No sooner had we walked out of the bedroom than the sounds of the helicopters in the distance increased.
Ani came into the house and pulled out three heavy backpacks from a storage bin. She handed them to us along with two parkas. I noticed that they seemed to have been conventionally made with cloth and stitching. I was about to ask about them, but she quickly ushered us out of the dwelling and led us down the path to our left.
As we walked, Ani moved up beside Tashi and I could hear him telling her about his decision to go to the temples. The rumblings from the helicopters were coming ever closer, and the blue sky had now turned into a thick overcast.
At one point I asked her where we were heading.
“To the caves,” she said. “You’ll need some time to prepare.”
We walked down a rocky path which traversed the side of a sheer cliff and onto a plateau on the other side. Here Ani waved us into a small gully, where we huddled, listening. The helicopters moved in a small circle over the cliffs for a moment and followed our path exactly until they were directly over us.
Ani looked horrified.
“What’s happening?” I yelled.
Without answering she climbed out of the gully and motioned for us to follow. We ran perhaps half a mile across the plateau and into another hilly area, then stopped and waited. As before, the helicopters circled behind us until they arrived directly overhead.
A gust of frigid air hit us, almost knocking me over. At the same time, all of the clothes disappeared from our bodies except for the heavy coats.
“I thought this might happen,” Ani said, pulling more clothes from the packs. I still had my boots on, but Tashi’s and Ani’s had disappeared. She gave him a pair made of leather and put on another herself. When we finished, we made our way up the slope, climbing between the rocks until we arrived at a flatter area. A heavy snow shower was beginning and the temperature was falling. The helicopters seemed to have lost their way for the moment.
I looked out on the once green valley. Snow had covered almost everything and the plants already seemed to be withering from the cold.
“It’s the effect of the soldiers’ energy,” Ani said. “It is destroying our environmental field.”
Glancing toward the sound of the helicopters, I felt a new surge of anger. They banked immediately and headed straight toward us.
“Let’s go,” Ani shouted.
I moved up closer to the small fire, feeling the morning chill. We had walked for another hour and spent the night in a small cave. In spite of several layers of insulated undergarments, I was still freezing. Tashi was now huddled up beside me, and Ani was looking out through the opening at the frozen world outside. The snow had been falling for hours.
“It’s all gone now,” Ani said. “There’s nothing out there now but ice.”
I moved over to the opening and looked out. What was once a wooded valley with hundreds of dwellings was now nothing but snow and jagged mountains. Here and there were the bentover remains of trees, but not a spot of color could be seen. All the houses had simply vanished, and the river that ran through the center of the valley was frozen over.
“The temperature must have fallen sixty degrees,” Ani added.
“What happened?” I asked.
“When the Chinese found us, the power of their thoughts and their expectations of frigid weather counteracted the field that we had set to keep the temperature moderate. Ordinarily the strength of the fields provided by those at the temples would have been strong enough to have kept the Chinese away altogether, but they knew it was time for the transition.”
“What? They let them in on purpose?”
“It was the only way. If you and the others who have found us were allowed in, there was no way to keep out the soldiers. You are not strong enough to keep all negative thoughts out of your mind. And the Chinese have followed you here.”
“You mean this is my fault?” I said.
“It’s okay. It is part of the dispersal.”
I wasn’t consoled. I moved back to the fire and Ani followed. Tashi had prepared a stew of dried vegetables.
“You must realize,” she said, “that everything is all right with the people of Shambhala. All this was expected. Everyone who was here is fine. Enough people came back from the temples to take them through the spatial windows to a new place of safety. Our legends have prepared us well.”
She pointed out toward the valley. “You must focus on what you’re doing. You and Tashi have to make it to the temples without being captured by the military. The rest of what Shambhala has been doing for humanity must be known.”
She stopped as we both heard the faint rumblings of a distant helicopter. The sound grew fainter and finally disappeared.
“And you must be much more careful,” she said. “I thought you knew not to allow negative images into your mind, especially hateful or disparaging thoughts.”
I knew she was right, but I still felt confused about how all that worked.
She looked hard at me. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to deal with your pattern of anger.”
I was about to ask a question when out through the cave opening we saw several dozen people walking down an icy slope to our right.
Ani stood up and looked at Tashi.
“There is no more time,” she said. “I have to go. I have to help these people find a way out. Your father will be waiting on me.”
“Can’t you come with us?” Tashi asked, moving closer to her.
I could see that he had tears in his eyes.
Ani stared at him and looked out the icy crevice at the other people.
“I can’t,” she said, hugging him tightly. “My place is here, helping with the transition. But don’t worry. I’ll find you wherever you are.”
She walked toward the mouth of the cave and turned around to face both of us.
“You will be fine,” she said. “But be careful. You cannot keep your energy up if you are overwhelmed with anger. You must have no enemies.”
She stopped and looked at me, and then said something I had heard many times on this journey.
“And remember,” she instructed, smiling, “you are being helped.”
