No sooner had we walked out of the bedroom than the sounds of the helicopters in the distance increased.
Ani came into the house and pulled out three heavy backpacks from a storage bin. She handed them to us along with two parkas. I noticed that they seemed to have been conventionally made with cloth and stitching. I was about to ask about them, but she quickly ushered us out of the dwelling and led us down the path to our left.
As we walked, Ani moved up beside Tashi and I could hear him telling her about his decision to go to the temples. The rumblings from the helicopters were coming ever closer, and the blue sky had now turned into a thick overcast.
At one point I asked her where we were heading.
“To the caves,” she said. “You’ll need some time to prepare.”
We walked down a rocky path which traversed the side of a sheer cliff and onto a plateau on the other side. Here Ani waved us into a small gully, where we huddled, listening. The helicopters moved in a small circle over the cliffs for a moment and followed our path exactly until they were directly over us.
Ani looked horrified.
“What’s happening?” I yelled.
Without answering she climbed out of the gully and motioned for us to follow. We ran perhaps half a mile across the plateau and into another hilly area, then stopped and waited. As before, the helicopters circled behind us until they arrived directly overhead.
A gust of frigid air hit us, almost knocking me over. At the same time, all of the clothes disappeared from our bodies except for the heavy coats.
“I thought this might happen,” Ani said, pulling more clothes from the packs. I still had my boots on, but Tashi’s and Ani’s had disappeared. She gave him a pair made of leather and put on another herself. When we finished, we made our way up the slope, climbing between the rocks until we arrived at a flatter area. A heavy snow shower was beginning and the temperature was falling. The helicopters seemed to have lost their way for the moment.
I looked out on the once green valley. Snow had covered almost everything and the plants already seemed to be withering from the cold.
“It’s the effect of the soldiers’ energy,” Ani said. “It is destroying our environmental field.”
Glancing toward the sound of the helicopters, I felt a new surge of anger. They banked immediately and headed straight toward us.
“Let’s go,” Ani shouted.
I moved up closer to the small fire, feeling the morning chill. We had walked for another hour and spent the night in a small cave. In spite of several layers of insulated undergarments, I was still freezing. Tashi was now huddled up beside me, and Ani was looking out through the opening at the frozen world outside. The snow had been falling for hours.
“It’s all gone now,” Ani said. “There’s nothing out there now but ice.”
I moved over to the opening and looked out. What was once a wooded valley with hundreds of dwellings was now nothing but snow and jagged mountains. Here and there were the bentover remains of trees, but not a spot of color could be seen. All the houses had simply vanished, and the river that ran through the center of the valley was frozen over.
“The temperature must have fallen sixty degrees,” Ani added.
“What happened?” I asked.
“When the Chinese found us, the power of their thoughts and their expectations of frigid weather counteracted the field that we had set to keep the temperature moderate. Ordinarily the strength of the fields provided by those at the temples would have been strong enough to have kept the Chinese away altogether, but they knew it was time for the transition.”
“What? They let them in on purpose?”
“It was the only way. If you and the others who have found us were allowed in, there was no way to keep out the soldiers. You are not strong enough to keep all negative thoughts out of your mind. And the Chinese have followed you here.”
“You mean this is my fault?” I said.
“It’s okay. It is part of the dispersal.”
I wasn’t consoled. I moved back to the fire and Ani followed. Tashi had prepared a stew of dried vegetables.
“You must realize,” she said, “that everything is all right with the people of Shambhala. All this was expected. Everyone who was here is fine. Enough people came back from the temples to take them through the spatial windows to a new place of safety. Our legends have prepared us well.”
She pointed out toward the valley. “You must focus on what you’re doing. You and Tashi have to make it to the temples without being captured by the military. The rest of what Shambhala has been doing for humanity must be known.”
She stopped as we both heard the faint rumblings of a distant helicopter. The sound grew fainter and finally disappeared.
“And you must be much more careful,” she said. “I thought you knew not to allow negative images into your mind, especially hateful or disparaging thoughts.”
I knew she was right, but I still felt confused about how all that worked.
She looked hard at me. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to deal with your pattern of anger.”
I was about to ask a question when out through the cave opening we saw several dozen people walking down an icy slope to our right.
Ani stood up and looked at Tashi.
