The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight (25 page)

I was dumbfounded. That meant that whenever we experience a luminous object or a pathway that seems brighter and more attractive
or a book that jumps out at us and draws our attention to it—it is the work of these beings.

“What else do the legends say about the dakini?” I asked.

“That they are the same for every culture, every religion, no matter what we call them.”

I gave him a questioning look.

“We could call them angels,” Wil continued, “but no matter whether they are called dakini or angels, they are the same beings…
and they do their work in the same way.”

I had another question to ask, but Wil was hurrying up the slope, avoiding the areas of heavy show. I followed, dozens of
questions coming to my mind. I didn’t want to let the conversation go.

At one point Wil glanced back at me. “The legends say these beings have aided humans since the beginning of time, and they
are spoken of in the mystical literature of every religion. According to the legends, each of us will begin to perceive them
more readily. If we really acknowledge them, the dakini will make themselves more known.”

The way he was stressing the word “acknowledge” made me think it had a special meaning.

“But how do we do this?” I asked, climbing over a rock that was jutting out into the path.

Wil stopped above me and let me catch up, then said, “According to the legends, we have to really acknowledge that they are
there. That is very difficult for our modern minds to do. It is one thing to think the dakini or angels are a fascinating
subject matter. It is another thing altogether to expect them to be perceivable in our lives.”

“What are you saying we should do?”

“Watch alertly for every shade of luminosity.”

“So if we keep our energy high and acknowledge them,” I said, “then we can begin to see more of the luminosities?”

“That’s right,” he said. “The hard part is training ourselves to look for the subtle changes in the light around us. But if
we do, we can detect it more.”

I thought about what he was saying and I understood, as far as it went, but I still had a question. “What about the cases,”
I asked, “of dakini or angels intervening directly in our lives when we aren’t expecting them or acknowledging them? This
has happened to me.”

I went on to tell Wil about the tall figure that had been there when Yin pushed me out of the Jeep north of Ali, and had showed
up again when the campfire appeared at the ruined monastery, before I entered Shambhala.

Wil was nodding. “It appears your guardian angel has shown himself. The legends say each of us has one.”

I paused, looking at him.

“Then the myths are true,” I said finally. “We each have a guardian angel.”

My mind was going a hundred miles an hour. The reality of these beings had never been so clear.

“But what makes them help us at certain times,” I asked, “and not others?”

Will raised his eyebrow. “That,” he said, “is the secret we are here to discover.”

W
e were reaching the summit of the mountain. Behind us the sun was beginning to break through the thick overcast and it felt
as if the temperature was warning.

“I was told,” Wil said, stopping just short of the mountain’s top, “that the temples are on the other side of this ridge.”

He stopped and looked at me. “This may be the hardest part.”

His words sounded ominous to me.

“Why?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“We have to put all the extensions together and keep our energy as strong as possible. The legends say that only if we are
able to keep our energy high enough will we be able to see the temples.”

At exactly this moment, we heard helicopters somewhere in the distance.

“And don’t forget what you just learned,” Wil said. “If you start to think about the evil in the Chinese military, if you
feel anger or disgust, you must shift your attention immediately to the soul in each soldier that can emerge. Visualize your
energy flowing out from you and entering their fields, lifting them into a connection with the light inside, so that they
can discover their higher intuitions. To do otherwise is to send a prayer out that gives them more energy to be evil.”

I nodded and looked down. I was determined to maintain this positive field.

“Now, go beyond that to acknowledge the dakini and expect the luminosities.”

I looked out at the summit just ahead, and Wil nodded and led the way forward. When we reached the crest, we could see nothing
on the other side except a series of snow-covered peaks and valleys. We surveyed the scene carefully.

“Over there,” Wil yelled, pointing to our left.

I strained to see. Something at the edge of the crest seemed to be shimmering slightly. When I tried to focus on it directly,
all I saw was that the area seemed luminous. But when I looked at it through the corner of my eye, I could tell that the space
itself was shimmering.

“Let’s go,” Wil said. He pulled my arm as we made our way across the deep snow and up to the spot we’d seen. As we walked
closer, the area seemed to grow brighter still. Beyond it was a series of huge, rocky spires that looked from a distance to
be lined up side by side. Upon closer inspection, however, we found that one was set back from the others, leaving a narrow
passage that bent around farther to the left and down the slope of the mountain. When we reached the passage, we discovered
that there were actually stone steps, hewn into the rocks, that led that way downward. The steps also appeared luminous and
were clear of snow.

“The dakini are showing us where to go,” Wil said, still pulling me along.

We ducked through the opening and followed the descending pathway. On both sides, a sheer rock face rose upward twenty or
thirty feet and blocked out most of the light. For more than an hour we walked down the steps, steadily descending until at
last the cliffs widened above our heads.

Several yards farther the ground leveled off and the steps ended. We found ourselves looking out on a flat precipice that
wrapped around the rock face to the left.

“Over there,” Wil said, pointing.

Two hundred yards ahead of us appeared to be an old monastery, totally in ruin, as if it were thousands of years old. As we
walked toward it, the temperature warmed even more and a misty ground fog rose from the rocks. In front of the monastery,
the precipice widened into a wide shelf that cut into the side of the mountain. When we reached the ruins, we carefully made
our way through the collapsed walls and large stones until we emerged on the other side.

There, we were stopped in our tracks. The rocky surface we were walking on had turned to a floor of smooth flat stones, light
amber in color, that were evenly placed onto the ground beneath our feet. I glanced at Wil, who was looking straight ahead.
In front of us was an intact temple, standing fifty feet high and twice that wide. It was rusty brown with streaks of gray
along the joints of the fitted stone walls. On the front were two mammoth doors, fifteen or twenty feet high.