Tashi looked over his shoulder and smiled at me as we trudged through the deep snow. It was getting colder, and I struggled to maintain my energy. To reach the mountain range holding the temples, we had to climb down the ridge we were on, cross the frozen valley, and climb almost straight up and over another mountain. We had made our way down almost a quarter of a mile without difficulty but now seemed to be reaching the edge of a rock precipice. Below was a sheer drop-off of almost fifty feet.
Tashi turned and looked at me. “We’ll have to slide down it. There’s no way around.”
“That’s too dangerous,” I protested. “There might be rocks just under the snow. If we start sliding out of control, we could be hurt.” My energy was plummeting.
Tashi smiled nervously. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay to be afraid. Just maintain your visualization of a positive outcome. Fear will actually bring the dakini closer.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “No one ever mentioned that before. What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you been helped mysteriously, inexplicably?”
“Yin told me Shambhala was helping me.”
“Well?”
“I don’t understand the relationship. I’ve been trying to find out what determines when the dakini help us.”
“Only those in the temples know that. I just know that fear always brings these guardians closer, if we can still maintain our faith to some degree. It is hate that drives them away.”
Tashi pulled me forward off the ledge, and we began to slide in the loose snow uncontrollably. My foot hit a rock and flipped me over, and I began rolling head over heels. I knew if my head hit another rock, it could be all over. But in spite of the fear, I managed to hold a vision of landing safely.
With that thought, a par
ticular feeling began to come over me, and I was filled with a sense of peace and well-being. The terror subsided. Moments later I hit the bottom of the drop-off and rolled to a stop. Tashi slammed into my back. I lay for a moment with my eyes closed. I opened them slowly, remembering other dangerous situations in my life when an inexplicable peace had come over me.
Tashi was pulling himself out of the snowbank, and I smiled over at him.
“What?” he asked.
“Someone was here.”
Tashi stood up and shook the snow off his clothes and began to walk on. “You see what happens when you stay positive? Whatever temporary strength comes from anger cannot compare with this mystery.”
I nodded, hoping I could remember that.
For two hours we made our way across the valley floor, crossing the frozen river and working our way up the gradual slope to the base of the steep mountains. The snow was beginning to fall harder.
Suddenly Tashi stopped.
“Something moved up ahead,” he said.
I strained to see. “What was it?”
“It looked like a person. Come on.”
We proceeded up the slope of the mountain. Its peak looked to be about two thousand feet above us.
“There has to be a pass somewhere,” Tashi said. “We can’t go over the top.”
Ahead of us we heard the sound of sliding snow and rocks. Tashi and I glanced at each other and moved slowly around a series of large outcroppings. As we made our way past the last one, we could see a man shaking himself out of the snow. He looked exhausted. A bloody bandage was wrapped around one of his knees. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Wil.
“It’s okay,” I said to Tashi. “I know this man.” I stood up and crawled over the rocks.
Wil heard us and dived to the side, ready in spite of his leg to run down a narrow draw away from us.
“It’s me,” I called to him.
Wil stood up tall for a moment, then collapsed again in the snow. He was dressed in a thick white parka and insulated pants.
“It’s about time,” he said, smiling. “I was expecting you earlier.”
Tashi rushed over and looked at Wil’s leg. I introduced them. As quickly as I could, I explained to Wil everything that had happened to me: meeting Yin, fleeing the Chinese, learning the extensions, getting through the gateway, and finally reaching the rings of Shambhala.
“I didn’t know how to find you,” I added, pointing down to the valley. “Everything’s been ruined. It’s the effect of the Chinese.”
“I know,” Wil said. “I’ve already run into them myself.”
Wil went on to tell us about his experiences. Like me, he had extended his prayer-field the best he could and been allowed into Shambhala. He’d been in another part of the rings, where he was educated further in the legends by another family.
“The temples are very difficult to reach,” Wil said. “Especially now with the Chinese soldiers coming. We must make sure we are not engaging in negative prayer.”
“I don’t seem to be doing so well in that area,” I replied.
He looked at me sharply, concerned. “But that’s why you were with Yin. Didn’t he show you what can happen?”
“I think I understand how to avoid the general fear images. It’s my anger against the Chinese soldiers that keeps slipping me up.”
Wil looked even more alarmed and was about to say something when we heard the sounds of helicopters closing in the distance. We began our climb up the mountain, weaving our way through the rocks and deep snowbanks. Everything seemed to be very fragile and unstable. We climbed for another twenty minutes without talking. The wind was increasing now, and the snow stung against our faces.
Wil stopped and dropped to one knee.
“Listen,” he said. “What’s that?”
“It’s the helicopter again,” I said, fighting my irritation.
As we listened, the helicopter sliced through the overhanging clouds and began to fly straight toward us.
Limping slightly, Wil made his way farther up the icy slope, but I paused for an instant, hearing something else above the noise of the helicopter. It sounded like a freight train.
“Look out!” Wil screamed from ahead of me. “It’s an avalanche.”
I tried to run out of the way, but it was too late. The full force of the rolling snow hit me in the face and knocked me backward down the slope. I was tumbling and sliding, sometimes covered completely by the weight of the thundering avalanche, sometimes riding on the surface of the moving mass.