“There is no more time,” she said. “I have to go. I have to help these people find a way out. Your father will be waiting on me.”
“Can’t you come with us?” Tashi asked, moving closer to her.
I could see that he had tears in his eyes.
Ani stared at him and looked out the icy crevice at the other people.
“I can’t,” she said, hugging him tightly. “My place is here, helping with the transition. But don’t worry. I’ll find you wherever you are.”
She walked toward the mouth of the cave and turned around to face both of us.
“You will be fine,” she said. “But be careful. You cannot keep your energy up if you are overwhelmed with anger. You must have no enemies.”
She stopped and looked at me, and then said something I had heard many times on this journey.
“And remember,” she instructed, smiling, “you are being helped.”
Tashi looked over his shoulder and smiled at me as we trudged through the deep snow. It was getting colder, and I struggled to maintain my energy. To reach the mountain range holding the temples, we had to climb down the ridge we were on, cross the frozen valley, and climb almost straight up and over another mountain. We had made our way down almost a quarter of a mile without difficulty but now seemed to be reaching the edge of a rock precipice. Below was a sheer drop-off of almost fifty feet.
Tashi turned and looked at me. “We’ll have to slide down it. There’s no way around.”
“That’s too dangerous,” I protested. “There might be rocks just under the snow. If we start sliding out of control, we could be hurt.” My energy was plummeting.
Tashi smiled nervously. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay to be afraid. Just maintain your visualization of a positive outcome. Fear will actually bring the dakini closer.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “No one ever mentioned that before. What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you been helped mysteriously, inexplicably?”
“Yin told me Shambhala was helping me.”
“Well?”
“I don’t understand the relationship. I’ve been trying to find out what determines when the dakini help us.”
“Only those in the temples know that. I just know that fear always brings these guardians closer, if we can still maintain our faith to some degree. It is hate that drives them away.”
Tashi pulled me forward off the ledge, and we began to slide in the loose snow uncontrollably. My foot hit a rock and flipped me over, and I began rolling head over heels. I knew if my head hit another rock, it could be all over. But in spite of the fear, I managed to hold a vision of landing safely.
With that thought, a particular feeling began to come over me, and I was filled with a sense of peace and well-being. The terror subsided. Moments later I hit the bottom of the drop-off and rolled to a stop. Tashi slammed into my back. I lay for a moment with my eyes closed. I opened them slowly, remembering other dangerous situations in my life when an inexplicable peace had come over me.
Tashi was pulling himself out of the snowbank, and I smiled over at him.
“What?” he asked.
“Someone was here.”
Tashi stood up and shook the snow off his clothes and began to walk on. “You see what happens when you stay positive? Whatever temporary strength comes from anger cannot compare with this mystery.”
I nodded, hoping I could remember that.
For two hours we made our way across the valley floor, crossing the frozen river and working our way up the gradual slope to the base of the steep mountains. The snow was beginning to fall harder.
Suddenly Tashi stopped.
“Something moved up ahead,” he said.
I strained to see. “What was it?”
“It looked like a person. Come on.”
We proceeded up the slope of the mountain. Its peak looked to be about two thousand feet above us.
“There has to be a pass somewhere,” Tashi said. “We can’t go over the top.”
Ahead of us we heard the sound of sliding snow and rocks. Tashi and I glanced at each other and moved slowly around a series of large outcroppings. As we made our way past the last one, we could see a man shaking himself out of the snow. He looked exhausted. A bloody bandage was wrapped around one of his knees. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Wil.
“It’s okay,” I said to Tashi. “I know this man.” I stood up and crawled over the rocks.
Wil heard us and dived to the side, ready in spite of his leg to run down a narrow draw away from us.
“It’s me,” I called to him.
Wil stood up tall for a moment, then collapsed again in the snow. He was dressed in a thick white parka and insulated pants.
“It’s about time,” he said, smiling. “I was expecting you earlier.”
Tashi rushed over and looked at Wil’s leg. I introduced them. As quickly as I could, I explained to Wil everything that had happened to me: meeting Yin, fleeing the Chinese, learning the extensions, getting through the gateway, and finally reaching the rings of Shambhala.
“I didn’t know how to find you,” I added, pointing down to the valley. “Everything’s been ruined. It’s the effect of the Chinese.”
