"What did you see?" he asked me.
I told him about the angel. I said that at the beginning, the image would disappear when I blinked.
"You, too, have to learn how to fight the good fight. You have already learned to accept the adventures and challenges that life provides, but you still want to deny anything that is extraordinary."
Petrus took a small object from his knapsack and handed it to me. It was a golden pin.
"This was a present from my grandmother. In the Order of RAM, all of the ancients have an object such as this. It's called "the Point of Cruelty." When you saw the angel appear on the church tower, you wanted to deny it, because it wasn't something that you are used to. In your view of the world, churches are churches, and visions occur only during the ecstasy created by the rituals of the Tradition."
I said that my vision must have been caused by the pressure he was applying to my neck.
"That's right, but that doesn't change anything. The fact is that you rejected the vision. Felicia of Aquitaine must have seen something similar, and she bet her entire life on what she saw. And the result of her having done that transformed her work into a work of love. The same thing probably happened to her brother. And the same thing happens to everyone every day: we always know which is the best road to follow, but we follow only the road that we have become accustomed to."
Petrus began to walk again, and I followed along. The rays of the sun made the pin in my hand glisten.
"The only way we can rescue our dreams is by being generous with ourselves. Any attempt to inflict self-punishment--no matter how subtle it may be--should be dealt with rigorously. In order to know when we are being cruel to ourselves, we have to transform any attempt at causing spiritual pain--such as guilt, remorse, indecision, and cowardice--into physical pain. By transforming a spiritual pain into a physical one, we can learn what harm it can cause us."
And then Petrus taught me the Cruelty Exercise.
The Cruelty Exercise
Every time a thought comes to mind that makes you feel bad about yourself--jealousy, self-pity, envy, hatred, and so on--do the following:
Dig the nail of your index finger into the cuticle of the thumb of the same hand until it becomes quite painful. Concentrate on the pain: it is a physical reflection of the suffering you are going through spiritually. Ease the pressure only when the cruel thought has gone.
Repeat this as many times as necessary until the thought has left you, even if this means digging your fingernail into your thumb over and over. Each time, it will take longer for the cruel thought to return, and eventually it will disappear altogether, so long as you do not fail to perform the exercise every time it comes to mind.
"In ancient times, they used a golden pin for this," he said. "Nowadays, things have changed, just as the sights along the Road to Santiago change."
Petrus was right. Seen from down at this level, the plain appeared to be a series of mountains in front of me.
"Think of something cruel that you did to yourself today, and perform the exercise."
I couldn't think of anything.
"That's the way it always is. We are only able to be kind to ourselves at the few times when we need severity."
Suddenly I remembered that I had called myself an idiot for having laboriously climbed the Peak of Forgiveness while the tourists had driven up in their cars. I knew that this was unfair and that I had been cruel to myself; the tourists, after all, were only looking for a place to sunbathe, while I was looking for my sword. I wasn't an idiot, even if I had felt like one. I dug the nail of my index finger forcefully into the cuticle of my thumb. I felt intense pain, and as I concentrated on it, the feeling of having been an idiot dissipated.
I described this to Petrus, and he laughed without saying anything.
That night, we stayed in a comfortable hotel in the village where the church I had focused on was located. After dinner, we decided to take a walk through the streets, as an aid to digestion.
"Of all the ways we have found to hurt ourselves, the worst has been through love. We are always suffering because of someone who doesn't love us, or someone who has left us, or someone who won't leave us. If we are alone, it is because no one wants us; if we are married, we transform the marriage into slavery. What a terrible thing!" he said angrily.
We came to a square, and there was the church I had seen. It was small and lacked any architectural distinction. Its bell tower reached up toward the sky. I tried to see the angel again, but I couldn't.
"When the Son of God descended to earth, he brought love to us. But since people identified love only with suffering and sacrifice, they felt they had to crucify Jesus. Had they not done so, no one would have believed in the love that Jesus brought, since people were so used to suffering every day with their own problems."
We sat on the curb and stared at the church. Once again, it was Petrus who broke the silence.
"Do you know what Barabbas means, Paulo? Bar means son, and abba means father."
He gazed at the cross on the bell tower. His eyes shone, and I sensed that he was moved by something--perhaps by the love he had spoken so much about, but I couldn't be certain.
"The intentions of the divine glory were so wise!" he said, his voice echoing in the empty square. "When Pontius Pilate made the people choose, he actually gave them no choice at all. He presented them with one man who had been whipped and was falling apart, and he presented them with another man who held his head high--Barabbas, the revolutionary. God knew that the people would put the weaker one to death so that he could prove his love."
He concluded, "And regardless of which choice they made, it was the Son of God who was going to be crucified."
The Messenger
"AND HERE ALL ROADS TO SANTIAGO BECOME ONE."
It was early in the morning when we reached Puente de la Reina, where the name of the village was etched into the base of a statue of a pilgrim in medieval garb: three-cornered hat, cape, scallop shells, and in his hand a shepherd's crook with a gourd--a memorial to the epic journey, now almost forgotten, that Petrus and I were reliving.
