One of the main characteristics of the Camino is the fact that you lose the cognition of time. You don’t have feelings of which day you are in, or the period of the month you are living.
To be truly honest, enjoying freedom without the stress of timesheets, billable hours and compulsive email checking ain’t that bad. You appreciate the atmosphere, you are present to yourself and you are more focused on something we usually underestimate: breathing, heart-beat, feelings.
But this is not the most beautiful part. The most beautiful part is that you trascend this dimension, realizing that you could be connected to many possible worlds, while you are forced into one. Difficult to explain, but not to feel.
It’s something every religion speaks about, whether in forms of God (Muslims, Jewish, Christians) or outer worlds (Buddhisms and Daoism among the others). It is the sensation that eternity could be felt in a moment and viceversa. That we could seriously intervene on the process, modifying our destiny or changing our past. How would you feel if every second becomes eternity? If a day becomes a minute? If your past becomes your future?
This is what pilgrims really feel. Maybe they don’t ask themselves this question, but they lose the cognition of where they are. All the time. Because on the path there is no past and future, but only the here and now.
It is mindfulness 24/7.
It is time without a time.
It is a place where living consciously in the present is the best way to find a connection with the utmost form of transcendence. Yourself.
