Lessons from the Camino

The Camino de Santiago or the Way of St. James in English, is a network of pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the Apostle James in the Santiago de Compostela cathedral in Galicia, in northwestern Spain. Pilgrims follow its routes as a form of spiritual path or retreat for their spiritual growth. It is also popular with hikers and of late, like my guide mentioned “Social Camino” - where many groups of young people would walk it with their boombox.

From its connection to the Camino, the scallop shell came to represent pilgrimage, both to a specific shrine as well as to heaven, recalling Hebrews 11:13, identifying that Christians "are pilgrims and strangers on the earth"The scallop shell symbol is used as a waymarker on the Camino, and is commonly seen on pilgrims themselves, who are thereby identified as pilgrims.

We did Camino Portuguese, all 132km in 6 days.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. At the end when we reached Santiago de Compestela, my little toe was slightly ischemic at the tip due to digital nerve compression. Nevertheless, that recovered. But the journey, physically long with daily coverage of 40k steps, did not yield my perceived expectations of some message or awakening as expected for spiritual growth.

The trip which i had joined with a tour group was challenged with different personalities. But why should they affect my inner peace ?

It’s been 2 months since i came back. I’ve been meditating, sitting with it and waiting for the message. Nope. Nada. And I had given up.

And suddenly today, the awareness came. Even on the spiritual path, we look for some sign, some message, some awakening. There is a grasping, a wanting, a desire, even though it’s in the positive way in spiritual pursuit.

The lesson was in Letting go.

When i walk the Camino, i let go. Letting go of preconceived notions of self, of physical endurance/ performance, letting go of expectations of walking companions, of the weather, of food, of accomodation conditions. When we walk, and when we walk long and far, we summit physical and metaphorical hills/mountains, we keep letting go of all the stuff we carry. We keep letting go until we are empty. Empty of what? Empty of self, of self- importance, of ego and all its iterations. Empty of expectations of what Camino will bring. Of spiritual materialism Chogyum Trungpa talks about.

So September 2026 will be Camino Frances- another lesson in Letting go. We keep walking… and walking until we can let go. 放下.All the baggage we carry on this human life. Little by little, we shed our layers until we are back to our true selves.

“Do everything with a mind that lets go. Don’t accept praise or gain or anything else.

If you let go a little you will have a little peace;

if you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace;

if you let go completely you will have complete peace. ”

― Ajahn Chah

Namaste 🙏🏻