear."

  Petrus pointed out to me that two days earlier, I had experienced a sensation that had been as intense and as violent as death itself--that of the love that consumes. And that at one point I had vacillated and been afraid. He said that I had been afraid because I knew nothing about universal love. He explained to me that although all of us have some idea of death, we do not see that death is only another manifestation of agape. I answered that with all of my years of training in magic, I had practically lost my fear of death. Actually, I was more frightened by the way in which I would die than by death itself.

  "Well, then, tonight take a look at the most frightening way to die."

  And at that point, Petrus taught me the Buried Alive Exercise.

  "You should do this exercise only once," he said. I was thinking of an exercise from the theater that was quite similar. "It is important that you be as truthful with yourself as possible and that you be as fearful as necessary for the exercise to get at the roots of your soul; it has to strip away the scary mask that hides the gentle face of your death."

  Petrus stood up, and I saw his silhouette against the background of the setting sun. From where I was seated, he seemed to be a gigantic and powerful figure.

  "Petrus, I have one more question."

  "What is it?"

  "This morning you were close-mouthed and strange. You sensed before I did that the dog was going to appear. How was that possible?"

  The Buried Alive Exercise

  Lie down on the floor and relax. Cross your arms over your chest in the posture of death.

  Imagine all of the details of your burial, as if it were to be carried out tomorrow, the only difference being that you are being buried alive. As the situation develops in your mind--the chapel, the procession to the cemetery, the lowering of the casket, the worms in the grave--you begin tensing all of your muscles more and more in a desperate attempt to escape. But you cannot do so. Keep trying until you cannot stand it any longer, and then, using a movement that involves your entire body, throw aside the confines of the coffin, breathe deeply, and find yourself free. This movement will have a greater effect if you scream at the same time; it should be a scream that emanates from the depths of your body.

  "When we both experienced the love that consumes, we shared in the Absolute. The Absolute shows each of us who we really are; it is an enormous web of cause and effect, where every small gesture made by one person affects the life of someone else. This morning, that slice of the Absolute was still very much alive in my soul. I was seeing not only you but everything there is in the world, unlimited by space or time. Now, the effect is much weaker and will only return in its full strength the next time that I do the exercise of the love that consumes."

  I remembered Petrus's bad mood of that morning. If what he said was true, the world was going through a very bad phase.

  "I will be waiting for you there at the Parador," he said, as he prepared to leave. "I will leave your name at the desk."

  I watched him walk away until I could no longer see him. In the fields to my left, the peasants had finished their day's labors and gone home. I decided that I would do the exercise as soon as darkness had fallen.

  I was content. It was the first time I had been completely alone since I had started along the Strange Road to Santiago. I stood up and explored my immediate surroundings, but night was falling fast, and I decided to go back to the tree before I got lost. Before it became completely dark, I made a mental estimate of the distance between the tree and the road. Even in darkness, I would be able to see the way perfectly well and make my way to Santo Domingo with just the help of the frail new moon that had risen in the sky.

  Up until that point, I had not been at all frightened; I felt that it would take a lot of imagination to make me fearful of any kind of horrible death. But no matter how long we have lived, when night falls it arouses the hidden fears that have been there in our souls since we were children. The darker it grew, the less comfortable I became.

  There I was, alone in the fields; if I were to scream, no one would even hear me. I remembered that I had almost passed out completely that morning. Never in my life had I felt my heart to be so out of control.

  And what if I had died? My life would have ended, obviously. Through my experiences with the Tradition, I had already communicated with many spirits. I was absolutely certain that there was a life after death, but it had never occurred to me to wonder just how the transition was made. To pass from one dimension to another, no matter how well prepared one is, must be terrible. If I had died that morning, for example, I would have known nothing else about the rest of the Road to Santiago, about my years of study, about my family's grief for me, or about the money hidden in my belt. I thought about a plant on my desk in Brazil. The plant would go on, as would other plants, as would the streetcars, as would the man on the corner who charges more for his vegetables than anyone else, as would the woman at directory assistance who provides me with telephone numbers that are not listed in the book. All these things--which would have disappeared if I had died that morning--took on an enormous importance for me. I realized that those were the things, rather than the stars or wisdom, that told me I was alive.

  The night was quite dark, and on the horizon I could see the faint lights of the city. I lay down on the ground and looked at the branches of the tree overhead. I began to hear strange sounds, sounds of all kinds. They were the sounds of the nocturnal animals, setting out on the hunt. Petrus could not know everything; he was just another human being like me. How was I to know if his guarantee about the absence of poisonous snakes was true? And the wolves, those eternal European wolves--wasn't it possible that they had decided to show up there that night, sniffing out my presence? A louder noise, similar to the breaking of a branch, frightened me, and my heart once again started pounding.

  I was growing scared. The best thing to do would be to complete the exercise right away and then head for the hotel. I began to relax and crossed my arms over my chest in the posture of death. Something nearby made a sound. I jumped up immediately.

  It was nothing. The night had aroused my greatest fears. I lay down again, deciding that this time I would turn any source of fear into a stimulus for the exercise. I noticed that even though the temperature had fallen quite a bit, I was perspiring.

  I imagined my coffin being closed, and the screws being turned. I was immobile, but I was alive, and I wa
nted to tell my family that I was seeing everything. I wanted to tell them all that I loved them, but not a sound came out of my mouth. My father and mother were weeping, my wife and my friends were gathered around, but I was completely alone! With all of the people dear to me standing there, no one was able to see that I was alive and that I had not yet accomplished all that I wanted to do in this world. I tried desperately to open my eyes, to give a sign, to beat on the lid of the coffin. But I could not move any part of my body.

  I felt the coffin being carried toward the grave. I could hear the sound of the handles grinding against their fittings, the steps of those in the procession, and conversations from this side and that. Someone said that he had a date for dinner later on, and another observed that I had died early. The smell of flowers all around me began to suffocate me.

  I remembered how I had given up trying to establish a relationship with two or three women, fearing their rejection. I remembered also the number of times I had failed to do what I wanted to do, thinking I could always do it later. I felt very sorry for myself, not only because I was about to be buried alive but also because I had been afraid to live. Why be fearful of saying no to someone or of leaving something undone when the most important thing of all was to enjoy life fully? There I was, trapped in a coffin, and it was already too late to go back and show the courage I should have had.

  There I was, having played the role of my own Judas, having betrayed myself. There I was, powerless to move a muscle, screaming for help, while the others were involved in their lives, worrying about what they were going to do that night, admiring statues and buildings that I would never see again. I began to feel how unfair it was to have to be buried while others continued to live. I would have felt better if there had been a catastrophe and all of us had been in the same boat, heading for the same abyss toward which they were carrying me now. Help! I tried to cry out. I'm still alive. I haven't died. My mind is still functioning!