PORTO – VILLA DA CONDO

In early may we arrived at the airport in Porto, a nice little town in northern Portugal. Without the cat - that we left with Bettina's sister. Here, on the coast, there was a route of the Way of St. James, rather, at least a little, unknown among the pilgrims. With a lot of luck and self-confidence we got hold of a four-poster bed in a seedy guesthouse in the city at night - even though the bell of the nearby church rang just three in the morning.      
As we found out at breakfast the next morning, it had rained continuously for the last 14 days, and waterproof clothing was urgently recommended for our journey. However, as we set out, to explore the city a bit, the sky cleared.      
Porto really isn't a very big city, apart from the huge suburbs. It is located on a hill by the sea - accordingly, it goes to the sea, downhill. We had a great few hours in cozy cafes, restaurants, at the port.      

The next morning, rested and acclimatized, we started. We walked about 10 kilometers along the layers of houses in Porto on the right, always near the coast - the area more poor, but with more and more rural charm. It was about 20 kilometers to the first accommodation, which we could use with our pilgrim passes, which we obtained the day before. Bettina and I didn't like the constant traffic, the paved roads, but we knew that the path would not lead through the gray suburbs again the next day - a French pilgrim (a comrade, by the way, an explosives specialist from the "Action directe" period ), who had managed the route in the rain, described the route along the sea to us. The hostel in Rates, a small village, of course on the coast, the end point of the first stage, should give us the wonderful thing, which the path has ready for everyone in some form, but would already be shown to us this evening. The beginning of a transformation of our thinking, which, as we would soon realize, had greater dimensions, than we had previously suspected or even suspected.
As often is the case on the way, one still had a good while to walk from the pilgrims' path to the accommodation, the Albuerge.      
Finding the key to the accommodation proved a little tricky, but eventually, with a helpful visit to a bar, where the wanted manager was, we were seated in the large, homely kitchen, with tea water boiling on the stove. We ate a packet of soup. We didn't enjoy the togetherness and the silence for long, when a late group of hikers arrived. A dentist from Russia and his, maybe 15-year-old daughter. The doctor, he was allowed to be around 35 to 40 years old, carried a huge backpack on his back, almost twice as high (and probably also heavy) as his daughter's backpack, which, although big, would still pass as "normal". The doctor and daughter greeted us enthusiastically in broken English, then began to look after their luggage.      

Maybe four hours after the two had arrived, there was another knock on the door. A pilgrim, evidently, entered the room. He was dressed in a black Buddhist robe, had a long white beard and hair tied in a long braid at the nape of his neck. As baggage, he only carried a small shoulder bag, with a buckled blanket. He stood there, smiling, in the middle of the kitchen, bowed with folded hands and announced:      
"My friends call me Candle. I look forward to welcoming you as companions.”
His eyes shone kindly. Bettina and I looked at each other - his look, his existence, made us smile, we were happy, there was a good feeling.
Soon, while the others were also eating a small meal, we were all sitting at the large wooden table, each with a cup of steaming tea in front of us and talking. The man in the black robe and the white beard didn't add much to the conversation. He sat there, obviously at ease, listening intently to the conversation. It wasn't until our subject turned to religion, that after a while, he really got involved, meaning, he started to speak:      

“It is a great honor for me to be able to speak to you, here, this evening. All of you - and all those, who may still come - are here and on the road, for a very special reason. To understand. If you are confused by my words in the next few days - accept it. You will notice, that I only speak for your good."      
Before Candle took the floor, we tried to clarify in our round table discussion, what God is, for us. The Russian painted a corresponding picture from the Bible - Bettina and I remained rather inconsistent and took refuge in Buddhist ideas, that we had come across so fragmentarily (besides share prices, sales figures and margins).      
"You spoke of God,"      
began the white beard,      
"You keep looking for him, that's why you're here, isn't it? And of course, God is with you. As close as it gets. And what is impossible for a god? Listen to me, because now it's about your search. To you. About the absolute human.”      
He looked at us one by one, smiling, somehow mischievously. Then he dug out a faded blue tobacco pouch and began to roll a cigarette.

“What you are looking for has neither beginning nor end. If we look deep within ourselves, we will find neither a truly defined beginning, nor end. This is because of the absolute conception of eternity, that is our inheritance as children of all-embracing love. The more than simple truth is, that we, as creatures of singular absoluteness, can only be ourselves in supreme form, like our mother, our father, like "it", the alloneness.“      
He looked around. I said nothing, like Bettina, because actually I didn't understand anything at first. The other two also lowered their eyes.
"Do you understand? We are dreaming gods! In the absolute!”      
He packed tobacco on the paper.      
"It means, very straightforwardly, that we, each of us, are the God of a 'singular', yet absolute, universe 'in' soleness. Each of us is absolute, dreaming God, Creator, Part of Love. That means, our spirit fills EVERYTHING, really "everything" - in whatever definition. This is what is meant by "I am". We are. Absolutely with all the consequences. For real,"      
He deftly rolled a small tube of tobacco and licked the adhesive strip.
“This is the consequence of absoluteness! Look! What an incredible, wonderful kingdom! We could live in it, romp through knee-high grass, feast on dandelions, chase butterflies - because EVERYTHING is ABSOLUTELY fine. That is the truth - but we vegetate in a gigantic self-deception - in the belief, that we can hand over our responsibility to an "outside", that is only vaguely conceptualized."
Candle lit the fags, coughed briefly.      
“You imagine a punitive creation! All of us - we are convinced, that this something, that cannot be further questioned, with our senses, our perception - God - whatever, is malicious, resentful, punishing? This is how life creates unspeakable fear for us. Yet we try desperately, to establish rules in the chaos, trying to construct meaning. Our absoluteness, our existence as God, has been completely lost in these efforts. What you have in your heads is a commitment to smallness!"      
He blew smoke at the ceiling with an angry expression on his face.
“We confessed to smallness - because our minds have been so trained, very grandly. Nobody is aware of this, the smallness is fundamental, created in potentiation of itself. Smallness is the principle of this society, so does every supposed one comes from Magnificence, only of an overpoweringly dreary interpretation of our "being". In order to "get to the bottom" of this problem, the doubt as to whether it makes sense - we part, we divide. We then call this “scientific observation”.      
He laughed softly, repeated.      
“We break it down into smaller and smaller pieces, call it science. Thus we move further and further away from wholeness, falling into insignificance, in an effort, to fashion our quest into smallness and fragmentation, in the search for God. It is not for nothing, this sentence in all religions: “Stop! Repent!” To which would be added: There is no point, there is nothing to do, everything is. "IT IS". You don't need to worry. Mother Earth (in the idea of wholeness) will care for you! It's about a lack of trust!"      
For a moment, he looked in the eyes of each of us.      
“If trust in each other were possible, in the idea of society, that was really causal, the path of reversal could be walked “blindly”, only trusting in one’s brother or sister. But the dynamics of the judging system do not allow this. This possibility does not exist here, everything in the construction throws back. There is no fixed point in dualism, on which to place real trust. "      
He took a sip of the tea, probably cold by now.      
“Freedom from...