The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight (12 page)

“I haven’t gotten anything yet,” I said.

“But are you expecting one?” he pressed.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t really thinking about intuitions.”

He nodded. “You must remember that this is part of setting your field of prayer for synchronicity. You must stay alert and
expect the whole process to come forth: the question, getting an intuition and following it, and looking for the coincidences.
Remind yourself to expect it all, be alert for it all, and if you do, your energy will go out ahead of you and help bring
the flow.”

He shot me a smile meant to uplift my spirits.

I took in a few breaths, feeling my energy begin to return. Yin’s mood was contagious. My alertness sharpened.

I smiled back at him. I was for the first time appreciative of who Yin was. At times he was as fearful as me, and often he
was too blunt, but his heart was into this journey and he wanted more than anything to succeed. As I thought about this, I
slipped into a daydream of Yin and me walking through rocky sand dunes at night, somewhere near a river. There was a glow
in the distance, a campfire, that we wanted to reach. Yin was leading and I was glad to follow.

I looked over at him again. He was staring hard at me.

I realized what had happened.

“I think I just got something,” I said. “I had the thought of us walking toward a campfire. Do you think that means anything?”

“Only you would know,” he said.

“But I don’t know. How am I supposed to know?”

“If your thought was a guiding intuition, it would have something to do with us looking for the van. Who was at the campfire?
What was the feeling?”

“I don’t know who was there. But we wanted to reach the campfire very badly. Is there a sandy area nearby?”

Yin pulled the Jeep off the road and stopped. The haze was beginning to lift.

“This landscape is all rocky sand for another hundred miles,” Yin said.

I shrugged my shoulders. “What about a river? Is there a river somewhere close?”

Yin’s eyes lit up. “Yes, just past the next town, Paryang, about a hundred and fifty miles up ahead.”

He paused for a moment, smiling broadly. “We must stay very alert,” he said. “It is our only lead.”

W
e made good time, reaching Paryang by sunset. We drove straight through town and then on for another fifteen miles, where
Yin turned off to the right on a track road. It was almost completely dark, but we could see the river half a mile ahead.

“There is a checkpoint up ahead,” he explained. “We have to go around it.”

As we approached the river, the road narrowed and became extremely rutted.

“What’s that?” Yin asked, stopping the Jeep and backing up.

Off in a rocky clearing to our right, barely visible, was a vehicle. I rolled down the side window so we could see more clearly.

“It’s not a van,” Yin said. “It’s a blue Land Cruiser.”

I strained to see.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “That’s the vehicle I saw at the roadblock when we were separated.”

Yin shut off our headlights, and the darkness seemed to engulf us.

“Let’s go on a little farther,” he said, pulling the Jeep forward through the deep ruts for several hundred more feet.

“Look!” I said, pointing. To our left was the van, parked between large rocks. No one was around.

I was about to get out when Yin lurched the Jeep forward and parked it out of sight several hundred yards to the east.

“Better to hide our vehicle,” he commented, locking it up as we got out.

We returned to the van and looked around.

“The footprints go in this direction,” Yin said, gesturing toward the south. “Come on.”

I walked behind him as we made our way through the large rocks and sand. A three-quarter moon lit our way. After about ten
minutes he looked at me and sniffed. I could smell it too: the smoke of a fire.

We walked another fifty yards in the darkness until we saw a campfire. A man and a woman were huddled around it. It was the
Dutch couple I had seen in the van. The river was just beyond.

“What do we do?” I whispered.

“We’ll have to announce ourselves,” he said. “You had better do it so they will be less afraid.”

“We don’t know who they are,” I said, resisting.

“Go ahead, tell them we are here.”

I looked at them more closely. They were dressed in fatigues and thick cotton shirts. They looked like mere tourists, trekking
in Tibet.

“Hello,” I said in a loud voice. “We’re glad to see you.”

Yin looked at me askance.