Something moved in the misty fog near the temple. I looked at Wil and he nodded, motioning me to follow him. We walked to
within twenty yards of the structure.

“What was that movement?” I asked Wil.

He gestured with his head toward the area in front of us. Less than ten feet away was a form of some kind.

I strained to focus and finally was able to detect the barest outline of a human figure.

“It must be one of the adepts who inhabit the temples,” Wil said. “The person is vibrating higher than us. That’s why we can
only see a hazy shape.”

As we watched, the shape moved toward the door of the temple and disappeared. Wil led the way up to the door. It appeared
to be made of some kind of stone, yet when Wil pulled it by the carved stone knob, it glided open as though it weighed nothing.

Inside was a large circular room, sloping downward in a series of terraced steps toward a center, stagelike area. As I surveyed
the structure, I caught sight of another figure halfway to the stage, only this person was clear to our perception. He turned
so we could see his face. It was Tashi. Wil was already moving toward him.

Before we reached Tashi, a spatial window appeared in the space just above the center of the room. The image slowly came into
focus, captivating our attention, and growing so bright we could no longer see Tashi. It was a view of the Earth, seen from
space.

The scene shifted in quick succession to a view of a city, somewhere in Europe, and then to a metropolitan area in the United
States, and finally to one in Asia. In each case we could see people walking on busy streets, as well as some in offices or
other work environments. As the scene again shifted through different cities in different areas of the planet, we could see
that the individuals, as they worked and interacted, were slowly raising their energy levels.

We began to see and hear individuals involved in moving from one type of occupation to another, following their intuitions,
and growing more inspired and creative as they did so, inventing new and faster technologies and more efficient services.
At the same time we also began to see scenes of people who were still in fear, resisting the changes and trying to gain control.

Next we focused on a research facility, inside a conference room. A group of men and women was engaged in a heated exchange.
As we watched and listened, the content of the conversation became clear. Most of the people were in favor of a new coalition
between the larger communications and computer companies and an international group of intelligence services. The representatives
of the intelligence services argued that the fight against terrorism necessitated having access to every telephone line, including
Internet communications, and secret identification devices in all computers so that authorities could go in and monitor anyone’s
files.

But that wasn’t all. They wanted more surveillance systems. Several of the people were even speculating that if the problem
of computer viruses continued, the Internet might have to be taken over completely, along with all linked computers in commerce
everywhere. Access could be controlled by a special ID number that would be required in order to do any electronically based
business.

One hypothesized that new identification systems might have to be implemented for this use, such as iris or palm scans or
perhaps even something based on brain wave patterns themselves.

Two other people, a man and a woman, started arguing vehemently against these measures. One mentioned the book of Revelation
and the mark of the beast. As we continued to watch and listen, I realized I could see through the window of the conference
room. A car was passing along a road outside the building. In the background I could see cactus and miles of desert.

I looked at Wil.

“This discussion is happening right now,” he said, “in present time somewhere. It looks like the southwestern United States.”

Directly behind the table where the group was gathered, I noticed something else. The space around them was becoming larger.
No, it was becoming lighter.

“The dakini!” I said to Wil.

We continued to watch as the conversation began to change. The two people who were arguing against the extreme surveillance
seemed to be gaining more attention from the group. The proponents seemed to be reconsidering.

Without warning, our attention was pulled away from the image in front of us by a sharp vibration that shook the floor and
walls of the temple. We ran for another door at the end of the building, fighting to see though the dust. We could hear stones
crumbling and falling outside. When we were thirty feet from the door, it opened and a figure we couldn’t make out quickly
moved through it.

“That must have been Tashi,” Wil said as he rushed to the door and pulled it open.

As we ran through the opening, another booming crash filled the air behind us. The old ruin we had first seen was collapsing
in an implosion of rocks and dust. Behind it somewhere we could hear the roar of helicopters.

“The colonel seems to be following us again,” I said. “But I’m holding only positive images in my mind, so how is he doing
that?”

Wil looked at me questioningly, and I remembered Colonel Chang’s remark about how he now had the technology so that I could
never get away. He had my brain scan.

I quickly told Wil what had happened, then said, “Maybe I should go in another direction, lead the soldiers out of the temples.”

“No,” Wil said. “You have to be here. You’re going to be needed. We’ll have to stay ahead of them until we find Tashi.”

We followed a stone pathway past several other temples, and I found my eyes lingering on a doorway to our left.

Wil turned, noticing.

“Why were you looking at that door?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “It caught my eye.”

He gave me an incredulous look.

“Oh yeah, right,” I said quickly. “Let’s check it out.”

We ran inside and I found another circular room, this one much larger, perhaps several hundred feet in diameter. Another spatial
window was hovering over the center. As we entered, I saw Tashi to our right a few yards away, and nudged Wil.

“I see him,” Wil said, leading the way in the near darkness to join the boy.

Tashi turned around and saw us, then smiled in relief, before focusing again on the scene visible through the window. This
time we were seeing a room filled with the things of youth: pictures, balls, various games, piles of clothes. A bed was in
disarray in the corner, and a carry-out pizza box littered one end of a table. At the other end of the table, a teenager of
about fifteen worked on something, some kind of wired apparatus. He was dressed in shorts without a shirt, and his face seemed
angry and determined.

As we continued to watch, the scene though the window shifted to another room, where another teenager, dressed in jeans and
a sweatshirt, sat on a bed staring at a phone. He got up and paced across the room several times and then sat down again.
I got the impression that he was struggling with a decision. Finally he picked up the phone and dialed a number.