“I know,” Wil said. “I’ve already run into them myself.”
Wil went on to tell us about his experiences. Like me, he had extended his prayer-field the best he could and been allowed into Shambhala. He’d been in another part of the rings, where he was educated further in the legends by another family.
“The temples are very difficult to reach,” Wil said. “Especially now with the Chinese soldiers coming. We must make sure we are not engaging in negative prayer.”
“I don’t seem to be doing so well in that area,” I replied.
He looked at me sharply, concerned. “But that’s why you were with Yin. Didn’t he show you what can happen?”
“I think I understand how to avoid the general fear images. It’s my anger against the Chinese soldiers that keeps slipping me up.”
Wil looked even more alarmed and was about to say something when we heard the sounds of helicopters closing in the distance. We began our climb up the mountain, weaving our way through the rocks and deep snowbanks. Everything seemed to be very fragile and unstable. We climbed for another twenty minutes without talking. The wind was increasing now, and the snow stung against our faces.
Wil stopped and dropped to one knee.
“Listen,” he said. “What’s that?”
“It’s the helicopter again,” I said, fighting my irritation.
As we listened, the helicopter sliced through the overhanging clouds and began to fly straight toward us.
Limping slightly, Wil made his way farther up the icy slope, but I paused for an instant, hearing something else above the noise of the helicopter. It sounded like a freight train.
“Look out!” Wil screamed from ahead of me. “It’s an avalanche.”
I tried to run out of the way, but it was too late. The full force of the rolling snow hit me in the face and knocked me backward down the slope. I was tumbling and sliding, sometimes covered completely by the weight of the thundering avalanche, sometimes riding on the surface of the moving mass.
After what seemed like forever, I felt myself come to a stop. I was packed in, unable to move, my body in a contorted position under the snow. I tried to suck in a breath, but there was no air. I knew I was about to die.
But someone grabbed my outstretched right arm and began to dig me out. I could feel others digging around me, and finally my head was free. I gasped for air, wiping the snow from my eyes, expecting to see Wil.
Instead I saw a dozen Chinese soldiers, one of them still holding my arm. In the background walking toward me was Colonel Chang. Without talking, he signaled several of the other soldiers to take me to a hovering helicopter. A rope ladder was dropped, and some of the soldiers swiftly climbed aboard, then threw down a harness, which was placed around me. The colonel gave the order, and I was hauled aboard as he and the remaining soldiers climbed in. In minutes we were flying away.
I stood looking out a porthole-sized window of a thirty-by-thirty-foot insulated tent. Altogether I could count at least seven large tents and three small, portable trailers of a size that could be airlifted easily. A gasoline generator hummed at the corner of the compound, and I could see several helicopters sitting in an area to the left. The snow had stopped falling but had accumulated twelve or fourteen inches on the ground.
I strained to see to the right. From the lay of the mountain range in the background I concluded that I had been flown only as far back as the center of the valley. A nighttime wind howled, flapping the outside seams of the tent.
When I had arrived, I had been fed, forced to take a lukewarm shower, and given warm Chinese fatigues and insulated underwear to put on. At least I was finally warm.
I turned around and looked over at the armed Chinese guard sitting at the entrance. His eyes had been following my every move with a cold, icy stare that chilled my soul. Fatigued, I walked over and sat down on one of two army cots in the corner. I tried to assess my situation but I couldn’t think. I was numb, petrified, so fearful, in fact, that I knew I wasn’t very alert. I couldn’t understand why I felt so incapacitated. It was a panic as intense as any I had ever experienced.
I tried to take a deep breath and build energy, but I couldn’t even get started. The bare lightbulbs hanging from the tent’s ceiling filled the room with a dull, flickering light and ominous shadows. I could find no beauty anywhere around me.
The flap of the tent opened up and the soldier stood up at attention. Colonel Chang walked in and took off his thick parka, nodding to the guard. He then focused on me. I looked away.
“We must talk,” he said, pulling a folding chair over and sitting four feet away. “I must have the answers to my questions. Now.” He stared at me coldly for a moment. “Why are you here?”
I decided to answer as truthfully as I could. “I’m here studying Tibetan legend. I told you that.”
“You’re here looking for Shambhala.”
I was silent.