The two people jumped up and stared closely as I emerged from the darkness. Smiling broadly, I said, “We need your help.”

Yin followed, bowing slightly, and said, “We’re sorry to disturb you, but we’re looking for our friend Wilson James. We were
hoping you could help us.”

They were both in shock, not believing we had walked into their camp this way. But slowly the woman seemed to realize we were
harmless and offered us a place to sit beside the fire.

“We do not know Wilson James,” she said. “But the man we are here to meet tonight does know him. I’ve heard him mention the
name.”

Her companion nodded, looking very nervous. “I hope Jacob can find us. He is hours late.”

I was about to tell them that we had seen the Land Cruiser parked not too far away when the expression on the man’s face changed.
He looked petrified. His eyes were glued to something behind me. I jerked around. Back in the direction of the vehicles, the
terrain had come alive with other vehicles and headlights and dozens of voices speaking in Chinese, all moving in our direction.

The man leaped to his feet and extinguished the fire. He grabbed several packs and ran out of the camp with the woman.

“Come on,” Yin said, trying to catch up to them. Within several minutes they had disappeared in the darkness. Finally Yin
gave up. Behind us, the lights were getting closer, and we huddled by the river.

“I think I can make my way around to our Jeep,” Yin said. “If we are lucky they haven’t found it yet. You head north, upstream,
for about a mile, and try to outdistance them. You’ll find another road there that comes down to the river’s edge. Listen
for me and I’ll pick you up.”

“Why can’t I go with you?” I asked.

“Because it is too dangerous. One man might get through, but two would be seen.”

Reluctantly I agreed, and began to make my way through the rocks and gravel mounds in the moonlight, using my flashlight only
when absolutely necessary. I knew Yin’s plan was crazy, but it seemed to be our only chance. I wondered what would have been
learned if we had talked longer to the Dutch couple or met the other man. After about ten minutes I stopped to rest. I was
cold and tired.

I heard a rustling ahead of me. I strained to hear. Someone was definitely walking. It must be the Dutch couple, I thought.
Slowly I made my way forward until I caught up with the sound. Twenty feet away, I could see the silhouette of only one person,
a man. I knew I had to say something or risk losing him.

“Are you Dutch?” I stammered, thinking that this might be the man the couple was waiting to meet.

He froze and said nothing, so I repeated the question. It sounded silly, but I thought perhaps I would get some kind of response.

“Who is it?” came a reply.

“I’m an American,” I said. “I’ve seen your friends.”

He turned and looked at me as I struggled through the rocks to reach him. He was young, perhaps twenty-five, and looked terrified.

“Where did you see my friends?” he asked, his voice shaking.

As he focused on me, I could feel how afraid he was. A wave of fear swept through my body, too, and I struggled to keep up
my energy.

“Back downstream,” I replied. “They told us they were waiting for you.”

“Were the Chinese there?” he asked.

“Yes, but I think your friends got away.”

He looked even more panicked.

“They told us,” I said quickly, “that you know a man I’m looking for, Wilson James.”

He was backing up. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said, turning to leave.

“I’ve seen you before,” I said. “You were detained at a checkpoint in Zhongba.”

“Yes,” he said. “You were there?”

“I was behind you in the traffic. You were being questioned by a Chinese official.”

“That’s right,” he replied, nervously looking in all directions.

“What about Wil?” I asked, struggling to stay calm. “Wilson James. Do you know him? Did he tell you anything about a gateway?”

The young man didn’t say anything. His eyes were glazed over with fear. He just turned and ran back through the rocks, heading
farther upstream. I chased him for a while but he soon disappeared into the darkness. Finally I stopped and looked back toward
where the van and our Jeep were parked. I could still see lights and hear muffled voices.

I turned and headed north again, realizing full well that I had blown my chance. I had gotten no information from him. I tried
to shrug off the failure. More important was finding Yin and trying to get away myself. Eventually I found the old road, and
minutes later I heard the faint sound of a Jeep.

