Chapter 16 - Dreams and Reminiscences in the Land of the Blue Lake

The following days we travelled along the shore of the lake at the foot of the snow mountains, whose far-Hung slopes gradually flattened out and formed an almost even stretch of land above the lake, interrupted only by dry beds of mountain streams. Very few streams had a continuous flow of water, so that grazing-grounds were few and far between and paradoxically we suffered from lack of water during the greater part of the day, in spite of having miles and miles of water at our feet. But first of all the shore was not always in our reach, as the ground over which we travelled was slightly raised and suddenly broke off into the lake, except for such places where the water-courses from the glaciers had carved out shallow beds, along which one could approach the pebbled or sandy beaches --- and secondly, even if one reached the shore, there came a greater surprise: the water was undrinkable because of its high content of magnesium!

This too was the reason for the incredible clarity and colour of the water. The magnesium, though colourless in itself, kept the water absolutely free from organic matter or any form of life, whether plant or fish or crustaceans, and consequently the water was so transparent that on windless days, when the surface of the lake was as smooth as a mirror, it was impossible to see where the water ended and the beach began. I still remember the shock when for the first time I approached the edge of the water, and I suddenly felt its icy touch, because I had not noticed that the pebbles, which looked no different from those on the dry beach, were already under the water. The water was as invisible as the air! Only when it got deeper, the ground assumed a greenishblue tinge and finally disappeared in the luminous blue that made this lake such a wonder.

The colours of the lake and its surroundings never ceased to fascinate me. In the evenings, when the waters of the glaciers flowed into the lake, they would form lighter streaks on the dark blue surface, while the mountains would glow in orange, red, and purple tints, under a sky of the most sublime gradations of rainbow colours.

The weather suddenly became mild, almost sirocco-like, and one day we crossed a blindingly white and intolerably hot sand desert (mixed with pebbles), stretching for miles between the slopes of the snow mountains and the lake. Though it was in the middle of July, I never expected such heat at an altitude of 14,000 feet. But, as I said before, Tibet is a country of surprises and contrasts: one day one may be in a blizzard and the next in a hot desert or in a sandstorm.

Not long after we had left the `burning desert' we came upon a lovely oasis of blossoming shrubs and grassland watered by a placidly winding stream that meandered through a wide, slightly undulating plain between the lake and the receding mountains. The blossoms of the shrubs reminded me of heather, both in form and colour, but the stems of the shrubs were sturdy enough to supply us with ample firewood, a luxury which we had not enjoyed for many days, having had to content ourselves with scanty yak-dung that we picked up on the way, or with the roots and twigs of thorny shrubs found near water-courses or in the dry beds. Dry yak-dung was rare, because we were off the beaten track, but even on the caravan route nobody would pass by a precious piece of yak-or horse-dung without picking it up for the evening camp-fire.

The value of yak-dung cannot be easily imagined by those who have never lived in Tibet or in the woodless regions of Central Asia. It is the main fuel of the country and burns almost smokeless with a hot, steady flame. Since I had only as much kerosene as the basin of my primus stove could hold, I could use the latter only in emergency cases or on rare occasions, like in the rock monastery. Since then I had not had a roof over my head, though shortly after crossing the Chang-La we had camped near villages. But after Tankse we had not found any human habitations except for a few huts near a cultivated patch of barley at the foot of the Pangong Range.

Thus fuel was always a major problem and as important as the water and the grazinggrounds for the horses. To find all these necessities of life combined in this uninhabited oasis was a pleasant surprise. So we settled down to a blazing camp-fire in a little depression near the winding stream, protected from wind and cold. It was a most idyllic spot, with a superb view of the snow mountains on the one side and the big fjord-like lake on the other.

I felt so happy and carefree that I decided to camp here for a few days, to explore the surroundings, and to devote myself to painting and sketching, as well as to some quiet spells of meditation. Here in the utter stillness and solitude of nature, far from the haunts of man, under the open sky and surrounded by a dream landscape of jewel mountains, I felt at peace with myself and the world.

