# The Rampa Story/Chapter One

Published in 1960, the only one of Lobsang Rampa's books to have not been renewed.

## CHAPTER ONE

The jagged peaks of the hard Himalayas cut deeply into the vivid purple of the Tibetan evening skies. The setting sun, hidden behind that mighty range, threw scintillating, iridescent colors on the long spume of snow perpetually blowing from the highest pinnacles. The air was crystal clear, invigorating, and giving almost limitless visibility.
At first glance, the desolate, frozen countryside was utterly devoid of life. Nothing moved, nothing stirred except the long pennant of snow blowing high above. Seemingly nothing could live in these bleak mountainous wastes. Apparently no life had been here since the beginning of time itself.
Only when one knew, when one had been shown time after time, could one detect—with difficulty the faint trace that humans lived here. Familiarity alone would guide one's footsteps in this harsh, forbidding place. Then only would one see the shadow-enshrouded entrance to a deep and gloomy cave, a cave which was but the vestibule to a myriad of tunnels and chambers honeycombing this austere mountain range.
For long months past, the most trusted of lamas, acting as menial carriers, had painfully trudged the hundreds of miles from Lhasa carrying the ancient Secrets to where they would be forever safe from the vandal Chinese and traitorous Tibetan Communists. Here too, with infinite toil and suffering, had been brought the Golden Figures of past Incarnations to be set up and venerated in the heart of a mountain. Sacred Objects, age-old writings, and the most venerable and learned of priests were here in safety. For years past, with a full knowledge of the coming Chinese invasion, loyal Abbots had periodically met in solemn conclave to test and pick those who should go to the New Home in the far distance. Priest after priest was tested, without his knowledge, and his record examined, so that only the finest and most spiritually advanced should be
chosen. Men whose training and faith was such that they
could, if need be, withstand the worst tortures that the
Chinese could give, without betraying vital information.
So, eventually, from a Communist over-run Lhasa, they had come to their new home. No aircraft carrying war loads would fly this high. No enemy troops could live off this arid land, land devoid of soil, rocky and treacherous
with shifting boulders and yawning chasms. Land so high, so poor in oxygen, that only a hardy mountain people could
breathe. Here, at last, in the sanctuary of the mountains,
was Peace. Peace in which to work to safeguard the future, to
preserve the Ancient Knowledge, and to prepare for the time when Tibet should rise again and be free of the aggressor.
Millions of years ago this had been a flame-spewing range of volcanoes erupting rocks and lava over the changing face of the young Earth. The world then was semi plastic and undergoing the birth-pangs of a new age. Over countless years the flames died down and the half molten rocks had cooled. Lava had flowed for the last time, and gaseous jets from the deep interior of the Earth had expelled the remnants into the open air, leaving the endless channels and tunnels bare and empty. A very few had been choked by rock falls, but others had remained intact, glass hard and streaked with traces of once-molten metals. From some walls trickled mountain springs, pure and sparkling in any shaft of light.
For century after century the tunnels and caves had remained bare of life, desolate and lonely, known only to astral-traveling lamas who could visit anywhere and see all. Astral travelers had scoured the country looking for such a refuge. Now, with Terror stalking the land of Tibet, the corridors of old were peopled by the elite of a spiritual people, a people destined to rise again in the fullness of time.
As the first carefully chosen monks wended their way northwards, to prepare a home within the living rock, others at Lhasa were packing the most precious articles, and preparing to leave unobtrusively. From the lamaseries and nunneries came a small trickle of those chosen. In small groups, under cover of darkness, they journeyed to a distant lake, and encamped by its bank to await others.
In the “new home” a New Order had been founded, the School of the Preservation of Knowledge, and the Abbot in charge, a wise old monk of more than a hundred years, had, with ineffable suffering, journeyed to the caves within the mountains. With him had traveled the wisest in the land, the Telepathic Lamas, the Clairvoyants, and the Sages of Great Memory. Slowly, over many months, they had wended their way higher and higher up the mountain ranges, with the air becoming thinner and thinner with the increasing altitude. Sometimes a mile a day was the most their aged bodies could travel, a mile of scrambling over mighty rocks with the eternal wind of the high passes tearing at their robes, threatening to blow them away. Sometimes deep crevices forced a long and arduous detour.
For almost a week the ancient Abbot was forced to remain in a tightly closed yak-hide tent while strange herbs and potions poured out life-saving oxygen to ease his tortured lungs and heart. Then, with superhuman fortitude he continued the appalling journey.
