The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight (3 page)

The man looked away as though thinking to himself and then continued. “All the great prayers in the Bible are not requests,
they are affirmations. Think of the Lord’s Prayer. It goes, ‘Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day
our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses.’ It doesn’t say please can we have some food, and it doesn’t say please can
we be forgiven. It merely affirms that these things are ready to happen already, and by faithfully assuming that they will,
we make it so.”

He paused again, as though expecting a question, still smiling.

I had to chuckle. His good mood was so contagious.

“Some scientists are theorizing,” he went on, “that these findings also imply something else, something that has a profound
significance for every person alive. They maintain that if our expectations, our faithful assumptions, are what makes prayer
work, then each of us is beaming a force of prayer-energy out into the world all the time, whether we realize it or not. Do
you see how this is true?”

He continued without waiting for me to answer. “If prayer is an affirmation based on our expectations, our faith, then all
our expectations have a prayer effect. We are, in fact, praying all the time for some kind of future for ourselves and others,
we just aren’t fully aware of it.”

He looked at me as though he had just dropped a bombshell.

“Can you imagine?” he continued. “Science is now confirming the assertions of the most esoteric mystics of every religion.
They all say we have a mental and spiritual influence on what happens to us in life. Remember the scriptures about how faith
the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. What if this ability is the secret of true success in life, of creating true
community.” His eyes twinkled as though he knew more than he was saying. “We all have to figure out how this works. It’s time.”

I was smiling back at this man, intrigued by what he was saying, still amazed at the transformation in the mood around the
pool, when I instinctively glanced around to the left in the way we do when we feel someone looking at us. I caught one of
the pool attendants staring at me from the entrance door. When our eyes met, he quickly looked away and began to walk back
along the sidewalk that led to an elevator.

“Excuse me, sir,” came a voice from behind me.

When I looked around, I realized it was another attendant.

“May I serve you a drink?” he asked.

“No… thank you,” I replied. “I’ll wait awhile.

When I looked back toward the man on the sidewalk, he was gone. For a moment I surveyed the area, looking for him. When I
finally looked over to my right where the dark-haired man had been sitting, he was gone too.

I got up and asked the man at the table in front of me if he had seen which way the man with the paper had walked. He shook
his head and looked away curtly.

F
or the rest of the afternoon I stayed in my room. The events at the pool were disconcerting. Who was the man telling me about
prayer? Was there a synchronicity involved with this information? And why was the attendant staring at me? And where was Wil?

Around dusk, after a long nap, I ventured out again, deciding to walk down the street a few blocks to an outdoor restaurant
I heard one of the guests mention.

“Very close. Perfectly safe,” the bespectacled concierge told me when I asked him how to get there. “No problem.”

I walked out of the lobby into the fading light, keeping an eye out for Wil. The street was crowded with people and I pushed
my way through. When I arrived at the restaurant, I was given a small corner table next to a four-foot-high wrought-iron fence
that separated the dining area from the street. I ate a leisurely dinner and read an English newspaper, keeping the table
for more than an hour.

At one point I grew uncomfortable. I felt as though I was being watched again, only I couldn’t see anyone looking. I gazed
around at the other tables, but no one seemed to be paying me the slightest attention. Standing up, I peered over the fence
at the people on the street. Nothing. Struggling to shake the feeling, I paid the check and walked back toward the hotel.

As I neared the entrance, I caught sight of a man at the edge of a row of bushes about twenty feet away to my left. Our eyes
met and he took a step toward me. I looked away and was walking past when I realized it was the attendant I had caught looking
at me at the pool, only he was now dressed in sneakers and jeans with a plain blue shirt. He appeared to be about thirty,
with very serious eyes. I hurried on by.

“Excuse me, sir,” he called out.

I continued to walk.

“Please,” he said. “I must speak with you.”

I moved a few yards farther so that I would be in sight of the doorman and bell staff, then asked, “What is it?”

He moved closer, half bowing. “You are someone I believe I am here to meet. You know Mr. Wilson James?”

