El Camino, The Way. Part I

12:35:00 PM

  
El Camino De Santiago, The Way.
TO BE A PILGRIM, by John Bunyan 

What brought me to take the decision of making El Camino this year,
or at least part of it was in the first place a dream :
I woke up at 4 am happy and excited, thinking: Oh yeah, what a great idea,
I am gonna continue wandering while making El Camino.
I texted my good friend Alicia in Spain to ask her if she wants to do it with me, 
and thanks to the 9 hours time difference with Europe she responded me almost instantly: YES, 
from here on … a new and amazing trip has just started.

In second place was the visit of a hobgoblin
when I started doubting if it was a good idea, 
if my family will get mad at me because I go to visit them 
and leave for a week to pilgrimage to Santiago, 
if continuing  wandering was the answer to my endless thirst for knowledge 
….yes a hobgoblin appeared on my way.

How I knew he was  one, is a sequence of events  :

- I was taking kundalini classes every morning that week 
with the great Guru Jagat at RA MA Institute in Venice,
 and a big transformation from inside me was taking place, 
one of the advantages of kundalini yoga 
is how fast you start feeling its benefits, 
the continuous chanting of mantras really rewired your brain and emotions,
I was feeling more optimistic and fearless than I can remember 
and as if a bright light inside my chest were 
warming my soul and telling me that no matter what everything was gonna be ok.   
-Continuing with my Shinrin-Yoku therapy after my return from the Redwoods 
I was creating  that week mini Japanese landscapes with succulents,
 using semiprecious stones, shells, and agates from my trips around the world.
Using and buying all kinds of recipients for it, vases, glasses, pots,
Chinese porcelains…creating beauty while healing my self.

-That same morning that this dark character chased me 
and crossed my energy field, 
I went to  Lake Shrine in Sunset Boulevard, 
the Self -Realization Fellowship founded in 1920 by Yogananda, 
after over an hour meditation on the chapel
protected by all the masters and gurus there represented,
and wanted to add a couple more to the list like DR.Levry from Naam Yoga, 
to whom Master Class I attended the day before
and from where I walked out with a backpack full of wise teachings 
and one word resonating in my brain: LOVE.
I left the Meditation Gardens with the idea of starting the studies of Yogananda: 
sign up for the Self-Realization Lessons for Transcendental Meditation and Kriya Yoga. 

-I was happy, feeling love, light, goodness, abundance, wisdom …
I got home and took my dog for a walk in the neighborhood, 
I live in Santa Monica close to the Ocean so It is not weird to go for walks…
if someone was making funny faces :)
A block away from my place a saw a sign on the floor reading: Free Plants.
 - I looked …and they were all succulents !!! 
Like 6 huge pots full of all kinds of them, 
I asked the lady who was putting them outside on the sidewalk if
I can go to pick up my car and really get what I want, she said yes of course. 

I started walking back to my place and half a block away 
I feel someone is walking very close to me, 
so I turned around and see this figure dressing all black on a hoodie, 
starring at me, 
I didn’t even get scared or worried, just kept walking, turned to my front yard and
when I was gonna open the door of my place I turned around and there was him, 
10 feet from me, quite, looking.
I tried to look at his face and find his eyes and
 an ice cold sensation stubbed my chest,
 I felt confronted with the highest darkness,
again I was not scared I thought in a second
…probably a mad homeless, no big deal.
I left my dog inside the house and got into my car to drive pick up the succulents.
While I was turning in my car to the main street I saw him leaving,
 almost running in the opposite direction.

I got the succulents and drove back home when suddenly he appeared again, 
first at the end of the driveway and in a fraction of a second
 again 6 feet from me while I was uploading my trunk, 
at this point I got really upset, It wasn’t fear It was anger, 
this person was ruining my day, was invading my space  
with a discomforting sensation of wrong, so I looked at him at yelled : 
What are you looking at? are you stalking me? You want me to call the police?
At this point, he vanished as fast as he had appeared before.

I got inside my place and decided started reading about 
Transcendentalism and the Upanishads 
which core belief is in the inherent goodness of people and nature, 
they have faith that people are at their best 
when they truly are “self-reliant “ and independent.
Transcendentalism emphasizes subjective  intuition 
over objective empiricism and according to R.Waldo Emerson,
American transcendentalism philosopher /essayist 1841:
 “ self -reliant is the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false 
consistency, and follow their own instincts and ideas. 
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds “.
At this point, I needed to google, my ignorance of this word, 
hobgoblin hit my face : 
- Shakespeare: the foul fiend, enemy, darkness, archenemy, puck 
 -John Bunyan: one of the most significant books in English literature .-
  The Pilgrim’s Progress -, from the city of destruction to
  Celestial City atop Mount Zion, 
  where the hobgoblin is coupled with “ a foul fiend” 
  as two monstrous beings who try but fail to
 “ daunt the Pilgrim’ s Spirit “.  

“ TO BE A PILGRIM “, commonly known as 
  “ He who valiant be “, 
    is the only hymn John Bunyan is credited with writing.
    The hymn recalls the words of Hebrews 11:13,
    …and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth “ :

                         1. Who would the valor see
                             He who would valiant be                             
                             Let him inconstancy 
                             Follow the Master
                            There is no discouragement 
                            Shall make him once relent 
                            His first avowed intent
                           to be a pilgrim 
                        2. Whoso beset him around 
                             with dismal stories 
                             do but themselves confound 
                             his strength the more is 
                             no foes shall stay his might 
                             though he with giants fight :
                             he will make good his right 
                             to be a pilgrim    
                        3. Since Lord, thou dust defend 
                              us with thy spirit 
                              we know us at the end
                              shall life inherit?
                              Then fancies flee away!
                              I’ ll fear not what men say,
                              I’ ll labor night and day to be a pilgrim. 


After reading John Bunyan’s Hymn no more doubts came to me,
the decision of walking The Way was done and now I knew why,

It was the continuity of a path already started as wander. 

The mud of the lotus flower

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