The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure (20 page)

“And you, how do you feel about this?”

“I don’t know really.”

“Which viewpoint would you choose for yourself, that of your mother, or that of your father?”

“Neither. I mean, life is not that simple.”

He laughed. “You’re being vague.”

“I guess I don’t know.”

“But if you had to choose one or the other?”

I hesitated, trying to think honestly, then the answer came to me.

“They’re both correct,” I said, “and incorrect.”

His eyes beamed. “How?”

“I’m not sure exactly. But I think a correct life must include both views.”

“The question for you,” Father Carl said, “is how. How does one live a life that is both? From your mother you received the knowledge that life is about spirituality. From your father you learned that life is about self-enhancement, fun, adventure.”

“So my life,” I interrupted, “is about somehow combining the two approaches?”

“Yes, for you, spirituality is the question. Your whole life will be about finding one that is self-enhancing. This is the problem your parents were unable to reconcile, the one they left for you. This is your evolutionary question, your quest this lifetime.”

The idea propelled me into deep thought. Father Carl said something else but I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. The waning fire was having a calming effect on me. I realized I was tired.

Father Carl sat up straight and said, “I think you’re out of energy for tonight. But let me leave you with one thought. You can go to sleep and never think again of what we have discussed. You can go right back into your old drama, or you can wake up tomorrow and hold on to this new idea of who you are. If you do then you can take the next step in the process, which is to look closely at all the other things that have happened to you since birth. If you view your life as one story, from birth to right now, you’ll be able to see how you have been working on this question all along. You’ll be able to see how you came to be here in Peru and what you should do next.”

I nodded and looked at him closely. His eyes were warm and caring and held the same expression I had seen so often on Wil’s face, and Sanchez’s.

“Good night,” Father Carl said, and walked into the bedroom and closed the door. I unrolled my sleeping bag on the floor and fell quickly to sleep.

I woke up with Wil on my mind. I wanted to ask Father Carl what else he knew of Wil’s plans. As I lay there thinking, still zipped in the sleeping bag, Father Carl walked into the room quietly and began rebuilding the fire.

I unzipped the bag and he looked over at me, alerted by the sound.

“Good morning,” he said. “How did you sleep?”

“Okay,” I replied, standing.

He put fresh kindling on the coals and then larger pieces of firewood.

“What did Wil say he was going to do?” I asked.

Father Carl stood and faced me. “He said he was going to a friend’s house to wait for some information he expected, apparently information about the Ninth Insight.”

“What else did he say?” I asked.

“Wil told me that he thought Father Sebastian intends to find the last insight himself and seems to be close. Wil thinks that the person who controls the last insight will determine whether the Manuscript ever becomes widely distributed and understood.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure really. Wil was one of the first to ever collect and read the insights. He may understand them better than any man alive. He feels, I think, that the last insight will make all the others become more clear and accepted.”

“Do you think he is right?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I don’t understand as much as he does. All I understand is what I am supposed to do.”

“What is that?”

He paused momentarily, then replied, “As I said before, my truth is to help people discover who they really are. When I read the Manuscript, this mission became clear to me. The Sixth Insight is my special insight. My truth is helping others grasp this insight. And I’m effective because I’ve gone through the process myself.”

“What was your control drama?” I asked.

He looked at me with amusement. “I was an interrogator.”

“You controlled people by finding something wrong with the way they lived their lives?”

“That’s right. My father was a poor me and my mother was aloof. They completely ignored me. The only way I could get any attention energy was to pry into what they were doing and then point out something wrong with it.”

“And when did you work through this drama?”

“About eighteen months ago, when I met Father Sanchez and began to study the Manuscript. After I really looked at my parents, I realized what my experience with them was preparing me to do. You see, my father stood for accomplishment. He was very goal oriented. He planned his time to the minute and judged himself according to how much he got done. My mother was very intuitive and mystical. She believed that each of us received spiritual guidance and that life was about following this direction.”

“What did your father think about that?”

“He thought it was crazy.”

I smiled but said nothing.

“Can you see where that left me?” Father Carl asked.

I shook my head. I couldn’t quite grasp it.

“Because of my father,” he said, “I was sensitized to the idea that life was about accomplishment: having something important to do and getting it done. But at the same time my mother was there to tell me life was about inner direction, an intuitive guidance of some sort. I realized that my life was a synthesis of both viewpoints. I was trying to discover how we are guided inwardly toward the mission only we can do, knowing it is of supreme importance to pursue this mission if we are to feel happy and fulfilled.”

I nodded.

“And,” he continued, “you can see why I was excited about the Sixth Insight. As soon as I read it, I knew that my work was to help people get clear so that they could develop this sense of purpose.”

“Do you know how Wil got on the path he is on?”

“Yes, he shared some of this information with me. Wil’s drama was to be aloof, like yours. Also, as in your case, each of his parents was an interrogator and each had a strong philosophy they wanted Wil to adopt. Wil’s father was a German novelist who argued that the ultimate destiny of the human race was to perfect itself. His father never advocated anything but the purest of humanitarian principles, but the Nazis used his basic idea of perfection to help legitimize their murderous liquidation of what were falsely claimed to be inferior races.

“The corruption of his theme destroyed the old man and led him to move to South America with his wife and Wil. His wife was a Peruvian who grew up in America and was educated there. She was a writer too, but she was basically Eastern in her philosophical beliefs. She held that life was about reaching an inner enlightenment, a higher consciousness marked by peace of mind and detachment from the things of the world. According to her, life was not about perfection; it was about letting go of the need to perfect anything, to go anywhere…Can you see where this left Wil?”

I shook my head.

“He was left,” Father Carl continued, “in a difficult position. His father championed the Western idea of working for progress and perfection and his mother held the Eastern belief that life was only about reaching inner peace, nothing else.