“Wil? Yes. Where is he?”

“He is unable to come. He asked me to meet you instead.” He offered his hand and I took it reluctantly, telling him my name.

“I am Yin Doloe,” he replied.

“Are you an employee here at the hotel?” I asked.

“No, I’m sorry. A friend works here. I borrowed a jacket from him so I could look around. I wanted to see if you were here.”

I looked at him closely. My instincts told me he was telling the truth. But why the secrecy? Why didn’t he just walk up to
me at the pool and ask who I was?

“Why has Wil been delayed?” I asked.

“I am not sure. He asked me to meet you and take you on to Lhasa. His plan, I believe, is to meet us there.”

I looked away. Things were beginning to feel ominous. I looked him over again, then said, “I’m not sure I want to do that.
Why hasn’t Wil called me himself?”

“I’m sure there is an important reason,” Yin replied, taking a step toward me. “Wil was very insistent that I bring you to
him. He needs you.”

Yin’s eyes were pleading. “Could we leave tomorrow?”

“Let’s do this,” I said. “Why don’t you come inside and we’ll have a cup of coffee and talk about the situation?”

He was looking around as though afraid of something. “Please, I’ll come back at eight tomorrow morning. Wil has already arranged
a flight and visa for you.” He smiled, then scurried away before I could protest.

A
t
7:55
I walked out the door of the main lobby with only one satchel. The hotel had agreed to store everything else. My plan was
to be back within the week—unless, of course, something strange happened once I left with Yin. In that case, I would be back
immediately.

Exactly on time, Yin drove up in an old Toyota and we headed toward the airport. On the way over, he was cordial, but he continued
to plead ignorance as to what was going on with Wil. I considered telling him what Natalie had said about the mysterious place
in central Asia and what Wil had told me that night in my bedroom, just to see Yin’s reaction. But I decided against it. Better
to just watch Yin closely, I thought, and see how things felt at the airport.

At the ticket desk, I found that a seat had indeed been purchased in my name for a flight to Lhasa. I looked around and tried
to feel out the situation. Everything seemed normal. Yin was smiling, obviously in a good mood. Unfortunately the ticket clerk
was not. She could speak only a little English and was very demanding. When she asked for my passport, I became ever more
irritated and snapped back at her. At one point she stopped and glared at me, as though she was going to refuse to issue the
tickets altogether.

Yin quickly stepped in and talked to her in a calm voice in her native Nepalese. After a few minutes her demeanor began to
change. She never looked at me again, but she spoke pleasantly to Yin, actually laughing at something he said. A few minutes
later we had our tickets and boarding passes and were sitting at a small table in a coffee shop near our gate. There was the
strong smell of cigarettes everywhere.

“You have much anger,” Yin said. “And you don’t use your energy very well.”

I was taken aback. “What are you talking about?”

He looked at me with kindness. “I mean, you did nothing to help the woman at the counter with her mood.”

I immediately knew what he was getting at. In Peru the Eighth Insight had described a method of uplifting others by focusing
on their faces in a particular way.

“You know the Insights?” I asked.

Yin nodded, still looking at me. “Yes,” he said. “But there is more.”

“Remembering to send energy is not that easy,” I added defensively.

In a very deliberate tone, Yin said, “But you must realize that you were already influencing her with your energy anyway,
whether you know it or not. The important thing is how you set your… field of… of…” Yin was struggling to find the English
word. “Field of
intention,
” he said finally. “Your prayer-field.”

I looked at him hard. Yin seemed to be describing prayer in the same way the dark-haired man had earlier.

“What are you talking about exactly?” I asked.

“Have you ever been in a room of people where the energy and mood were low, and then someone comes in who lifts everyone’s
energy immediately, just by entering the room? This person’s energy field goes out ahead of him or her and touches everyone
else.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know what you mean.”

His look penetrated me. “If you are going to find Shambhala, you must learn how to do this consciously.”

“Shambhala? What are you talking about?”

