The Pilgrimage (15 page)

Relax. Close your eyes. Try for several minutes to concentrate on all of

the sounds you hear in your surroundings, as if you were hearing an orchestra playing its
instruments.

Little by little, try to separate each sound from the others. Concentrate on each one, as
if it were the only instrument playing. Try to eliminate the other sounds from your
awareness.

When you do this exercise every day, you will begin to hear voices. First, you will think
that they are imaginary. Later, you will discover that they are voices of people from your
past, present, and future, all of them participating with you in the remembrance of time.

This exercise should be performed only when you already know the voice of your messenger.

Do this exercise for ten minutes at a time.

point I sensed that a branch was being broken. It was not a difficult exercise, and I was
fascinated by its sim- plicity. I put my ear to the ground and began to listen to the
muted sounds of the earth. After a few moments, I began to separate the sounds from each
other: the sound of the leaves rustling, the sound of the voice in the distance, and the
noise of the beating of the wings of birds. An animal grunted, but I could not identify
what kind of beast it was. The fifteen minutes I spent on the exercise flew by.

After a while, you will see that this exercise will help you to make the right decision,
Petrus said, without asking me what I had heard. Agape speaks to you through the Blue
Sphere Exercise, but it also speaks to you through your sight, your sense of touch,
through scents, and your heart, and your hearing. A week from now, at the most, you will
begin to hear voices. At first, they will be timid, but before long they are going to
begin to tell you things that are important. Be careful, though, with your messenger. He
is going to try to con- fuse you. However, you already know the sound of his voice, so he
will no longer be a threat.

Petrus asked if I had heard the joyful call of an enemy, or an invitation offered by a
woman, or the secret of my sword.

I just heard the voice of a woman in the distance, I said. But it was a farmers wife
calling to her child.

Well, look at that cross there, and see if you can raise it with your thoughts.

I asked him what such an exercise would mean.

It means having faith in your thoughts, he responded.

I sat down on the ground in a yoga position. I was certain that after everything I had
accomplished with the dog and with the waterfall, I was going to be able to do this, too.
I fixated on the cross. I imagined myself leaving my body, grasping the cross, and raising
it using my astral body. On the road of the Tradition, I had already performed some of
these small miracles. I had been able to shatter glasses and porcelain statues and to move
objects along the surface of a table. It was an easy magic trick, and even though it did
not signify any great power, it was useful in winning over nonbe- lievers. I had never
tried it, though, with an object the size and weight of the cross. But if Petrus had com-
manded that I do so, I felt I would know how to make it happen.

For half an hour I tried everything I could. I used astral displacement and suggestion. I
remembered the power my Master had over the force of gravity, and I tried to repeat the
words that he always used on such occasions. Nothing happened. I was concentrating com-
pletely, but the cross did not budge. I invoked Astrain, and he appeared between the
columns of fire. But when I spoke to him about the cross, he said that he detested crosses.

Petrus finally shook me to bring me out of my trance.

Come on, this is becoming irritating, he said. Since you cant do it by thinking, put the
cross upright with your hands.

With my hands? Do it! I was startled. Suddenly the man in front of me had

become nasty, very different from the person who had cared for my wounds. I didnt know
what to say or do.

Do it! he repeated. I am ordering you to do it!

There I was, with my arms and hands wrapped in bandages because of the dogs attack. I had
just been through the Listening Exercise, but I couldnt believe what I was hearing from
Petrus. Without saying any- thing, I showed him my bandages. But he continued to look
coldly at me, not changing his expression in the least. He expected me to obey him. The
guide and friend who had accompanied me all this time, who had taught me the RAM practices
and told me the beautiful stories about the Road to Santiago, seemed no longer to be
there. In his place I saw a man who regarded me as a slave and had ordered me to do
something that was stupid.

What are you waiting for? he asked.

I remembered the waterfall experience. I recalled that on that day I had had some doubts
about Petrus but that then he had been generous with me. He had demonstrated his love and
had kept me from giving up on my sword. I could not understand how the same person who had
been so kind could be so harsh now.

He suddenly seemed to represent the very thing that the human race was trying to put
behind it the oppression of one person by another.

Petrus, I ... Do it, or the Road to Santiago ends right here! I was scared again. At that
moment, I was more

frightened than I had been at the waterfall; I was more fearful of him than of the dog
that had terrorized me for so long. I prayed that a signal would come to me from somewhere
in our surroundings, that I would see or hear something that would explain his senseless
com- mand. But we were engulfed in silence. I either had to obey Petrus or forget about
the sword. Once again, I raised my bandaged arms, but he sat down on the ground, waiting
for me to carry out his orders.

So I decided to obey him.

I went to the cross and tried to budge it with my foot to test its weight. It hardly
moved. Even if my hands had been in good shape, I would have had a very difficult time
trying to lift it, and I knew that with my hands bound as they were, the task would be
almost impossi- ble. But I was going to comply. I was going to die in the attempt, if that
was necessary; I was going to sweat blood, as Jesus had when he had had to carry the same
kind of burden. But Petrus was going to perceive the seriousness of my effort, and perhaps
that would touch him in some way and he would free me from the test.

The cross had broken at its base, but it was still attached to it. I had no knife with
which to cut through

the fibers. Forgetting about my pain, I put my arms around the cross and tried to wrench
it from the shat- tered base, without using my hands. The wood abraded the lacerations on
my arms, and I cried out in pain. I looked at Petrus, and he was completely impassive. I
resolved that I would not cry out again. From that moment on, I would stifle any such
demonstration.

I knew that my immediate problem was not to move the cross but to free it from its base.
Afterward, I would have to dig a hole and push the cross into it. I found a stone with an
edge to it and, ignoring the pain, began to pound at the wooden fibers.