“These two people had prepared Wil to work on integrating the main philosophical differences between Eastern and Western culture, although he didn’t know it at first. He first became an engineer dedicated to progress and then a simple guide who sought peace by bringing people to the beautiful, inwardly moving places in this country.

“But searching out the Manuscript awakened all this in him. The insights speak directly to his main question. They reveal that the thought of both East and West can indeed be integrated into a higher truth. They show us that the West is correct in maintaining that life is about progress, about evolving toward something higher. Yet the East is also correct in emphasizing that we must let go of control with the ego. We can’t progress by using logic alone. We have to attain a fuller consciousness, an inner connection with God, because only then can our evolution toward something better be guided by a higher part of ourselves.

“When Wil began to discover the insights, his whole life began to flow. He met Jose, the priest who first found the Manuscript and had it translated. Soon after that, he met the owner of Viciente and helped start the research there. And at about the same time, he met Julia, who was in business, but was also guiding people to the virgin forests.

“It was with Julia that Wil had the most affinity. They hit it off immediately because of the similarity in the questions they pursued. Julia grew up with a father who talked of spiritual ideas but in a capricious and flaky way. Her mother on the other hand was a college speech teacher, a debater, who demanded clear thinking. Naturally, Julia found herself wanting information about spirituality but insisting that it be intelligible and precise.

“Wil wanted a synthesis between East and West that explained human spirituality, and Julia wanted this explanation to be perfectly clear. Something the Manuscript was providing for both.”

“Breakfast is ready,” Sanchez called from the kitchen.

I turned around, surprised. I didn’t realize Sanchez was up. Without pursuing the conversation any further, Father Carl and I got up and joined Sanchez in a meal of fruit and cereal. Afterwards Father Carl asked me to take a walk to the ruins with him. I agreed, wanting very much to go there again. Both of us looked at Father Sanchez and he gracefully declined, explaining that he needed to drive down the mountain and make some phone calls.

Outside, the sky was crystal clear and the sun shone brightly over the peaks. We walked briskly.

“Do you think there is a way to contact Wil?” I asked.

“No,” he replied. “He did not tell me who his friends were. The only way would be to drive to Iquitos, a town near the northern border, and I think that might be unsafe right now.”

“Why there?” I asked.

“He said he thought his search would take him to this town. There are many ruins near there. Also Cardinal Sebastian has a mission nearby.”

“Do you think Wil will find the last insight?”

“I don’t know.”

We walked in silence for several minutes, then Father Carl asked, “Have you made a decision about what course to take personally?”

“What do you mean?”

“Father Sanchez said you were talking at first about going back immediately to the United States but that lately you seemed to be more interested in exploring the insights. How are you feeling now?”

“Precarious,” I said. “But for some reason I also want to continue.”

“I understand a man was killed right beside you.”

“That’s right.”

“And still you want to stay?”

“No,” I said. “I want to get away, save my life … yet here I am.”

“Why do you think that is?” he asked.

I scrutinized his expression. “I don’t know. Do you?”

“Do you remember where we left our conversation last night?”

I remembered exactly. “We had discovered the question my parents left me with: to find a spirituality that is self-enhancing, that gives one a sense of adventure, and fulfillment. And you said if I looked closely at how my life has evolved, this question would put my life in perspective and clear up what’s happening to me now.”

He smiled mysteriously. “Yes, according to the Manuscript, it will.”

“How does that occur?”

“Each of us must look at the significant turns in our lives and reinterpret them in light of our evolutionary question.”

I shook my head, not comprehending.

“Try to perceive the sequence of interests, important friends, coincidences that have occurred in your life. Weren’t they leading you somewhere?”

I thought about my life since childhood but could find no pattern.

“How did you spend your time as you grew up?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I was a typical child, I guess. I read a lot.”

“What did you read?”

“Mystery stuff mostly, science fiction, ghost stories, that kind of thing.”

“What happened in your life after that?”

I thought about the effect my grandfather had on me, and told Father Carl about the lake and the mountains.

He nodded his head knowingly. “And after you grew up, what happened?”

“I went away to college. My grandfather died while I was away.”

“What did you study at college?”

“Sociology.”

“Why?”

“I met a professor I liked. His knowledge of human nature interested me. I decided to study with him.”

“What happened then?”

“I graduated and went to work.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes, for a long time.”

“Then things changed?”

“I felt that what I was doing wasn’t complete. I was working with emotionally disturbed adolescents and I thought I knew how they could transcend their pasts and stop the acting out that was so self-defeating. I thought I could help them go on with their lives. I finally realized something was missing in my approach.”

“Then what?”

“I quit.”

“And?”

“And then an old friend called and told me of the Manuscript.”

“Is that when you decided to come to Peru?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think of your experience here?”

“I think I’m crazy,” I said. “I think I’m going to get myself killed.”

“But what do you think of the way your experience has progressed?”

“I don’t understand.”

“When Father Sanchez told me what had happened to you since coming to Peru,” he said, “I was amazed at the series of coincidences that brought you face to face with the different insights of the Manuscript just when you needed them.”

“What do you think that means?” I asked.

He stopped walking and faced me. “It means you were ready. You are like the rest of us here. You came to the point where you needed the Manuscript in order to continue your life evolution.

“Think about how the events of your life fit together. From the beginning you were interested in mysterious topics, and that interest finally led you to study human nature. Why do you think you happened to meet that particular teacher? He crystalized your interests and led you into looking at the greatest mystery: the human situation on this planet, the question of what life is about. Then at some level, you knew that life’s meaning was connected to the problem of transcending our past conditioning and moving our lives forward. That’s why you were working with those kids.