Yin’s face grew pale, exuding an expression of embarrassment. He shook his head, apparently feeling as though he had overstepped
himself and let something out of the bag.

“Never mind,” he said lowly. “It is not my place. Wil must explain this.” The line was forming to enter the plane, and Yin
turned away and moved toward the ticket steward.

I was wracking my brain, trying to place the word “Shambhala.” Finally it came to me. Shambhala was the mythical community
of Tibetan Buddhist lore, the one that the stories about Shangri-La had been based on.

I caught Yin’s eye. “That place is a myth… right?”

Yin just handed the steward his ticket and walked down the aisle.

O
n the flight to Lhasa, Yin and I sat in different sections of the plane, giving me time to think. All I knew was that Shambhala
was of great significance to Tibetan Buddhists, whose ancient writings described it as a holy city of diamonds and gold, filled
with adepts and lamas—and hidden somewhere in the vast uninhabitable regions of northern Tibet or China. More recently, though,
most Buddhists seemed to speak of Shambhala merely in symbolic terms, as representing a spiritual state of mind, not a real
location.

I reached over and pulled a travel brochure of Tibet from the pouch on the seat back, hoping to get a renewed sense of its
geography. Lying between China to the north and India and Nepal to the south, Tibet is basically a large plateau with few
areas lower than six thousand feet. At its southern border are the towering Himalayas, including Mount Everest, and on the
northern border just inside China are the vast Kunlun Mountains. In between are deep gorges, wild rivers, and hundreds of
square miles of rocky tundra. From the map, eastern Tibet seemed to be the most fertile and populated, while the north and
west looked sparse and mountainous, with few roads, all of them gravel.

Apparently there are only two major routes into western Tibet—the northern road, used mostly by truckers, and the southern
road, which skirts the Himalayas and is used by pilgrims from all over the region to reach the sacred sites of Everest, Lake
Manasarovar, and Mount Kailash, and farther on to the mysterious Kunluns.

I looked up from my reading. As we flew along at thirty-five thousand feet, I began to sense a distinct shift in temperature
and energy outside. Below me, the Himalayas rose in frozen, rocky spires, framed by a clear blue sky. We practically flew
right over the top of Mount Everest as we passed into the airspace of Tibet—the land of snows, the rooftop of the world. It
was a nation of seekers, inward travelers, and as I looked down at the green valleys and rocky plains surrounded by mountains,
I couldn’t help being awed by its mystery. Too bad it was now being brutally administered by a totalitarian government. What,
I wondered, was I doing here?

I looked back at Yin seated four rows behind me. It bothered me that he was being so secretive. I made up my mind, again,
to be very cautious. I would not go any farther than Lhasa without a full explanation.

When we arrived at the airport, Yin resisted all my inquiries about Shambhala, repeating his assertion that soon we would
be met by Wil, at which point I would learn everything. We caught a taxi and headed toward a small hotel near the center of
town, where Wil would be waiting.

I caught Yin staring at me.

“What?” I asked.

“I was just checking to see how you are adjusting to the altitude,” Yin said. “Lhasa is twelve thousand feet above sea level.
You must take it easy for a while.”

I nodded, appreciating his concern, but in the past I had always adapted easily to high altitudes. I was about to mention
this to Yin when I caught sight of a huge, fortress-like structure in the distance.

“This is the Potala Palace,” Yin said. “I wanted you to see it. It was the Dalai Lama’s winter home before he was exiled.
It now symbolizes the struggle of the Tibetan people against the Chinese occupation.”

He looked away and remained silent until the car stopped not in front of the hotel, but down the street a hundred feet.

“Wil should be here already,” Yin said as he opened the door. “Wait in the taxi. I’ll go in and check.”

But instead of getting out, he stopped and stared at the entrance. I saw his look and gazed in that direction myself. The
street was busy with Tibetan pedestrians and a few tourists, but all seemed normal. Then my eyes fell on a short, Chinese
man near the corner of the building. He held a paper of some kind, but his eyes were carefully surveying the area.