I
stretched out as best I could in the cramped vehicle. I was completely exhausted and I wondered how Yin had the strength
to drive. I knew we had been fortunate. As Yin had supposed, the Chinese military had seemed disorganized and nonchalant about
their search. They had posted a single guard at the Dutch couple’s van while the others halfheartedly searched in the other
direction, totally overlooking our Jeep. Yin had managed to start it up without making much noise and move around them undetected
to pick me up at the river.

At this point Yin was still driving with the headlights off and staring intently though the windshield to see the darkened
road.

After a moment he glanced over at me. “The young Dutchman you saw didn’t tell you anything?”

“That’s right,” I said. “He was too frightened. He just ran away.”

Yin was shaking his head. “This is my fault. If only I had told you about the next prayer extension, the Third. You would
have been more effective at getting the information.”

I began to question what he meant, but he waved me off with his hand.

“Just remember where you are,” he instructed. “You have experienced the First Extension: connecting with the energy and letting
it flow through you, visualizing that it forms a field of energy that flows ahead of you wherever you go. The Second Extension,
as I have been explaining, is setting your field of energy so that it will enhance your life flow. You do this by staying
ever alert and expectant.

“The Third Extension is setting your prayer-field to go out and increase the energy and vibrational levels of others. When
your prayer-field reaches other people in this way, they feel a hit of spiritual energy, clarity, intuition, and they will
be more likely to give you the right information.”

Again I knew exactly what he was getting at. Under the tutorship of Wil and Sanchez in Peru, I had explored how to send energy
to other people as a new ethical stance toward others. Now Yin seemed to be clarifying how to do this more effectively.

“I know what you mean,” I said. “I was taught that there’s a higher-self expression that can be found on every person’s face.
If we speak to that self, that expression, our energy helps to lift a person into higher-self awareness.”

“Yes,” Yin responded, “but this effect is increased if one knows how to extend one’s prayer-field the way the legends explain.
We must expect our prayer-field to go out in front of us and increase other people’s vibration at a distance, even before
we are close enough to see their faces.”

I regarded him questioningly.

“Look at it this way: If you are truly practicing the First Extension, the energy is coming into you and you are seeing the
world more as it really is—colorful, vibrant, beautiful, like a magic forest or a colorful desert. Now, to practice the Third
Extension, you must consciously visualize that your energy is overflowing into the field of everyone around you and lifting
their vibration so that they, too, begin to see the world as it really is. Once this happens, they can slow down and sense
the synchronicity. After setting our fields in this manner, it is easier to observe the higher-self expression on the faces
of others.”

He paused and looked over at me as though he had just thought of something else.

“Remember, too,” he continued, “that there are pitfalls that must be avoided when you uplift someone. Each face is a pattern
of features, like an… uh… inkblot, and you can see many things there. You can see the anger of your abusive father, the aloofness
of an uncaring mother, or the face of someone who has threatened you. This is a projection from your past, a perception created
by a traumatic situation that has colored how you expect others to act. When you see someone who even slightly resembles someone
who has done you wrong, the tendency is to expect that person to be the same way.

“This problem is very important to understand and must be monitored closely. We all must get beyond expectations dictated
by our past experiences. Do you understand?”

I nodded, anxious for him to proceed.

“Now, think again of what happened to you at the hotel in Kathmandu. We must look at that more closely. Didn’t you say that
the man at the pool changed the mood of everyone when he sat down?”

I nodded again, thinking back. That was exactly right. The man had seemed to bring a new mood into the pool area before he
had even said a word.

“That occurred because his energy was already set to enter the energy fields of others and give them a positive boost. Think
about how that felt, exactly.”

I looked away for a moment, trying to re-create what had happened. Finally I said, “Everyone in the area seemed to go from
a state of irritation and discontent to a state of mind that was more open and conversant. It’s hard to explain.”