At last they reached their destination, a much reduced band, for many had fallen by the wayside. Gradually they became accustomed to their changed life. The Scribes carefully penned the account of their journey, and the Carvers slowly made the blocks for the hand printing of the books. The Clairvoyants looked into the future, predicting, predicting the future of Tibet and of other countries. These men, of the utmost purity, were in touch with the Cosmos, and the Akashic Record, that Record which tells all of the past and of the immediate present everywhere and all the probabilities for the future. The Telepaths too were busy, sending messages to others in Tibet, keeping in touch telepathically with those of their Order everywhere—keeping in touch with Me!
“Lobsang. Lobsang!” The thought dinned into my head, bringing me back from my reverie. Telepathic messages were nothing to me, they were more common to me than telephone calls, but this was insistent. This was in some way different. Quickly I relaxed, sitting in the Lotus position, making my mind open and my body at ease. Then, receptive to telepathic messages, I waited. For a time there was nothing, just a gentle probing, as if “Someone” were looking through my eyes and seeing. Seeing what? The muddy Detroit River, the tall skyscrapers of Detroit city. The date on the calendar facing me, April 9th, 1960. Again—nothing. Suddenly, as if “Someone” had reached a decision, the Voice came again.
“Lobsang. You have suffered much. You have done well, but there is no time for complacency. There is a task for you yet to do.” There was a pause as if the Speaker had been unexpectedly interrupted, and I waited, sick at heart and wholly apprehensive. I had more than enough of misery and suffering during the past years. More than
enough of change, of being hunted, persecuted. As I waited I caught fleeting telepathic thoughts from others
nearby. The girl tapping her foot impatiently at the bus stop below my window, “Oh, this bus service, it's the worst in the world. Will it never come?” Or the man delivering a parcel at the house next door: “Wonder if I dare ask the Boss for a rise? Millie will sure be mad if I don't get some money for her soon!” Just as I was idly wondering who “Millie” was, much as a person waiting at a telephone thinks idly, the insistent Inner voice came to me again.
“Lobsang! Our decision is made. The hour has come for you to write again. This next book will be a vital task. You must write stressing one theme, that one person can
take over the body of another, with the latter person's full consent.”
I started in dismay, and almost broke the telepathic contact. Me write again? About that. I was a “controversial figure” and hated every moment as such. I knew that I was all that I claimed to be, that all I had written before was the absolute truth, but how would it help to rake up a story from the lurid Press's silly season? That was beyond me. It left me confused, dazed, and very sick at heart, like a man awaiting execution.
“Lobsang!” The telepathic voice was charged with considerable acerbity now; the rasping asperity was like an electric shock to my bemused brain. “Lobsang! We are in a better position to judge than you; you are enmeshed in the toils of the West. We can stand aside and evaluate. You have but the local news, we have the world.”
Humbly I remained silent, awaiting a continuation of the message, agreeing within myself that “They” obviously knew what was right. After some interval, the Voice came again. “You have suffered much unjustly, but it has been in a good cause. Your previous work has brought much good to many, but you are ill and your judgment is at fault and warped on the subject of the next book.”
As I listened I reached out for my age-old crystal and held it before me on its dull black cloth. Quickly the glass clouded and became as white as milk. A rift appeared, and the white clouds were parted like the drawing aside of curtains to let in the light of the dawn. I saw as I heard. A distant view of the towering Himalayas, their tops mantled in snow. A sharp sensation of falling so real that I felt my stomach rising within me. The landscape becoming larger, and then, the Cave, the New Home of Knowledge. I saw an Aged Patriarch, a very ancient figure indeed, sitting on a folded rug of yak wool. Although a High Abbot, he was clad simply in a faded, tattered robe, which seemed almost as ancient as he. His high, domed head glistened like old parchment, and the skin of his wrinkled old hands scarce covered the bones which supported it. He was a venerable figure, with a strong aura of power, and with the ineffable serenity which true knowledge gives. Around him, in a circle of which he was the center, sat seven lamas of high degree. They sat in the attitude of meditation, with their palms face-up and their fingers entwined in the immemorial symbolic clasp. Their heads, slightly bowed, all pointed towards me. In my crystal it was as if I were in the same volcanic chamber with them, as if I stood before them. We conversed as though almost in physical contact.
“You have aged greatly,” said one.
