The Camino as Catalyst for Change
by John Brierley
Through advances in science and technology we have unprecedented access to knowledge yet The Information Age has left us bereft of wisdom. We are now entering a dangerous new period — an Age of Ignorance. The worldwide launch this week of the film and action pack The Age of Stupid suggests we are headed towards the 6th mass extinction event, the 5th being the K-T asteroid impact which ended the Age of Dinosaurs. We still have options but we need to wise up fast.
There is a call for unprecedented change, ‘We Need Change’ is the new buzzword — it was not only Barack Obama’s whole platform but has become the catchphrase of the recent G20 gathering (and that of the whole G190). Thinking Individuals in every country in the world know that we have to urgently and dramatically shift our modus operandi to achieve a stable and sustainable future. More of the same is a recipe for disaster. Enter the Camino De Santiago — a powerful agent for positive change.
Of course every age has inspired humanity to grow to meet new challenges, but this time we have reached the limits to growth for the first time in the earth’s evolution including the limit to global population. The capacity of the earth to meet our incessant demands is reaching the end point. Virtually every independent scientist (the ones not employed by government or the vested interests of the multinationals in the oil, motor, pharmaceutical, food and finance industries) and forward thinking individuals (not those of us focused on the short term) accept that fundamental change in the way we live our lives is now urgently needed if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences. Humanity’s collective greed spreads like a cancer that, if not checked, threatens to kill the host. For example, an increase in global temperature of a mere 4 degrees and humanity becomes history — a sobering thought.
Through the exploitation of natural and human resources we have created enormous environmental and social degradation. However the core issue is not about environmentalism or ethics — it is about the crisis of the human spirit. The World Wisdom Council and its affiliated Club of Budapest are made up of some of the most illumined minds of our time. World leaders from a broad background of enlightened engagement including many Nobel Peace laureates amongst them such as the Dalai Llama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Muhammad Yunus, Desmond Tutu… the Club’s manifesto includes reference to another Nobel Peace Laureate Albert Einstein and states simply:
“…The fact is, one cannot solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that gave rise to it. When all is said and done, we come to a basic insight: we need a more evolved consciousness. Entering the 21st century with the consciousness that hallmarked the 20th century would be like entering the modern age with the consciousness of the Middle Ages. It would be not only inappropriate, but dangerous.”
So what has all this to do with the Camino de Santiago? Put simply the Camino offers respite from the busyness of modern existence and provides a unique opportunity to reappraise our life and direction and to help shift us from the dangers of the Age of Ignorance to that more evolved state referred to by the World Wisdom Council. The Camino allows time away from the familiar and habitual so that new insights can be revealed. A wider perspective opens up whereby we begin to realise who we really are and what we came here to learn and do. Our lives are currently lived at such speed that we forget to press the pause button and many find themselves at the end of life too exhausted to care while yet others feel powerless to make any difference. That we need a more evolved consciousness is a given but how do we make the shift? Barring divine revelation, such as Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, we are un-likely to make the leap to an entirely new way of thinking while our noses remain welded to a grindstone that is spinning ever faster. Like a giant centrifugal force modern life spins us outwards to the surface of our lives where we live a superficial existence and ‘lives of quiet desperation’ as Thoreau wrote over 150 years ago.
There are, of course, many different paths that we can follow that may help elevate our lives and our collective consciousness. We can join a yoga class, start a daily meditation practice, go on a retreat, take a mid-career break but there are always temptations that come to rob us of our new resolve. How easy is it to miss just one class and then another, to skip the morning meditation because we have a deadline, or to use our timeout to travel to some exotic location where we are tempted to drink too much Tequila or to eat too many Fajitas where the only likely change is to our waistline? With the Camino no such temptations arise. Each day is lived in the simplicity of the path where we travel at a more natural pace of just 2 miles an hour. Time to witness the rising sun, the sacred landscape that surrounds us with its rich array of fauna and flora. We proceed slowly towards the welcome that awaits us at the day’s end where the warden of the next pilgrim hostel greets us. Along the camino these guardians are called hospitaleros a softer term from which we get the word hospitality.
The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh (a Nobel Peace Prize Nominee) has his main ashram adjacent to one of the Caminos in France where he and his community practise ‘Mindful Walking’ every day. He explains that Mindful Walking is one of the most effective forms of meditation for our frenetic western mind. He suggests that sitting meditation is simply too difficult for many of us and that meditation has to form part of an activity to be more generally effective. Walking an overtly pilgrim route, such as the Camino de Santiago, reminds us every day of the divinity within ourselves and within all life. As we walk through the Landscape Temples of France and up over the Pyrenees into Northern Spain and Galicia we are reminded every moment of that spirituality that connects us all irrespective of our differing religions and philosophies. We find ourselves in the company of like-minded individuals that form a travelling community that is unique in the world.
There are many pilgrimage routes such as the way to Fatima but that is exclusively Roman Catholic in orientation, the Hajj exclusively Muslim, The Kumbha Mela sacred to the Hindus. Only the Camino de Santiago transcends our differences to unite us in an eclectic bond of openness and shared values. There are many pilgrim routes but only the Camino has been designated Europe’s First Cultural Itinerary and recognised by UNESCO and given World Heritage status on account of ‘…the testimony to the power of faith and the 1,800 buildings of great historic interest that lie along its path.’ That power is as potent today as it was over a thousand years ago when the first pilgrims set foot towards Santiago. If you are in need of some spaciousness and change in your life, press the pause button, put on your boots and join a community dedicated to lifting our collective consciousness by mindful walking along this powerful Path of Enquiry known as the Camino, which translates simply as The Way.
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