We had spent the previous night at one of the many monasteries along the Road. The brother of the gate who had greeted us had warned us that we were not to speak a word within the walls of the abbey. A young monk had led each of us to an alcove, furnished only with the bare necessities: a hard bed, old but clean sheets, a pitcher of water and a basin for personal hygiene. There was no plumbing or hot water, and the schedule for meals was posted behind the door.
At the time indicated, we had come down to the dining hall. Because of the vow of silence, the monks communicated only with their glances, and I had the impression that their eyes gleamed with more intensity than those of other people. The supper was served early at narrow tables where we sat with the monks in their brown habits. From his seat, Petrus had given me a signal, and I had understood perfectly what he meant: he was dying to light a cigarette, but it looked like he was going to have to go through the entire night without one. The same was true for me, and I dug a nail into the cuticle of my thumb, which was already like raw meat. The moment was too beautiful for me to commit any kind of cruelty toward myself.
The meal was served: vegetable soup, bread, fish, and wine. Everyone prayed, and we recited the invocation with them. Afterward, as we ate, a monk read from an Epistle of Saint Paul.
"But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty," read the monk in a thin, tuneless voice. "We are fools for Christ's sake. We are made as the filth of the world and are the offscouring of all things unto this day. But the kingdom of God is not in word but in power."
The admonitions of Paul to the Corinthians echoed off the bare walls of the dining hall throughout the meal.
As we entered Puente de la Reina we had been talking about the monks of the previous night. I confessed to Petrus that I
had smoked in my room, in mortal fear that someone would smell my cigarette burning. He laughed, and I could tell that he had probably done the same thing.
"Saint John the Baptist went into the desert, but Jesus went among the sinners, and he traveled endlessly," Petrus said. "That's my preference, too."
In fact, aside from the time he had spent in the desert, Jesus had spent all of his life among people.
"Actually, his first miracle was not the saving of someone's soul nor the curing of a disease, and it wasn't an expulsion of the devil; it was the transformation of water into an excellent wine at a wedding because the wine supply of the owner of the house had run out."
After Petrus said this, he suddenly stopped walking. It was so abrupt that I became alarmed and stopped, too. We were at the bridge that gave its name to the village. Petrus, though, wasn't looking at the road in front of us. His eyes were fastened on two boys who were playing with a rubber ball at the edge of the river. They were eight or ten years old and seemed not to have noticed us. Instead of crossing the bridge, Petrus scrambled down the bank and approached the two boys. As always, I followed him without question.
The boys continued to ignore us. Petrus sat down to watch them at play, until the ball fell close to where he was seated. With a quick movement, he grabbed the ball and threw it to me.
I caught the ball in the air and waited to see what would happen.
One of the boys--the elder of the two--approached me. My first impulse was to throw him the ball, but Petrus's behavior had been so unusual that I decided that I would try to understand what was happening.
"Give me the ball, Mister," said the boy.
I looked at the small figure two meters away from me. I sensed that there was something familiar about him. It was the same feeling I had had about the gypsy.
The lad asked for the ball several times, and when he got no response from me, he bent down and picked up a stone.
"Give me the ball, or I'll throw a stone at you," he said.
Petrus and the other boy were watching me silently. The boy's aggressiveness irritated me.
"Throw the stone," I answered. "If it hits me, I'll come over there and whack you one."
I sensed that Petrus gave a sigh of relief. Something in the back of my mind told me that I had already lived through this scene.
The boy was frightened by what I said. He let the stone fall and tried a different approach.
"There's a relic here in Puente de la Reina. It used to belong to a rich pilgrim. I see by your shell and your knapsack that you are pilgrims. If you give me my ball, I'll give you the relic. It's hidden in the sand here along the river."
"I want to keep the ball," I answered, without much conviction. Actually, I wanted the relic. The boy seemed to be telling the truth. But maybe Petrus needed the ball for some reason, and I didn't want to disappoint him. He was my guide.
"Look, Mister, you don't need the ball," the boy said, now with tears in his eyes. "You're strong, and you've been around, and you know the world. All I know is the edge of this river, and that ball is my only toy. Please give it back."
The boy's words got to me. But the strangely familiar surroundings and my feeling that I had already read about or lived through the situation made me refuse again.
"No. I need the ball. I'll give you enough money to buy another one, even better than this one, but this one is mine."
When I said that, time seemed to stop. The surroundings began to change, even without Petrus's finger at my neck; for a fraction of a second, it seemed that we had been transported to a broad, terrifying, ashen desert. Neither Petrus nor the other boy was there, just myself and the boy in front of me. He was older, and his features were kinder and friendlier. But there was a light in his eyes that frightened me.
The vision didn't last more than a second. Then I was back at Puente de la Reina, where the many Roads to Santiago, coming from all over Europe, became one. There in front of me, a boy was asking for his ball, with a sweet, sad look in his eye.
Petrus approached me, took the ball from my hand, and gave it to the boy.