“Is that it?” he asked. “Is it in this valley?”
The fear churned in my stomach. What would he do if I refused to answer?
“Don’t you know?” I asked.
He smiled slightly. “I would guess that you and the rest of your illegal sect think this is Shambhala.” He looked puzzled, as though remembering something else. “We’ve glimpsed other people here. But they have managed to elude us in the snow. Where are they? Where did they go?”
“I don’t know.” I said. “I don’t even know where we are.”
He shifted toward me. “We have also found the remains of plants, recently alive. How is that possible? How could they have grown here?”
I just stared.
He grinned coldly. “How much do you really know about the legends of Shambhala?”
“A little,” I stammered.
“I know a lot. Do you believe that? By now I’ve had access to all the ancient writings, and I must say they are delightfully interesting, as mythology. Think about it: an ideal community made up of enlightened human beings that are far more advanced, mentally, than any other culture on this planet.
“And I know the rest too—this idea that these individuals of Shambhala somehow have a secret power for good that permeates all the rest of humanity and pushes them in that direction. Fascinating stuff, don’t you think? Ancient lore that could even be appreciated, for that matter… if it weren’t so misleading and dangerous for the people of Tibet.
“Don’t you think if anything like that were real we would have discovered it by now? God, spirit, it’s all a childish dream. Take the Tibetan mythology about the dakini, the idea that there are angel beings who can interact with us, help us.”
“What do you believe in?” I asked, trying to diffuse the situation.
He pointed to his head. “I believe in the powers of the mind. This is why you should talk to me, help us. We are most interested in the idea of psychic power, the greater range of brain waves and their effect on electronics and people at a distance. But don’t confuse this with spiritualism. The powers of mind are a natural phenomenon that can be researched and discovered scientifically.”
He ended his statement with an angry gesture with his hand, sending a deepening pang of fear through my stomach. I knew this man was extremely dangerous and absolutely remorseless.
He was looking at me, but something attracted my attention along the wall of the tent behind him, directly across from the door where the guard was standing. The area had suddenly gotten brighter. The lightbulb overhead flickered slightly, and I dismissed my perception as a surge from the generator.
The colonel got up and walked a few steps toward me, looking more angry. “Do you think I like journeying out here into this wasteland? How anyone survives out here is beyond me. But we are not leaving. We’re going to enlarge this camp until we have enough troops to cover this whole area on foot. Whoever is here will be found and dealt with very harshly.”
He forced a half-smile. “But our friends will be equally rewarded. Do you understand?”
At this moment another wave of fear rushed through me, but it was different. It was a fear mixed with a great disdain. I was beginning to loathe the extent of this man’s evil.
I glanced behind him to the area that seemed lighter, but it was now flat and filled with shadows. The lightness had disappeared, and I felt totally alone.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “The Tibetan people have a right to their own religious beliefs. You’re trying to destroy their culture. How can you do this?” I could feel my anger making me stronger.
My confrontation seemed only to energize him.
“Oh, you do have opinions,” he smirked. “Too bad they are so naive. You think what we are doing is unusual. Your own government is developing ways to control you too. Chips that can be inserted into the body of troops and unsuspecting trouble-makers.
“And that’s not all.” He was almost shouting now. “We know now that when people think, a specific pattern of brain waves radiates outward. Every government is working on machines that can identify these brain waves, especially angry or antigovernment sentiment.”
His statement chilled me. He was talking about the same misuse of brain wave amplification that Ani had warned me about, the one that had doomed some early civilizations to ruin.
“Do you know why your so-called democratic governments are doing this?” he went on. “Because they are far more afraid of the people then we are. Our citizens know the role of government is to govern. They know that certain liberties have to be limited. Your people think there can be individual self-direction. Well, if that was true in the past, in a highly technical world where a suitcase weapon can destroy a city, it cannot work any longer. With that kind of freedom, humans will not survive. The direction, the values, of society must be controlled and directed for the greater good. That’s why this Shambhala legend is so dangerous. It is based on absolute self-direction.”
As he talked, I thought I heard the door open behind me, but I didn’t turn around. I was focused totally on this man’s attitude. Here was the worst of modern tyranny being voiced, and the more he talked the more my loathing increased.
“What you don’t see,” I said, “is that humans can find an inner motivation to create good in the world.”