The pain was terrible and grew worse with every blow, and the fibers were parting very
slowly. I had to give up that approach right away, before my wounds reopened and the whole
effort became impossible. I decided to work at it more slowly so that I could accom- plish
the task without succumbing to the pain. I took off my shirt, wrapped it around my hand,
and went back to the job with this additional protection. The idea was a good one: the
first fiber parted, and then the second. The stone was losing its edge, so I looked around
for another. Each time I paused, I had the feel- ing that I would not be able to start
again. I gathered several sharp stones and used them, one after the other, so that the
pain in the hand I was working with was bearable. Almost all of the fibers had been cut,
but the main one still held firm. The pain in my hand was increasing, and abandoning the
idea of working slowly,

I began to strike at the wood frantically. I knew that I was coming close to the point
where the pain would make it impossible to continue. It was just a matter of time until
this happened, and I had to make good use of that time. I was sawing and pounding now, and
something sticky between my skin and the bandages was making the work even more difficult.
It is probably blood, I thought, but then I put it out of my mind. I gritted my teeth,
struck harder at the fiber, and it seemed about to break. I was so excited that I stood up
and delivered a blow with all my strength to the wood that was causing all my suffering.

With a groan, the cross fell to the side, freed from its base.

My joy lasted only for a few moments. My hand was throbbing violently, and I had only
begun the job. I looked over at Petrus and saw that he was sleeping. I stood there for a
time, trying to figure out some way of fooling him, of putting the cross upright without
his noticing it.

But that was exactly what Petrus wanted: that I raise the cross. And there was no way to
deceive him, because the task depended solely on me.

I looked at the ground the dry, yellow earth. Once again, stones would be my only tools.
I could not work anymore with my right hand because it hurt too much, and there was that
sticky substance under the bandage that worried me. I carefully unwrapped the shirt from
the bandages; blood was staining the gauze and this

was a wound that had almost healed. Petrus was a mon- ster!

I found a different kind of stone, one that was heav- ier and more resistant. Rolling the
shirt around my left hand, I began to beat at the earth, trying to dig a hole at the foot
of the cross. My initial progress was good, but it was soon slowed by the hardness and
dryness of the ground. I kept digging, but the hole seemed to stay the same depth. I
decided that I would not make the hole very wide so that the cross would fit into it
without wobbling, but this made it more difficult to remove the dirt from the excavation.
My right hand had stopped hurting as much as it had, but the coagulated blood made me
nauseated and anxious. I was not used to working with my left hand, and the stone kept
slipping from my grip.

I dug forever! Every time the stone beat on the ground, and every time I put my hand into
the hole to remove some dirt, I thought of Petrus. I looked over at him, dozing
peacefully, and I hated him from the bottom of my heart. Neither the noise nor my hatred
appeared to disturb him. He must have his reasons, I said to myself, but I could not
understand the debase- ment and humiliation he was inflicting on me. I saw his face in the
earth I was pounding, and the rage I was feel- ing helped me to dig the hole deeper.
Again, it was just a matter of time: sooner or later I was going to win.

As I thought about this, the rock hit something solid and sprang back. This was my worst
fear. After all that

work, I had run into a stone that was too big for me to continue.

I stood up, wiping the sweat from my face, and began to think. I didnt have enough
strength to move the cross to another place. I couldnt start again from the beginning
because my left hand, now that I had stopped, felt dead. This was worse than pain, and it
really scared me. I looked at my fingers, and I was able to move them, but instinct told
me that I shouldnt punish the hand anymore.

I looked at the hole. It wasnt deep enough to hold the cross erect.

The wrong answer will indicate the right one. I remembered the Shadows Exercise and what
Petrus had said then. It was also then that he had told me that the RAM practices would
make sense only if I could apply them in my daily life. Even in a situation as absurd as
the present one, the RAM practices should be of some use.

The wrong answer will indicate the right one. The impossible solution would be to try to
drag the cross to a different place; I no longer had the strength to do that. It was also
impossible to try digging deeper into the ground.

So if the impossible answer was to go deeper into the earth, the possible answer was to
raise the earth. But how?

And suddenly, all of my love for Petrus was restored. He was right. I could raise the
earth!

I began to collect all the stones nearby and placed them around the hole, mixing them with
the earth I had removed. With great effort, I lifted the foot of the cross a little and
supported it with stones to raise it higher off the ground. In half an hour, the ground
was higher, and the hole was deep enough.

Now I just had to get the cross into the hole. It was the last step, and I had to make it
work. One of my hands was numb, and the other was giving me a great deal of pain. My arms
were wrapped in bandages. But my back was all right; it had just a few scratches. If I
could lie down beneath the cross and raise it bit by bit, I would be able to slide it into
the hole.

I stretched out on the ground, feeling the dust in my nose and eyes. With the hand that
was numb, I raised the cross a fraction and slid underneath it. Carefully, I adjusted my
position so that its trunk rested squarely on my back. I felt its weight and knew that it
would be heavy to lift but not impossible. I thought about the Seed Exercise, and very
slowly I squirmed into a fetal position, balancing the cross on my back. Several times I
thought it was going to fall, but I was working slowly; I was able to sense the direction
it might take and correct for it by repositioning my body. I finally achieved the position
I wanted, with my knees in front of me and the cross bal- anced. For a moment, the foot of
the cross shook on the pile of stones, but it did not fall out of place.

Its a good thing I dont have to save the universe, I thought, oppressed by the weight of
the cross and every-

thing it represented. A profoundly religious feeling took possession of me. I remembered
that another person had carried the cross on his shoulders and that his dam- aged hands
had not been able to free themselves from the wood or the pain as mine could. This
religious feel- ing was loaded down with pain, but I forgot about it immediately because
the cross began to shake again.