“Your books have brought joy and light to many, do not be discouraged at the few who are jealous and evilly
disposed,” said another.
“Iron ore may think itself senselessly tortured in the furnace, but when the tempered blade of finest steel looks back it knows better,” said a third.
“We are wasting time and energy,” said the Aged Patriarch. “His heart is ill within him and he stands in the shadow of the Other World, we must not overtax his strength nor his health for he has his task clear before
him.”
Again there was a silence. This time it was a healing silence, while the Telepathic Lamas poured life-giving energy into me, energy which I so often lacked since my second attack of coronary thrombosis. The picture before
me, a picture of which I seemed to be a part, grew even
brighter, almost brighter than reality. Then the Aged Man
looked up and spoke. “My Brother,” he said, which was an honour indeed, although I too was an Abbot in my own
right. “My Brother, we must bring to the knowledge of many the truth that one ego can depart his body voluntarily and permit another ego to take over and reanimate
the vacated body. This is your task, to impart this knowledge.”
This was a jolt indeed. My task? I had never wanted to give any publicity about such matters, preferring to remain silent even when it would have been to my material advantage to give information. I believed that in the esoterically blind West most people would be better for not knowing of the occult worlds. So many “occult” people that I had met had very little knowledge indeed, and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. My introspection was interrupted by the Abbot. “As you well know, we are upon the threshold of a New Age, an Age wherein it is intended that Man shall be purified of his dross and shall live
at peace with others and with himself. The populations
shall be stable, neither rising nor falling and this without
warlike intent, for a country with a rising population must resort to warfare in order to obtain more living space. We would have people know how a body may be discarded like an old robe for which the wearer has no further use, and passed on to another who needs such a body for some special purpose.”
I started involuntarily. Yes, I knew all about this, but I had not expected to have to write about it. The whole idea frightened me.
The old Abbot smiled briefly as he said: “I see that this idea, this task, finds no favour with you, my Brother. Yet there are recorded many, many instances of ‘possession’. That so many such cases are regarded as evil, or black magic is unfortunate and merely reflects the attitude of those who know little about the subject. Your task will be to write so that those who have eyes may read, and those who are ready may know.”
“Suicides,” I thought. “People will be rushing to commit suicide, either to escape from debt and troubles or to do a favour to others in providing a body.”
“No, no, my Brother,” said the old Abbot, “You are in error. No one can escape his debt through suicide, and no one can leave his body for another yet, unless there be very special circumstances which warrant it. We must await the full advent of the New Age, and none may rightfully abandon his body until his allotted span has elapsed. As yet, only when Higher Forces permit, may it be done."
I looked at the men before me, watching the play of golden light around their heads, the electric blue of wisdom in their auras, and the interplay of light from their Silver Cords. A picture, in living color, of men of wisdom and of purity. Austere men, ascetic, shut away from the world. Self possessed and self reliant. “All right for them,” I mumbled to myself. “They don't have to live through the rough-and-tumble of Western life.” Across the muddy Detroit River the roar of traffic came in waves. An early Great Lakes steamer came past my window, the river ice crunching and crackling ahead of it. Western Life? Noise. Clatter. Blaring radios shrieking the alleged merits of one car dealer after another. In the New Home there was peace, peace in which to work, peace in which to think without one having to wonder who — as here — was going to
be the next to stab one in the back for a few dollars.
“My Brother,” said the Old Man, “We live through the
‘rough-and-tumble’ of an invaded land wherein to oppose
the oppressor is death after slow torture. Our food has to
be carried on foot through more than a hundred miles of treacherous mountain paths where a false step or a loose stone could send one tumbling thousands of feet to death. We live on a bowl of tsampa which suffices us for a day. For drink we have the waters of the mountain stream. Tea is a needless luxury which we have learned to do without, for to have pleasures which necessitate risks for others is evil indeed. Look more intently into your crystal, my Brother, and we will endeavor to show you the Lhasa of today.”
I arose from my seat by the window, and made sure that the three doors to my room were safely shut. There was no way of silencing the incessant roar of traffic, traffic on this,
the riverside of Canada, and the more muted hum of pulsing, bustling Detroit. Between me and the river was the main road, closest to me, and the six tracks of the railroad. Noise? There was no end to it! With one last glance at the scurrying modern scene before me, I closed the Venetian blinds and resumed my seat with my back to the window. The crystal before me was pulsating with blue light, light that changed and swirled as I turned towards it. As I picked it up and touched it briefly to my head to again establish “rapport” it felt warm to my fingers, a sure sign that much energy was being directed to it from an external source.