He laughed cynically. “Surely you don’t believe that? Nothing in history would suggest that people are anything other than selfish and greedy.”
“If you had your own spirituality, you would see the good.” My voice was rising in anger too.
“No,” he snapped, almost screaming. “Spirituality is the problem. As long as there is religion, there cannot be unity among people. Don’t you understand? Each religious institution is like an inflexible roadblock on the path of progress. Each wars with the other. The Christians spend all their time and money wanting to convert everyone into their doctrine of judgmentalness. The Jews want to remain isolated in a dream of chosenness. The Muslims think it’s about camaraderie and collective power and holy hatred. And we in the East, we are the worst. We disregard the real world for a fanciful inner life no one can understand. With all this chaos of metaphysics no one can focus on progress, on easing the burden of the poor, on seeing that every Tibetan child is educated.
“But don’t worry,” he went on. “We’re going to see that the problem is resolved. And you have helped us. Ever since Wilson James visited you in America, we’ve monitored your movements and the movements of the Dutch group. I knew you would come, that you would be involved.”
I must have looked surprised.
“Oh yes, we have known all about you. We operate more freely in America than you think. Your NSA can monitor the Internet. Do you think we cannot? You and this sect will never elude me. How do you think we could follow you in this weather? It was by power of mind. My mind. It came to me where you would be. Even after we were lost in this wilderness, I knew. I could feel your presence. At first it was your friend Yin whom I could follow. Now it’s been you.
“And that’s not all. I don’t even need to use my instincts to locate you anymore. I have your brain wave scan.” He nodded toward the door. “In a matter of minutes our technicians will have mounted our new surveillance equipment. Then we’ll be able to locate anyone we have scanned.”
At first I couldn’t remember what he was referring to, but then I recalled my experience at the Chinese house in Ali after I was gassed. The soldiers had put me under a machine. A new wave of fear raced through me, but it turned immediately into an even deeper anger.
“You’re mad!” I screamed.
“That’s right—to you, I’m crazy. But I’m the future.” He was towering over me now, his face red, virtually exploding with anger. “Such stupid innocence. You’re going to tell me everything. You understand! Everything!”
I knew that he would not have given me all this information if he planned to ever release me, but at the moment I didn’t care. I was talking to a monster, and an overwhelming rage was filling me. I was about to verbalize his damnation again when a voice from the other side of the room called out.
“Don’t! It weakens you!”
The colonel turned and stared, and I followed his gaze. There by the door stood another guard, and beside him, slumping against a small table, was Yin. The guard pushed him to the floor.
I jumped up and raced over to Yin as the colonel said something in Chinese to the guards, then stormed out. Yin had bruises and cuts on his face.
“Yin, are you all right?” I asked, helping him over to a cot.
“I’m okay,” he said, pulling me down to sit on the cot beside him. “They came for us right after you left.” His eyes were full of excitement. “Tell me what happened. Did you reach Shambhala?”
I looked at him and held my fingers to my lips. “They probably put us together to see what we would say,” I whispered. “You can bet they have this place bugged. We shouldn’t talk.”
“We’ll have to risk it,” Yin said. “Come over by the heater. It’s noisy. Tell me what happened.”
For the next half hour I told him all about the world I had found in Shambhala, then, in the barest whisper, I mentioned the temples.
His eyes grew wider. “So you haven’t found all of the Fourth Extension?”
I mouthed, “It’s at the temples.”
I went on to tell him about Tashi and Wil and what Ani had said about learning what those in the temples were doing.
“And what else did she say?” Yin asked.
“She said we must have no enemies,” I replied.
Yin grimaced in pain for a moment and then said, “But you are doing exactly that with the colonel. You were using your anger and disdain to feel strong. Those are the mistakes I made. You’re lucky he did not kill you immediately.”
I slumped back, knowing my emotions were out of control.
“Don’t you remember when your negative expectation drove away the Dutch couple in the van, and you missed an important synchronicity? In that case you were having a fear expectation that they were perhaps going to do you harm. They felt that expectation on your part and probably began to feel that if they stopped they would be doing something wrong, so they left.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Every negative assumption or expectation,” Yin continued, “that we make about another human being is a prayer that goes out and acts to create that reality in that person. Remember our minds connect—our thoughts and expectations go out and influence others to think the same way that we do. That’s what you have been doing with the colonel. You have been expecting him to be evil.”
