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Saint-Jean. Petrus went to the stream that ran nearby and caught some fish, which
     he fried over the fire. And then we crawled into our sleep- ing bags.
    Among the greatest sensations that I have experi- enced in my life were those I felt on
     that unforgettable first night on the Road to Santiago. It was cold, despite its being
     summer, but I could still taste the warmth of the wine that Petrus had brought. I looked
     up at the sky;
    the Milky Way spread across it, reflecting the immensity of the Road we would have to
     travel. This immensity made me very anxious; it created a terrible fear that I would not
     be able to succeed that I was too small for this task. Yet today I had been a seed and
     had been reborn. I had discovered that although the earth and my sleep were full of
     comfort, the life up there was much more beautiful. And I could always be reborn, as many
     times as I wanted, until my arms were long enough to embrace the earth from which I had
     come.

The Pilgrimage
    The Creator and the Created
    For seven days we continued walking through the Pyrenees, climbing and descending the
     mountains, and each evening, as the rays of the sun reflected from the tallest peaks,
     Petrus had me perform the Seed Exercise. On the third day of our trek, we passed a cement
     marker, painted yellow, indicating that we had crossed the frontier; from then on we would
     be walking through Spain. Little by little, Petrus began to reveal some things about his
     private life; I learned that he was Italian and that he worked in industrial design.*
    I asked him whether he was worried about the many things he had been forced to abandon in
     order to guide a pilgrim in search of his sword.
    * It has been said that there is no such thing as coincidence in this world, and the
     following story confirms the truth of this assertion once again. One afternoon, I was
     leafing through some magazines in the lobby of the hotel where I was staying in Madrid,
     when I noticed a piece about the Prince of Asturias Prize; a Brazilian journalist, Robert
     Marinho, had been one of the prize winners. A closer study of the photograph of those at
     the awards dinner startled me, though. At one of the tables, elegantly dressed in his
     tuxedo, was Petrus, described in the caption as one of the most famous European designers
     of the moment.
    Let me explain something to you, he answered. I am not guiding you to your sword. It is
     your job, solely and exclusively, to find it. I am here to lead you along the Road to
     Santiago and to teach you the RAM prac- tices. How you apply this to your search for your
     sword is your problem.
    But you didnt answer my question.
    When you travel, you experience, in a very practical way, the act of rebirth. You confront
     completely new situa- tions, the day passes more slowly, and on most journeys you dont
     even understand the language the people speak. So you are like a child just out of the
     womb. You begin to be more accessible to others because they may be able to help you in
     difficult situations. And you accept any small favor from the gods with great delight, as
     if it were an episode you would remember for the rest of your life.
    At the same time, since all things are new, you see only the beauty in them, and you feel
     happy to be alive. Thats why a religious pilgrimage has always been one of the most
     objective ways of achieving insight. The word peccadillo, which means a small sin, comes
     from pecus, which means defective foot, a foot that is incapable of walking a road. The
     way to correct the peccadillo is always to walk forward, adapting oneself to new situa-
     tions and receiving in return all of the thousands of bless- ings that life generously
     offers to those who seek them.
    So why would you think that I might be worried about a half-dozen projects that I left
     behind in order to be here with you?
    Petrus looked around him, and I followed his eyes. On the