"Where is the relic hidden?" he asked the boy.
"What relic?" he said, as he grabbed his friend's hand, jumped away, and threw himself into the water.
We climbed the bank and crossed the bridge. I began to ask questions about what had happened, and I described my vision of the desert, but Petrus changed the subject and said that we should talk about it when we had traveled further from that spot.
Half an hour later, we came to a stretch of the Road that still showed vestiges of Roman paving. Here was another bridge, this one in ruins, and we sat down to have the breakfast that had been given to us by the monks: rye bread, yogurt, and goat's cheese.
"Why did you want the kid's ball?" Petrus asked me.
I told him that I hadn't wanted the ball--that I had acted that way because Petrus himself had behaved so strangely, as if the ball were very important to him.
"In fact, it was. It allowed you to win out over your personal devil."
My personal devil? This was the most ridiculous thing I had heard during the entire trip. I had spent six days coming and going in the Pyrenees, I had met a sorcerer priest who had performed no sorcery, and my finger was raw meat because every time I had a cruel thought about myself--from hypochondria, to feelings of guilt, to an inferiority complex--I had to dig my fingernail into my wounded thumb. But about one thing Petrus was right: my negative thinking had diminished considerably. Still, this story about having a personal devil was something I had never heard--and I wasn't going to swallow it easily.
"Today, before crossing the bridge, I had a strong feeling of the presence of someone, someone who was trying to give us a warning. But the warning was more for you than for me. A battle is coming on very soon, and you will have to fight the good fight.
"When you do not know your personal devil, he usually manifests himself in the nearest person. I looked around, and I saw those boys playing--and I figured that it was there that he would probably give his warning. But I was only following a hunch. I became sure that it was your personal devil when you refused to give the ball back."
I repeated that I had done so because I thought it was what Petrus wanted.
"Why me? I never said a word."
I began to feel a little dizzy. Maybe it was the food, which I was devouring voraciously after almost an hour of walking and feeling hungry. Still, I could not escape the feeling that the boy had seemed familiar.
"Your personal devil tried three classical approaches: a threat, a promise, and an attack on your weak side. Congratulations: you resisted bravely."
Now I remembered that Petrus had asked the boy about the relic. At the time, I had thought that the boy's response showed that he had tried to fool me. But he must really have had a relic hidden there--a devil never makes false promises.
"When the boy could not remember about the relic, your personal devil had gone away."
Then he added without blinking, "It is time to call him back. You are going to need him."
We were sitting on the ruins of the old bridge. Petrus carefully gathered the remains of the meal and put them into the paper bag that the monks had given us. In the fields in front of us, the workers began to arrive for the day's plowing, but they were so far away that I couldn't hear what they were saying. It was rolling land, and the cultivated patches created unusual designs across the landscape. Under our feet, the water course, almost nonexistent due to the drought, made very little noise.
"Before he went out into the world, Christ went into the desert to talk with his personal devil," Petrus began. "He learned what he needed to know about people, but he did not let the devil dictate the rules of the game; that is how he won.
"Once, a poet said that no man is an island. In order to fight the good fight, we need help. We need friends, and when the friends aren't nearby, we have to turn solitude into our main weapon. We need the help of everything around us in order
to take the necessary steps toward our goal. Everything has to be a personal manifestation of our will to win the good fight. If we don't understand that, then we don't recognize that we need everything and everybody, and we become arrogant warriors. And our arrogance will defeat us in the end, because we will be so sure of ourselves that we won't see the pitfalls there on the field of battle."
His comments about warriors and battles reminded me again of Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan. I asked myself whether the old medicine man would have given lessons early in the morning, before his disciple had even been able to digest his breakfast. But Petrus continued:
"Over and above the physical forces that surround us and help us, there are basically two spiritual forces on our side: an angel and a devil. The angel always protects us and is a divine gift--you do not have to invoke him. Your angel's face is always visible when you look at the world with eyes that are receptive. He is this river, the workers in the field, and that blue sky. This old bridge that helps us to cross the stream was built here by the hands of anonymous Roman legionnaires, and the bridge, too, is the face of your angel. Our grandparents called him the guardian angel.
"The devil is an angel, too, but he is a free, rebellious force. I prefer to call him the messenger, since he is the main link between you and the world. In antiquity, he was represented by Mercury and by Hermes Trismegistus, the messenger of the gods. His arena is only on the material plane. He is present in the gold of the Church, because the gold comes from the earth, and the earth is your devil. He is present in our work and in our ways of dealing with money. When we let him loose, his tendency is to disperse himself. When we exorcise him, we lose all of the good things that he has to teach us; he knows a great deal about the world and about human beings. When we become fascinated by his power, he owns us and keeps us from fighting the good fight.
"So the only way to deal with our messenger is to accept him as a friend--by listening to his advice and asking for his help when necessary, but never allowing him to dictate the rules of the game. Like you did with the boy. To keep the messenger from dictating the rules of the game, it is necessary first that you know what you want and then that you know his face and his name."