“Wait a minute. I was just seeing him the way he is.”
“Really? What part of him? His ego or his higher, soul self?”
Yin was right. All this was something I thought I’d learned with the Tenth Insight, but I wasn’t acting on it.
“When I was running from him,” I said, “he was able to follow me. He said he could do it with his mind and intuition.”
“Were you thinking of him?” Yin asked. “Expecting him to follow you?”
“I must have been.”
“Don’t you remember? That’s what was happening with me earlier. And now you are doing the same thing. That expectation was creating the thoughts in Chang’s mind of where you were. It was an ego thought, but it came to him because you were expecting—praying, in effect—for him to find you.
“Don’t you see?” Yin continued. “We’ve talked about this so many times. Our prayer-field is working constantly in the world, sending out our expectations, and in the case of another person, the effect is almost instantaneous. Luckily, as I said before, such a negative prayer is not as strong as a positive prayer, because you immediately cut yourself off from your higher-self energies, but it still has an effect. This is the hidden process behind your Golden Rule.”
I looked at him for a moment, not understanding. I took a minute to remember what he was referring to: the Bible injunction to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I couldn’t exactly see the connection and asked him to explain.
“The rule sounds,” Yin went on, “as though it should be kept because it creates a good society. Right? As an ethical stance. But the fact is there is a real spiritual, energetic, karmic reason that goes beyond the notion that this is a good idea. It is important to keep this rule because you are affected personally.”
He paused dramatically, then added, “The more complete expression of this rule should be: Do unto others the way you would have them do unto you because how you treat them or think about them is exactly how they are going to treat you. The prayer that you send out with your feeling or action tends to bring out in them exactly what you expect.”
I nodded. This idea was starting to sink in.
“In the case of the colonel, when you conclude he is evil, your prayer-energy goes out and enters his energy and adds to his tendencies. And so he begins to act the way you expect him to act, in an angry, ruthless manner. Because he isn’t connected with a deeper divine energy, his ego energy is weak and malleable. He takes on the role you expect of him. Think back to how things generally operate in human culture. This effect is everywhere. Remember that we humans share attitudes and moods. It’s all very contagious. When we look out at others and make judgments, thinking that they are fat or thin or underachieved or ugly or poorly dressed, we actually send our energy out at these people and they often begin to think bad thoughts about themselves. We are engaging in what can only be called the energy of evil. It is the contagion of negative prayer.”
“But what are we supposed to do?” I protested. “Don’t we have to see things as they are?”
“Of course we have to see things the way they are, but after that we must immediately shift our expectations from what is to what could be. In the case of the colonel, you should have realized that even though he was acting evilly, cut off from anything spiritual, his higher self was capable of seeing the light in an instant. That’s the expectation you want to hold, because then you are really sending your prayer-field out to lift his energy and awareness in that direction. You must return to that mental posture, always, no matter what you see.”
He paused dramatically, smiling, which I thought was strange, given our situation and his bruised and cut face.
“They beat you?” I asked.
“It’s nothing I haven’t wished on them,” he said, making his point one more time.
“Do you see how important all this is?” Yin asked. “You cannot go further with the extensions until you understand this. Anger will always be a temptation. It feels good. It makes our egos think we are becoming stronger. You have to be smarter than that. You cannot reach the strongest levels of creative energy until you can avoid negative prayer of all kinds. There is enough evil out there without adding to it unconsciously. This is the great truth behind the Tibetan code of compassion.”
I looked away, knowing that all Yin was saying was true. I had slipped into this pattern of anger again. Why did I keep doing this over and over?
Yin caught my eye.
“Here is the cap to this idea. In correcting a counterproductive pattern in oneself—in our case, anger and condemnation—it is imperative not to put out a negative prayer about our own possibilities. Do you see what I mean? If we make self-defeating comments such as ‘I can’t overcome this problem,’ or ‘I’ll always be this way,’ then we are in fact praying to stay the way we are. We have to hold a vision that we will find a higher energy and overcome our patterns. We have to uplift ourselves with our own prayer-energy.”
