A Step Away from Paradise: A Tibetan Lama's Extraordinary Journey to a Land of Immortality (23 page)

One of the most powerful families in the area was known as the Yabla family of Yoksum. They were—and are—the big landholders of Yoksum. In fact it was the Yabla family that was to give Géshipa his place above the cows a few years before I met him there. There were six brothers in the Yoksum Yabla family. They were important people then, and they are important people now. They own hotels and the biggest beer brewery in Sikkim. Five of them were destined to become close disciples of Tulshuk Lingpa. The only one who didn’t believe in Tulshuk Lingpa and Beyul was the youngest brother, known as the
kansa
. The course of his life was to bring him to another magical land, controversial in its own right for its irreality. Famous now throughout India for having made it to that promised land, he is a major Bollywood star, well known for playing the dark villain under the stage name of Danny Denzongpa.

The first of the brothers to have contact with Tulshuk Lingpa was the eldest, Yab Maila, the tax collector for the king. He came bearing gifts of fruit, cloth and bottles of liquor. He was greatly impressed by Tulshuk Lingpa, and that night, back in Yoksum, he had a very auspicious dream concerning Tulshuk Lingpa and the Hidden Land. Yab Maila’s father had been there when Dorje Dechen Lingpa had come to Sikkim to open the way, so he knew the stories. He guessed correctly that Tulshuk Lingpa was there because of Beyul. So he returned to Tashiding, a walk of many hours—there were no motorable roads at that time—and Tulshuk Lingpa admitted to him privately that he was there because of Beyul. Yab Maila became Tulshuk Lingpa’s
jinda
, or sponsor. ‘When you go to Beyul,’ he pleaded with Tulshuk Lingpa, ‘be sure to take me with you. But you should leave Tashiding now,’ he warned. ‘There are too many people here. You must keep your reason for being here secret. Why don’t you come with me to Yoksum? You can stay at my house.’

Tulshuk Lingpa, together with his
khandro
and disciples from Simoling, walked up the valley to Yoksum, the last village before the wooded slopes rise to the snows and the glaciers of Mount Kanchenjunga. Before he left, Tulshuk Lingpa called Géshipa aside. Géshipa was not his name until that time. He was known as Gomchela, which means Great Meditator. Tulshuk Lingpa said, ‘I name you Géshipa.’ Géshipa means Four Hundred in Tibetan. ‘I name you Géshipa because you will come with me to Beyul, and you will take out 400 books of
ter
there. Four is the number of gates to Beyul. You will know them well.’

In Sikkim, there are four major caves sacred to Padmasambhava, caves where Padmasambhava hid
ter
for future generations. Before Tulshuk Lingpa took his leave of Géshipa he told him to meet him on a particular day at one of the sacred caves, the one named Lho Khandro Sangphug. It is the southern cave, on the banks of the Rangeet River not far from the border with India.

As Tulshuk Lingpa and Yab Maila were walking up to Yoksum, Tenzing Norgay was coming down leading a group of climbers. Following his successful ascent of Mount Everest, Tenzing Norgay was much in demand as a leader of climbing groups. As they drew close, Yab Maila warned Tulshuk Lingpa not to tell Tenzing Norgay anything about the Hidden Land. ‘This must be kept secret,’ he warned. ‘Tenzing Norgay is too famous. If he knows, the word will be out and even the king will come to know of it. Above all else, we must keep this from the king; therefore—’ and he put his finger to his lips. To the end Tenzing Norgay, though he remained Tulshuk Lingpa’s
jinda
, never knew the real reason for his coming to Sikkim.

After spending some time in Yoksum, Tulshuk Lingpa returned briefly to Tashiding. Then he announced that he would be leaving for Simoling. Both those who knew his real reason for coming to Sikkim and those who didn’t were afraid if he left, he’d never come back. They begged him to stay. ‘We’ll give you a place to live,’ they told him. ‘We’ll provide you with food, clothing—whatever you need. You won’t have to worry about a thing. Just stay.’

Tulshuk Lingpa met Géshipa at the Lho Khandro Sangphug cave on the appointed day. The name Lho Khandro Sangphug means Southern Cave of the
Dakini’s
Secret Vagina. We do not know what secret things they had to do there. After that, Tulshuk Lingpa’s investigations were complete, and he returned to Simoling.

The caretaker of the Tashiding Monastery, the man with the keys. When we first met, he explained to me through pantomime that he lost his eye by falling into a cooking fire while a young child.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Return

One day—it was close to a year after Tulshuk Lingpa returned to Simoling from Sikkim—he said, ‘Those who are interested in going to Paradise, to the Hidden Valley of Immortality—now’s the time. We go. We go tomorrow!’ It took him close to a month to actually leave but Simoling and Pangao and the surrounding areas were abuzz with the news. There were debates among villagers and within families, between those who believed in Tulshuk Lingpa and those who thought he was a drunken, crazy lama. Those who were going needed time to rid themselves of their possessions, selling off enough to finance the journey and giving away the rest. Kunsang told me that in the beginning there were about seventy families that wanted to go but in the end only half that number went.