The face of the Aged Abbot looked benignly upon me
and a fleeting smile crossed his face, then, it were as if an explosion occurred. The picture became disoriented, a patchwork of a myriad non-related colors and swirling banners. Suddenly it was as if someone had thrown open a door, a door in the sky, and as if I were standing at that
open door. All sensation of “looking in a crystal” vanished.
I was there!
Beneath me, glowing softly in the evening sunlight, was my home, my Lhasa. Nestling under the protection of the mighty mountain ranges, with the Happy River running swiftly through the green Valley. I felt again the bitter pangs of homesickness. All the hatreds and hardships of Western Life welled up within me and it seemed that my heart would break. The joys and sorrows and the rigorous training that I had undergone there, the sight of my native land made all my feelings revolt at the cruel lack of understanding of the Westerners.
But I was not there for my own pleasure! Slowly I seemed to be lowered through the sky, lowering as though I were in a gently descending balloon. A few thousand feet above the surface and I exclaimed in horrified amazement. Airfield? There were airfields around the City of Lhasa! Much appeared unfamiliar, and as I looked about me I saw that there were two new roads coming over the mountain ranges, and diminishing in the direction of India. Traffic, wheeled traffic, moved swiftly along. I dropped lower, under the control of those who had brought me here. Lower, and I saw excavations where slaves were digging foundations under the control of armed Chinese. Horror of Horrors! At the very foot of the glorious Potala sprawled an ugly hut-city served by a network of dirt roads. Straggling wires linked the buildings and gave a slovenly, unkempt air to the place. I gazed up at the Potala, and by the Sacred Tooth of Buddha!—the Palace was desecrated by Chinese Communist slogans! With a sob of sick dismay I turned to look elsewhere.
A truck swirled along the road, ran right through me for I was in the astral body, ghostly and insubstantial, and shuddered to a stop a few yards away. Yelling, sloppily dressed Chinese soldiers poured out of the big truck, dragging five monks with them. Loudspeakers on the corners of all the streets began to blare, and at the brazen-voiced commands, the square in which I was standing quickly filled with people. Quickly, because Chinese overseers with whips and bayonets slashed and prodded those who tarried. The crowd, Tibetans and unwilling Chinese colonists, looked dejected and emaciated. They shuffled nervously, and small clouds of dust rose and were borne away on the
evening wind.
The five monks, thin and blood-stained, were thrown roughly to their knees. One, with his left eyeball right out of its socket, and dangling on his cheek, was well known to me, he had been an acolyte when I was a lama. The sullen crowd grew silent and still as a Russian-made
“jeep” came racing along the road from a building labeled
“Department of Tibetan Administration”. All was silent and tense as the car circled the crowd and came to a stop
about twenty feet behind the truck.
Guards sprang to attention, and an autocratic Chinese stepped arrogantly from the car. A soldier hurried up to him unreeling wire as he walked. Facing the autocratic Chinese, the soldier saluted and held up a microphone. The Governor, or Administrator, or whatever he styled himself, looked disdainfully round before speaking into the instrument. “You have been brought here,” he said, “to witness the execution of these five reactionary and subversive monks. No one shall stand in the way of the glorious Chinese people under the able chairmanship of Comrade Mao.” He turned away, and the loudspeakers on the top of the truck clicked into silence. The Governor motioned to a soldier with a long, curved sword. He moved to the first prisoner kneeling bound before him. For a moment he stood with his legs apart, testing the edge of his sword with the ball of his thumb. Satisfied, he took his stance, and gently touched the neck of the bound man. Raising the sword high above his head, with the evening sunlight glinting on the bright blade, he brought it down. There was a soggy noise, followed instantly by a sharp ‘crack’ and the man's head sprang from his shoulders, followed by a bright gout of blood which pulsed, and pulsed again, before dying away to a thin trickle. As the twitching, headless body lay upon the dusty ground, the Governor spat upon it and exclaimed: “So shall die all enemies of the commune!”
The monk with his eyeball dangling upon his cheek raised his head proudly and cried in a loud voice: “Long live Tibet. By the Glory of Buddha it shall rise again.”