He leaned back on the cot. “This is the lesson I myself had to learn. I could never understand the attitude of compassion that Lama Ridgen held toward the Chinese government. They were destroying our country and I wanted them vanquished. I had never been close enough to any of the soldiers to look in their eyes, to see them as people caught up in a tyrannical system.
“But once I saw past their egos, their socialization, I could finally learn not to add to the energy of evil with my negative assumptions. I could finally hold a higher vision for them and myself. Perhaps because I have learned this, I can also hold a higher vision that you will learn it also.”
I awoke with the first noise in the camp. Someone was clanking barrels or large cans together. I jumped up, dressed, and glanced toward the door. The guards had been replaced by two other soldiers. They stared at me sleepily. I walked over and looked out the window. The day was dark and overcast and the wind howled. There was movement at one of the other tents; one of the doors was opening. It was the colonel and he was walking toward our tent.
I moved back to Yin’s cot and he turned over, struggling to wake up. His face was swollen and he squinted to see me.
“The colonel is coming back,” I said.
“I will help as much as I can,” he said. “But you will have to hold a different prayer-field for him. It is your only chance.”
The flap door tore open and the soldiers jumped to attention. The colonel came in and gestured for them to wait outside. He glanced at Yin once before walking over to me.
I was taking deep breaths and attempting to extend my field as much as possible. I visualized the energy overflowing out from me, and I focused on seeing him not as a torturer, but only as a soul in fear.
“I want to know where these temples are,” he said in a low, ominous voice, taking off his coat.
“The only way you can see them is if your energy is high enough,” I replied, voicing the first thing that came to my mind.
He seemed to be taken off guard. “What are you talking about?”
“You told me you believe in powers of the mind. What if one of those powers is to raise your energy level?”
“What energy?”
“You said that brain waves were real and could be manipulated by a machine. What if they could be manipulated internally by our intention and made stronger, raising your energy level?”
“How is that possible?” he said. “Nothing like that has ever been shown by science.”
I couldn’t believe it, he seemed to be opening his mind. I focused on the expression on his face that seemed to be honestly considering what I was saying.
“But it’s really possible,” I went on. “Brain waves, or perhaps a different set of waves that go farther, can be increased to a point where we can influence what happens.”
He perked up. “Are you telling me you know how to use brain waves to make certain things happen?”
As he talked, I again saw a glow behind him against the wall of the tent.
“Yes,” I continued. “But only those things that take our lives in the direction they are supposed to go. Otherwise the energy eventually collapses.”
“Supposed to go?” he asked, squinting.
The area of the tent behind him continued to appear lighter and I couldn’t help glancing at it. He turned around and looked in that direction himself.
“What are you looking at?” he asked. “Tell me what you mean about ‘supposed to go.’ I consider myself free. I can take my life anywhere I want.”
“Yes, of course, that’s true. But there is a direction that feels best, is more inspired, and gives you more satisfaction than all others, isn’t there?” I couldn’t believe how light the area behind him was becoming, but I dared not look at it directly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
He looked confused, but I remained focused on the part of his expression that was listening.
“We are free,” I said. “But we also belong to a design that comes from a greater part of ourselves that we can connect with. Our true self is much larger than we thought.”
He just stared. Somewhere deep in his consciousness, he seemed to be understanding.
We were interrupted when the guards outside banged on the entrance flap. As they did, I realized that the wind had erupted into a gale. We could hear things being blown and turned over all through the compound.
A guard had opened the flap and was shouting loudly in Chinese. The colonel ran toward him. As he did, we could see tents blowing over everywhere. He turned and looked at Yin and me, and in that moment a tremendous gust of wind blew the left side of our tent up from its foundation and ripped it apart, covering the colonel and guards with canvas, knocking them to the ground.
Yin and I were hit with the wind and snow blowing in through the gaping hole.
“Yin,” I shouted. “The dakini.”
Yin struggled to his feet. “This is your chance!” he said. “Run.”
“Come on,” I said, grabbing his arm. “We can go together.”
He pushed me away. “I can’t. I’ll just slow you down.”
“We can make it,” I pleaded.
He shouted against the howling wind. “I’ve done what I was here to do. Now you must do the same. We still don’t know the rest of the Fourth Extension.”
I nodded and embraced him quickly, then grabbed the colonel’s heavy coat and ran through the hole in the tent into the storm.