I got up and began the climb down the rocks. I laughed out loud. I was still connected with the landscape so that I felt I was walking alongside my own body, and more, that I was exploring the regions of my own body. The feeling was exhilarating.
I made my way down the bluffs and into the trees. The afternoon sun cast long shadows along the forest floor. Halfway down I came to a particularly thick area of large trees and as I entered, I experienced a perceptible change in my body; I felt even lighter and more coordinated. I stopped and looked closely at the trees and underlying bushes, focusing on their shape and beauty. I could see flickers of white light and what seemed like a pinkish glow around each plant.
I continued to walk, coming to a stream that radiated a pale blue and filled me with an enhanced tranquility and even a drowsiness. Eventually I made my way across the valley floor and up the next ridge until I came to the road. I pulled myself up to the gravel surface and walked casually along the shoulder toward the north.
Up ahead, I caught sight of a man in a priest’s robe rounding the next bend. The sight thrilled me. Totally without fear, I jogged ahead to talk with him. I knew I would know exactly what to say and do. I had a feeling of perfect well-being. But to my surprise he had disappeared. To the right, another road angled back down into the valley, but I could see no one in that direction. I ran farther up the main road, but saw no one there either. I thought about going back and taking the road I had passed, but I knew the town was ahead so I continued to walk that way. Still, I thought several more times of the other road.
A hundred yards farther, as I rounded another curve, I heard the roar of vehicles. Through the trees I could see a line of military trucks approaching at a high rate of speed. For a moment I hesitated, thinking I might stand my ground, but then I remembered the terror of the shooting on the ridge.
I had time only to fling myself off the road to the right and lie still. Ten jeeps sped past me. I had landed in a spot which was completely exposed, and all I could do was hope no one looked my way. Each vehicle passed within twenty feet. I could smell the exhaust fumes and see the expression on every face.
Luckily, no one noticed. After they were well past, I crawled behind a large tree. My hands were shaking and my sensation of peace and connection was totally shattered. A now familiar pang of anxiety knotted in my stomach. Finally, I inched up to the road. The sound of more vehicles sent me scurrying down the slope again as two more jeeps raced past. I felt nauseous.
This time I stayed well off the road and retreated the way I had come, moving very cautiously. I came to the road I had passed earlier. After carefully listening for sound and movement, I decided to walk through the woods beside it, angling back into the valley. My body felt heavy again. What had I been doing, I asked myself. Why had I been walking in the road? I must have been crazy, deluded by the shock of the shooting, entranced in some state of euphoria. Get real, I told myself. You have to be careful. There are people here who will kill you if you make the slightest mistake!
I froze. Ahead of me, perhaps a hundred feet, was the priest. He was sitting under a large tree that was surrounded by numerous rock outcrop-pings. As I stared at him, he opened his eyes and looked right at me. I flinched but he only smiled and motioned for me to walk up.
Cautiously I approached him. He remained motionless, a thin, tall man of about fifty years of age. His hair was cut short and was dark brown in color, matching his eyes.
“You look as though you need some help,” he said, in perfect English.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I am Father Sanchez. And you?”
I explained who I was and where I was from, dizzily sinking to one knee and then to my buttocks.
“You were part of what happened in Cula, weren’t you?” he asked.
“What do you know of that?” I asked warily, not knowing whether to trust him.
“I know someone in this government is very angry,” he said. “They don’t want the Manuscript publicized.”
“Why?” I asked.
He stood up and looked down at me. “Why don’t you come with me. Our mission is only a half mile away. You’ll be safe with us.”
I struggled to my feet, realizing I had no choice, and nodded affirmatively. He led me slowly down the road, his manner respectful and deliberate. He weighed each word.
“Are the soldiers still looking for you?” he asked at one point.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
He said nothing for a few minutes, then asked, “Are you searching for the Manuscript?”
“Not any more,” I said. “Right now I just want to survive this and go home.”
He nodded reassuringly and I found myself beginning to trust him. Something about his regard and warmth affected me. He reminded me of Wil. Presently we came to the mission, which was a cluster of small houses facing a courtyard and a small church. It was situated in a place of great beauty. As we walked up he told some of the other robed men something in Spanish and they scurried away. I tried to see where they were going but fatigue was engulfing me. The priest led me into one of the houses.
Inside was a small living area and two bedrooms. A fire burned in the fireplace. Soon after we entered, another priest walked in with a tray of bread and soup. Wearily I ate as Sanchez sat politely in a chair beside me. Then, upon his insistence, I stretched out on one of the beds and fell into a deep sleep.
When I walked into the courtyard, I noticed immediately that the grounds were immaculately kept. The gravel walkways were edged with precisely arranged bushes and hedges. Each seemed to be placed so as to accent their full natural shape. None were trimmed.
I stretched and felt the starched shirt I had put on. It was made of coarse cotton and chafed my neck slightly. Still it was clean and freshly ironed. Earlier, I had awakened as two priests poured hot water into a tub and laid out fresh clothes. After I had bathed and dressed I had walked into the other room and found hot muffins and dried fruit on the table. I had eaten ravenously while the priests stood by. After I had finished, the priests had left and I had walked outside to where I now stood.
I walked over and sat on one of the stone benches that faced the courtyard. The sun was just clearing the tops of the trees, warming my face.
“How did you sleep?” a voice asked from behind me. I turned to see Father Sanchez standing very erect, smiling down at me.
“Very well,” I replied.
“May I join you?”
“Sure.”
Neither of us spoke for several minutes, so long in fact that I felt some discomfort. Several times I looked at him, preparing to say something, but he was looking in the direction of the sun, his face tilted slightly back, his eyes squinting.