A soldier was about to run him through with his bayonet when the Governor hastily stopped him. With his face contorted with rage, he screamed: “You insult the glorious Chinese people? For that you shall die slowly!” He turned to the soldiers, shouting orders. Men scurried everywhere. Two raced off to a nearby building, and returned, running, with ropes. Other men slashed at the bonds of the tied monk, cutting his arms and legs in the process. The Governor stamped up and down, yelling for more Tibetans to be brought to witness the scene. The loudspeakers blared and blared again, and truckloads of soldiers came bringing men and women and children to “see the justice of the Chinese Comrades”. A soldier struck the monk in the face with his gun-butt, bursting the dangling eye and smashing his nose. The Governor, standing idly by, glanced at the other three monks still kneeling bound in the dirt of the road. “Shoot them,” he said, “Shoot them through the back of the head and let their bodies lie.” A soldier stepped forward and drew his revolver. Placing it just behind a monk's ear he pulled the trigger. The man fell forward, dead, his brains leaking on the ground. Quite unconcerned, the soldier stepped to the second monk and speedily shot him. As he was moving to the third, a young soldier said, “Let me, Comrade, for I have not killed yet.” Nodding assent, the executioner stepped aside to allow the young soldier, trembling with eagerness, to take his place. Drawing his revolver, he pointed it at the third monk, shut his eyes, and pulled the trigger. The bullet sped through the man's cheeks and hit a Tibetan spectator in the foot. “Try again,” said the former executioner, “and keep your eyes open.” By now his hand was trembling so much with fright and shame that he missed completely, as he saw the Governor scornfully watching him. “Put the muzzle of the revolver in his ear, and then shoot,” said the Governor. Once again the young soldier stepped to the side of the doomed monk, savagely rammed the muzzle of his gun in his ear and pulled the trigger. The monk fell forward, dead, beside his companions.
The crowd had increased, and as I looked round I saw that the monk whom I knew had been tied by his left arm and left leg to the jeep. His right arm and right leg were tied to the truck. A grinning Chinese soldier entered the
jeep and started the engine. Slowly, as slowly as he possibly could, he engaged gear and moved forward. The monk's arm was pulled out straight, rigid as an iron bar, there was a “snick” and it was torn completely from the shoulder. The jeep moved on. With a loud “crack” the hip bone broke, and the man's right leg was torn from his body. The jeep stopped, and the Governor entered. Then it drove off, with the bleeding body of the dying monk bouncing and jolting over the stony road. Soldiers climbed aboard the big truck, and that drove off, trailing behind it a bloody arm and leg.
As I turned away, sickened, I heard a feminine scream from behind a building, followed by a coarse laugh. A Chinese oath as the woman evidently bit her attacker, and
a bubbling shriek as she was stabbed in return.
Above me, the dark blue of the night sky, liberally besprinkled with the pin-points of colored lights which were other worlds. Many of them, as I knew, were inhabited. How many I wondered, were as savage as this Earth? Around me were bodies. Unburied bodies. Bodies preserved in the frigid air of Tibet until the vultures and any wild animals ate them up. No dogs here now to help in that task, for the Chinese had killed them off for food. No cats now guarded the temples of Lhasa, for they too had been killed. Death? Tibetan life was of no more value to the invading Communists than plucking a blade of grass.
The Potala loomed before me. Now, in the faint starlight, the crude slogans of the Chinese blended with the shadows and were not seen. A searchlight, mounted above the Sacred Tombs, glared across the Valley of Lhasa like a malignant eye. The Chakpori, my Medical School, looked
gaunt and forlorn. From its summit came snatches of an
obscene Chinese song. For some time I remained in deep
contemplation. Unexpectedly, a Voice said: “My Brother, you must come away now, for you have been absent long.
As you rise, look about you well.”
Slowly I rose into the air, like thistledown bobbing in a vagrant breeze. The moon had risen now, flooding the Valley and mountain peaks with pure and silvery light. I looked in horror at ancient lamaseries, bombed and untenanted, with all the debris of Man's earthly possessions strewn about uncared for. The unburied dead lay in grotesque heaps, preserved by the eternal cold. Some clutched prayer wheels, some were stripped of clothing and ripped into tattered shreds of bloody flesh by bomb blast and metal splinters. I saw a Sacred Figure, intact, gazing down as if in compassion at the murderous folly of mankind.
Upon the craggy slopes, where the hermitages clung to the sides of the mountains in loving embrace, I saw hermitage after hermitage which had been despoiled by the invaders. The hermits, immured for years in solitary darkness in search of spiritual advancement, had been blinded on the instant when sunlight had entered their cells. Almost without exception, the hermit was stretched dead beside his ruined home, with his life-long friend and servant stretched dead beside him.