After what seemed like forever, I felt myself come to a stop. I was packed in, unable to move, my body in a contorted position under the snow. I tried to suck in a breath, but there was no air. I knew I was about to die.
But someone grabbed my outstretched right arm and began to dig me out. I could feel others digging around me, and finally my head was free. I gasped for air, wiping the snow from my eyes, expecting to see Wil.
Instead I saw a dozen Chinese soldiers, one of them still holding my arm. In the background walking toward me was Colonel Chang. Without talking, he signaled several of the other soldiers to take me to a hovering helicopter. A rope ladder was dropped, and some of the soldiers swiftly climbed aboard, then threw down a harness, which was placed around me. The colonel gave the order, and I was hauled aboard as he and the remaining soldiers climbed in. In minutes we were flying away.
I stood looking out a porthole-sized window of a thirty-by-thirty-foot insulated tent. Altogether I could count at least seven large tents and three small, portable trailers of a size that could be airlifted easily. A gasoline generator hummed at the corner of the compound, and I could see several helicopters sitting in an area to the left. The snow had stopped falling but had accumulated twelve or fourteen inches on the ground.
I strained to see to the right. From the lay of the mountain range in the background I concluded that I had been flown only as far back as the center of the valley. A nighttime wind howled, flapping the outside seams of the tent.
When I had arrived, I had been fed, forced to take a lukewarm shower, and given warm Chinese fatigues and insulated underwear to put on. At least I was finally warm.
I turned around and looked over at the armed Chinese guard sitting at the entrance. His eyes had been following my every move with a cold, icy stare that chilled my soul. Fatigued, I walked over and sat down on one of two army cots in the corner. I tried to assess my situation but I couldn’t think. I was numb, petrified, so fearful, in fact, that I knew I wasn’t very alert. I couldn’t understand why I felt so incapacitated. It was a panic as intense as any I had ever experienced.
I tried to take a deep breath and build energy, but I couldn’t even get started. The bare lightbulbs hanging from the tent’s ceiling filled the room with a dull, flickering light and ominous shadows. I could find no beauty anywhere around me.
The flap of the tent opened up and the soldier stood up at attention. Colonel Chang walked in and took off his thick parka, nodding to the guard. He then focused on me. I looked away.
“We must talk,” he said, pulling a folding chair over and sitting four feet away. “I must have the answers to my questions. Now.” He stared at me coldly for a moment. “Why are you here?”
I decided to answer as truthfully as I could. “I’m here studying Tibetan legend. I told you that.”
“You’re here looking for Shambhala.”
I was silent.
“Is that it?” he asked. “Is it in this valley?”
The fear churned in my stomach. What would he do if I refused to answer?
“Don’t you know?” I asked.
He smiled slightly. “I would guess that you and the rest of your illegal sect think this is Shambhala.” He looked puzzled, as though remembering something else. “We’ve glimpsed other people here. But they have managed to elude us in the snow. Where are they? Where did they go?”
“I don’t know.” I said. “I don’t even know where we are.”<
br />
He shifted toward me. “We have also found the remains of plants, recently alive. How is that possible? How could they have grown here?”
I just stared.
He grinned coldly. “How much do you really know about the legends of Shambhala?”
“A little,” I stammered.
“I know a lot. Do you believe that? By now I’ve had access to all the ancient writings, and I must say they are delightfully interesting, as mythology. Think about it: an ideal community made up of enlightened human beings that are far more advanced, mentally, than any other culture on this planet.
“And I know the rest too—this idea that these individuals of Shambhala somehow have a secret power for good that permeates all the rest of humanity and pushes them in that direction. Fascinating stuff, don’t you think? Ancient lore that could even be appreciated, for that matter… if it weren’t so misleading and dangerous for the people of Tibet.
“Don’t you think if anything like that were real we would have discovered it by now? God, spirit, it’s all a childish dream. Take the Tibetan mythology about the dakini, the idea that there are angel beings who can interact with us, help us.”
“What do you believe in?” I asked, trying to diffuse the situation.
He pointed to his head. “I believe in the powers of the mind. This is why you should talk to me, help us. We are most interested in the idea of psychic power, the greater range of brain waves and their effect on electronics and people at a distance. But don’t confuse this with spiritualism. The powers of mind are a natural phenomenon that can be researched and discovered scientifically.”
He ended his statement with an angry gesture with his hand, sending a deepening pang of fear through my stomach. I knew this man was extremely dangerous and absolutely remorseless.
He was looking at me, but something attracted my attention along the wall of the tent behind him, directly across from the door where the guard was standing. The area had suddenly gotten brighter. The lightbulb overhead flickered slightly, and I dismissed my perception as a surge from the generator.
The colonel got up and walked a few steps toward me, looking more angry. “Do you think I like journeying out here into this wasteland? How anyone survives out here is beyond me. But we are not leaving. We’re going to enlarge this camp until we have enough troops to cover this whole area on foot. Whoever is here will be found and dealt with very harshly.”
The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight Page 17