Finally he spoke: “This is a nice place you found here.” Apparently he meant the bench at this time of the morning.
“Look, I need to ask your advice,” I said. “What is the safest way for me to get back to the United States?”
He looked at me seriously. “I don’t know. That depends on how dangerous the government thinks you are. Tell me how you happened to be in Cula.”
I told him everything from the time I first heard of the Manuscript. My feeling of euphoria on the ridge now seemed fanciful and pretentious, so I only alluded to it briefly. Sanchez, however, immediately questioned me about it.
“What did you do after the soldier failed to notice you and left?” he asked.
“I just sat up there for a few hours,” I replied, “feeling relieved, I guess.”
“What else did you feel?” he asked.
I squirmed somewhat, then decided to attempt a description. “It’s hard to describe,” I said. “I felt this euphoric connection with everything, and this total kind of security and confidence. I was no longer tired.”
He smiled. “You had a mystical experience. Many people report them in that forest near the peak.”
I nodded tentatively.
He turned on the bench to face me more directly. “This is the experience the mystics of every religion have always described. Have you read anything about such experiences?”
“Some, years ago,” I said.
“But until yesterday it was only an intellectual concept?”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
A young priest walked up and nodded to me, then whispered something to Sanchez. Sanchez nodded and the young priest turned and walked away. The older priest watched every step the young man took. He crossed the courtyard and entered a park-like area about a hundred feet away. I noticed for the first time that this area too was also extremely clean, and full of various plants. The young priest walked to several locations, hesitating at each one as though searching for something, then at one specific location sat down. He appeared to be engaged in an exercise of some kind.
Sanchez smiled and looked pleased, then turned his attention to me.
“I think it is probably unsafe for you to attempt to go back right now,” he said. “But I will try to find out what the situation is, and if there is any word about your friends.” He stood up and faced me. “I must attend to some chores. Please understand that we will assist you in any way possible. For now I hope you will be comfortable here. Relax and gain your strength.”
I nodded.
He reached inside his pocket and pulled out some papers and handed them to me. “This is the Fifth Insight. It speaks about the kind of experience you had. I think you might find it interesting.”
I took it reluctantly as he continued speaking. “What was your understanding of the last insight you read?” he asked.
I hesitated. I didn’t want to think about manuscripts and insights. Finally I said, “That humans are stuck in a kind of competition for each other’s energy. When we can get others to acquiesce to our view, they identify with us and that pulls their energy into us and we feel stronger.”
He smiled. “So the problem is that everyone is trying to control and manipulate each other for energy, because we feel short of it?”
“That’s right.”
“But there is a solution, another source of energy?”
“That’s what the last insight implied.”
He nodded and walked very deliberately into the church.
For a few moments, I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees, not looking at the translation. I continued to feel reluctant. The events of the last two days had dampened my enthusiasm and I preferred instead to think of how I might return to the United States. Then, in the wooded area across the way, I noticed the young priest stand up and walk slowly to another location about twenty feet from where he was. He turned toward me again and sat down.
I was intrigued over what he might be doing. Then it dawned on me that he might be practicing something that was spelled out in the Manuscript. I looked at the first page and began to read.
It described a new understanding of what has long been called mystical consciousness. During the last decades of the twentieth century, it stated, this consciousness would become publicized as a way of being that is actually attainable, a way that has been demonstrated by the more esoteric practitioners of many religions. For most, this consciousness would remain an intellectual concept, to be only talked of and debated. But for a growing number of humans, this consciousness would become experientially real—because these individuals would experience flashes or glimpses of this state of mind during the course of their lives. The manuscript said that this experience was the key to ending human conflict in the world, because during this experience we are receiving energy from another source—a source we will eventually learn to tap at will.
I stopped reading and looked at the young priest again. His eyes were open and he appeared to be looking directly at me. I nodded, even though I couldn’t make out the details of his face. To my surprise he nodded back to me and smiled faintly. Then he stood up and walked toward my left, heading toward the house in that direction. He avoided my eyes as I watched him cross the courtyard and enter the dwelling.
Behind me I heard footsteps and turned to see Sanchez leaving the church. He smiled as he approached me.
“That didn’t take long,” he said. “Would you like to see more of the grounds?”
“Yes, I would,” I replied. “Tell me about these sitting areas you have.” I pointed toward the area where the young priest had been.
“Let’s walk up there,” he said.
As we strolled across the courtyard, Sanchez told me that the mission was over four hundred years old and was founded by a unique missionary from Spain, who felt the way to convert the local Indians was through their hearts, not through coercion with the sword. The approach had worked, Sanchez went on, and partly because of this success and partly due to the remote location, the priest had been left alone to follow his own course.
“We carry on his tradition of looking inward for the truth,” Sanchez said.
The sitting area was landscaped immaculately. About half an acre of dense forest had been cleared and the bushes and flowering plants beneath were interspersed with walkways made of smooth river stone. Like those in the courtyard, the plants here were also spaced perfectly, accentuating their unique shape.
“Where would you like to sit down?” Sanchez asked.
I looked around at my options. In front of us were several arranged areas—nooks which seemed complete unto themselves. All contained open spaces surrounded by beautiful plants and rocks and larger trees of varying shapes. One, to our left, where the young priest had been last sitting, had more outcroppings of stone.
“How about over there?” I said.
He nodded and we walked over and sat down. Sanchez breathed deeply for several minutes, then looked at me.
“Tell me more about your experience on the ridge,” he said.
I felt resistant. “I don’t know what else I can say about it. It didn’t last.”
The priest looked at me sternly. “Just because it ended when you became afraid again doesn’t negate its importance, does it? Perhaps it is something to be regained.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But it’s hard for me to concentrate on feeling cosmic when people are trying to kill me.”