I could look no more. Carnage? Senseless murder of the innocent, defenseless monks? What was the use? I turned away and called upon those who guided me to remove me from this graveyard.
My task in life, I had known from the start, was in connection with the human aura, that radiation which entirely surrounds the human body, and by its fluctuating color shows the Adept if a person is honorable or otherwise. The sick person could have his or her illness seen by the colors of the aura. Everyone must have noticed the haze around a street light on a misty night. Some may even have noticed the well-known “corona discharge” from high tension cables at certain times. The human aura is somewhat similar. It shows the life force within. Artists of old painted a halo, or nimbus round the head of saints. Why? Because they could see the aura of those people. Since the publication of my first two books people have written to me from all over the world, and some of those people can also see the aura.
Years ago a Dr. Kilner, researching at a London Hospital,
found that he could, under certain circumstances, see the aura. He wrote a book about it. Medical science was not ready for such a discovery, and all that he had discovered was hushed up. I too, in my way, am doing research, and I visualize an instrument which will enable any medical man or scientist to see the aura of another and cure “incurable” illnesses by ultra-sonic vibrations. Money, money, that is the problem. Research always was expensive!
And now, I mused, they want me to take on another task! About a change of bodies!
Outside my window there was a shuddering crash which literally shook the house. “Oh,” I thought, "The railroad men are shunting again. There will be no more quiet for a long time.” On the river a Great Lakes freight steamer hooted mournfully-like a cow mooing for her calf-and from the distance came the echoing response of another ship.
“My Brother!” The Voice came to me again, and hastily I gave my attention to the crystal. The old men were still sitting in a circle with the Aged Patriarch in the center. Now they were looking tired, exhausted would perhaps
describe their condition more accurately, for they had transmitted much power in order to make this impromptu, unprepared trip possible.
“My Brother, you have seen clearly the condition of our country. You have seen the hard hand of the oppressor. Your task, your two tasks are clear before you and you can succeed at both, to the glory of our Order.”
The tired old man was looking anxious. He knew — as I knew — that I could with honor refuse this task. I had been greatly misunderstood through the lying tales spread by an ill-disposed group. Yet I was very highly clairvoyant, very highly telepathic. Astral traveling to me was easier than walking. Write? Well, yes, people could read what I wrote and if they could not all believe, then those who were sufficiently evolved would believe and know the truth.
“My Brother,” said the Old Man, softly, “Even though the unevolved, the unenlightened, pretend to believe that you write fiction, enough of the Truth will get to their sub-conscious and—who knows?—the small seed of truth may blossom in this or in their next life. As the Lord Buddha Himself has said in the Parable of the Three Chariots, the end justifies the means.”
The Parable of the Three Chariots! What vivid memories that brought back to me. How clearly I remember my beloved guide and friend, the Lama Mingyar Dondup instructing me at the Chapkori.
An old medical monk had been easing the fears of a very sick woman with some harmless “white lie”. I, young and inexperienced, had, with smug complacency, been expressing shocked surprise that a monk should tell an untruth even in such an emergency. My Guide had come along to me, saying, “Let us go to my room, Lobsang. We can with profit turn to the Scriptures.” He smiled at me with his warm, benevolent aura of contentment as he turned and walked beside me to his room far up, overlooking the Potala.
“Tea and Indian cakes, yes, we must have refreshment, Lobsang, for with refreshment you can also digest information.” The monk-servant, who had seen us enter, appeared unbidden with the delicacies which I liked and which I could only obtain through the good offices of my Guide.
For a time we sat and talked idly, or rather I talked as I ate. Then, as I finished, the illustrious Lama said: “There are exceptions to every rule, Lobsang, and every coin or token has two sides. The Buddha talked at length to His friends and disciples, and much that He said was written down and preserved. There is a tale very applicable to the present. I will tell it to you.” He resettled himself, cleared his throat, and continued:
“This is the tale of the Three Chariots. Called so because chariots were greatly in demand among the boys of those days, just as stilts and Indian sweet cakes are now. The Buddha was talking to one of His followers named Sariputra. They were sitting in the shade of one of the large Indian trees discussing truth and untruth, and how the merits of the former are sometimes outweighed by the kindness of the latter.