Tulshuk Lingpa made it clear that only those with true and unflinching faith should even think of coming with him. Opening the way to a hidden land is a tremendous act—calling as it does upon tremendous physical, spiritual and imaginative powers. He knew that the fate of the entire enterprise would hinge upon the fate of each individual who came with him. One’s faith had to be total, and the test of this was given even before leaving. Only those who would gladly give up everything—every attachment to both people and material goods and even the notion of return—were fit for such a journey. If you wanted to plant your crops as an insurance policy against a failed attempt, if you wanted to only loan your house out and not sell it or give it away in order to have something to return to, your faith was thereby shown not to be great enough. Your lack of faith would present an obstacle sufficient to block everyone’s way.

For those who left for Sikkim, over 150 people, such faith was not a problem. I’ve spoken with many of them, and they gladly rose to the opportunity by selling off those possessions that were easily sold to raise funds for the journey and giving away the rest, including their houses. What good would the price of a house do them when all they needed was the money to travel to Sikkim and for the food necessary to reach the gate, high in the snow mountains of Sikkim? As Tinley’s mother-in-law had told me, all tickets to the Hidden Land were one-way.

When asked what they should bring, Tulshuk Lingpa told his followers that they’d need food and bedding only until they reached Beyul: once they arrived, they wouldn’t need such things. He told them to take some seeds, though. That way they could grow their own crops there.

Tulshuk Lingpa left with his
khandro
and some of his closest disciples. The rest came in a couple of batches some months later. After Tulshuk Lingpa had left, and the others were readying themselves to go, the police came to Simoling making inquiries. They said to the lamas who remained at the monastery, ‘We have heard that this village will be emptying out and you’ll all be following your lama to the Hidden Land. Is this true?’ ‘No,’ they lied, ‘this is not true. We are going to meet our head lama in Sikkim but it is only for a pilgrimage. We know nothing of the Hidden Land.’ The police left, only to return some days later. They started asking people in the village too. This time the lamas heard of it and confronted the police, ‘Why are you coming around here again, asking foolish questions. We told you before: we aren’t going to the Hidden Land.’ The police left and never returned to ask questions in Simoling.

At the time, Kunsang was with his mother in the cave in Pangao. One police inspector and three constables risked slipping into the Beas River at the bottom of the cliff to come to the cave in order to make their inquiries. ‘Is it true that your husband has gone to Sikkim and many more from here plan on leaving soon in order to go to Shangri-La?’

Kunsang’s mother lied. ‘No. This is not true. We are only going for pilgrimage.’ They didn’t believe her. So she tried to win them over by making some food for them. Officers of the law always like such things. While she was cooking for them, Kunsang ran up to the village and got one of the big landholders, a big man, with influence. He came to the cave and gave the police hell for giving trouble to the wife of their lama. The policemen left and didn’t bother them again.

Shortly before Kunsang, his mother and sister Kamala left for Sikkim, Kunsang remembered that his father had said that a stone within the cave had
ter
in it, which he would one day take out. Since his father had gone to Sikkim and would never return, and since they’d all be soon following, he thought that being the son and grandson of
tertons
meant maybe he could take it out. So one day when their mother was away Kunsang and Kamala dug out the stone his father had mentioned, which was in a little alcove in the cave that served as the family altar. Under that stone, there were two other stones. Kunsang knocked his knuckle on one of them, and it resounded with a hollow sound. He lifted the stone, and a large black snake raised its head and flicked its tongue at him. He recoiled and ran away. ‘It definitely wasn’t the right time,’ Kunsang told me. ‘And I wasn’t the right person.’

As the time drew near for the family to leave for Sikkim, Kunsang became melancholic and, he admitted to me, quite sad to say goodbye to everybody who was staying behind and to everything he had ever known.

‘I had never been away from home before,’ he explained. ‘Sikkim was on the other side of India and Shambhala very much further. I knew we’d never return. I was excited but also afraid.

‘Then people told me, “You have nothing to worry about. 100 per cent! Your father is going to be King of Shambhala, and you’re going to be prince!”

‘Then I was very happy, me,
Prince of Shambhala
!’

When Kunsang told me this story, he howled with laughter, ‘Me, Prince of Shambhala—
Prince
of Shambhala!’

Kunsang’s attitude towards his father and his going to the Hidden Land was deeply reverential, that of an absolute believer in both his father’s spiritual accomplishments and in the reality of Beyul. Yet when a point of absurdity about some detail of the story or even of the entire enterprise itself occurred to him, he never shied away from expressing it. His was a knife-edge understanding—expressing the reality of Beyul as an unquestionable truth in one breath and punching holes of absurdity spiced with tremendous humor into it with the next. Behind his irreverence was always a deep feeling for the truth that can be contained by neither facts nor logic and can be found only in contradiction. Such was his father’s legacy.

He proudly said on many occasions, ‘My father, he was the
crazzziest
lama who ever lived.’ I often had the feeling his father taught him not only dharma but also his own particular brand of craziness and through him, more than through any other source, I had a window into Tulshuk Lingpa’s character.

When Tulshuk Lingpa arrived back in Sikkim, he lived at Tashiding and made it his base. With his followers from Simoling and Kullu following and setting up camp on the hillsides next to the monastery, there was little hiding his true mission. People from Sikkim, Darjeeling and Bhutan heard the news and started moving to Tashiding, swelling the original population of perhaps seventy-five in the monastery and the houses surrounding it to over 400 people. Many of the lamas at Tashiding who are there to this day moved there because they wanted to be there when the prophesied terton came to open Beyul. Others moved there when they heard Tulshuk Lingpa had arrived.