“The Buddha said, ‘Now, Sariputra, let us take the case
of a very rich man, a man so rich that he could afford to
gratify every whim of his family. He is an old man with a
large house and with many sons. Since the birth of those
sons he has done everything to protect them from danger. They know not danger and they have not experienced pain. The man left his estate and his house and went to a neighboring village on a matter of business. As he returned he saw smoke rolling up into the sky. He hurried faster and as he approached his home he found that it was on fire. All the four walls were on fire, and the roof was burning. Inside the house his sons were still playing, for they did not understand the danger. They could have got out but they did not know the meaning of pain because they had been so shielded; they did not understand the danger of fire because the only fire they had seen had been
in the kitchens.
“ 'The man was greatly worried for how could he alone get into the house and save his sons? Had he entered, he could perhaps have carried out one only, the others would have played and thought it all a game. Some of them were very young, they might have rambled and walked into the flames they had not learned to fear. The father went to the door and called to them, saying, “Boys, boys, come out. Come here immediately.”
“ 'But the boys did not want to obey their father, they wanted to play, they wanted to huddle in the center of the house away from the increasing heat which they did not understand. The father thought: “I know my sons well, I know them exactly, the differences in their characters, their every shade of temperament; I know they will only come out if they think there is some gain, some new toy here.” And so he went back to the door and called loudly: “Boys, boys, come out, come out immediately. I have toys for you here beside the door. Bullock chariots, goat chariots, and a chariot as fleet as the wind because it is
drawn by a deer. Come quickly or you shall not have them.”
“ 'The boys, not fearing the fire, not fearing the dangers of the flaming roof and walls, but fearing only to lose the toys, came rushing out. They came rushing, scrambling, pushing each other in their eagerness to be first to reach the toys and have first choice. And as the last one left the building, the flaming roof fell in amid a shower of sparks and debris.
“The boys heeded not the dangers just surmounted, but set up a great clamor. “Father, father, where are the toys which you promised us? Where are the three chariots! We hurried and they are not here. You promised, father.”
“The father, a rich man to whom the loss of his house was no great blow, now that his sons were safe, hurried them off and bought them their toys, the chariots, knowing that his artifice had saved the lives of his sons.’
“The Buddha turned to Sariputra and said, ‘Now Sariputra, was not that artifice justified? Did not that man by using innocent means, justify the end? Without his knowledge his sons would have been consumed in the flames:
“Sariputra turned to the Buddha and said, ‘Yes, Oh Master, the end well justified the means and brought much good.’ ”
The Lama Mingyar Dondup smiled at me as he said, “You were left for three days outside the Chakpori, you thought you were barred from entry, yet we were using a test on you, a means which was justified in the end, for you progress well.”
I too am using “a means which will be justified in the end”. I am writing this, my true story — The Third Eye and Doctor from Lhasa are absolutely true also — in order that I may later continue with my aura work. So many people have written to ask why I write that I give them the explanation; I write the truth in order that Western people may know that the Soul of man is greater than these sputniks, or fizzling rockets. Eventually Man will go to other planets by astral travel as I have done! But Western Man will not so go while all he thinks of is self gain, self advancement and never mind the rights of the other fellow. I write the truth in order that I may later advance the cause of the human aura. Think of this (it will come), a patient walks into a doctor's consulting room. The doctor does not bother to make any enquiries, he just takes out a special camera and photographs the aura of the patient. Within a minute or so, this non-clairvoyant medical practitioner has in his hand a color-photograph of his patient's aura. He studies it, its striations and shades of color, just as a psychiatrist studies the recorded brain waves of a mentally sick person.
The general practitioner, having compared the color-photograph with standard charts, writes down a course of ultra-sonic and color spectrum treatments which will repair the deficiencies of the patient's aura. Cancer? It will be cured. T.B.? That too will be cured. Ridiculous? Well, just a short time ago it was “ridiculous” to think of sending radio waves across the Atlantic. “Ridiculous” to think of flying at more than a hundred miles an hour. The human body would not stand the strain, they said. “Ridiculous” to think of going into space. Monkeys have already. This “ridiculous” idea of mine. I have seen it working!
The noises from without penetrated my room, bringing me back to the present. Noises? Shunting trains, a screaming fire engine whizzed by, and loud-talking people hasten in to the bright lights of a local place of entertainment. “Later,” I tell myself, “when this terrible clamor stops, I will use the crystal and will tell Them that I will do as they ask.”
A growing “warm-feeling” inside tells me that “They” already know, and are glad.
So, here as it is directed, the truth, The Rampa Story.