Strangely, there was no feeling of loneliness in this solitude and no need for talk or outward communication. It was as if consciousness itself was stretched and widened out to such an extent that it included the outer world landscape and space and human beings --- those present as well as those with whom one was connected in the past; indeed, the past seemed to rise into the present on its own accord. This latter tendency I observed especially when there was even the slightest increase in humidity, when the air became heavy or sultry, when there was a tendency to cloud formation, and even more so when the sky was overcast.

But even before any visible signs appeared I found that my dreams had a direct connection with the changes of atmosphere, so that I could almost with certainty predict sudden changes of weather I remembered the popular saying that if you dream of dead people it will rain. I took this to be a mere superstition, as I could not see any reasonable connection between the dead and the rain. But now I observed that whenever I dreamt of a person who was very dear to me and who had been intimately connected with my childhood, but who had died some years ago, rain was to follow exactly within three days. Generally there was not a cloud in the sky and not the slightest indication of any change in temperature or humidity when such a dream occurred, but with unfailing regularity a heavy rainfall, a thunderstorm, or a blizzard would follow. Due to the comparative rarity of rain in this part of the world I observed these facts for the first time during this journey, and from then on I made good use of them. Whenever travelling in Tibet in later years I took notice of my dreams and regulated my itinerary accordingly.

My own explanation for this phenomenon is that our consciousness is sensitive to atmospheric pressure and that with increasing `heaviness' (whatever it may be due to) our consciousness descends into the deeper layers of our mind, into our subconsciousness, in which the memories of our individual past are stored up. The greater the pressure, the farther we go back into the past, and this is revealed in our dreams by meeting again those persons who were closest to us in our childhood and who, in the majority of cases, passed away by the time our childhood had become a remote remembrance. In the high altitudes of Tibet one not only becomes more sensitive to these things but one is also more conscious of one's dreams. Tibetans themselves rely a great deal on their dream consciousness and they are seldom proved wrong in their judgment.

Besides dreams they have many other methods of contacting the deeper layers of their mind: meditation, trance, certain forms of oracles, and various natural and `supernatural' (psychic) portents. All these methods have been tried out for millenniums, and their results have been found sufficiently satisfactory to guide people in their daily life. Tibetans would be greatly surprised if one would doubt these facts, which are matters of practical experience and have nothing to do with beliefs or theories. To them the attempts of modern psychologists, who try to `prove' extrasensory perception by scientific methods, would appear crude and laughable: one might just as well try to prove the existence of light which is visible to all but the blind. The circumstances under which these modern experiments are carried out are in themselves the greatest hindrance to their success. In their attempt at `objectivity' they exclude the emotional and the spiritually directive elements of the human mind, without which no state of real absorption or concentration can be created. Their very attitude bars the doors of psychic perception.

In Tibet the capacity of concentration and self-observation, as well as our psychic sensitivity, is increased a hundredfold in the vastness, solitude, and silence of nature, which acts like a concave mirror that not only enlarges and reflects our innermost feeling and emotions but concentrates them in one focal point: our own consciousness. Thus there is nothing to divert the mind from itself, not even the grandeur of nature because nature never interferes, but on the contrary stimulates and heightens the activity of the mind. Mind and nature enter into cooperation rather than into competition. The immensity of nature and its timeless rhythm reflect the similar properties of our deepest mind.

It is mostly the effects of other minds that interfere with our consciousness, the quiet scream of inner awareness, of thought and imagination, reflection and contemplation. In the uninhabited or sparsely inhabited regions of the world the mind expands unobstructed and undeflected. Its sensitivity is not blunted by the continuous interference of other mind activities or by the meaningless noise and chatter of modern life, and therefore it can enter into communication with those minds that are spiritually attuned to it, either by affection or by sharing certain experiences of the inner life.

This explains the frequency of telepathic phenomena among the inhabitants of Tibet --- not only among the highly trained, but even among the simplest people. I am reminded here of an incident which Sven Hedin reports in one of his travel-books. On his way into the interior of Tibet he had to cross a vast stretch of uninhabited territory with his caravan. Before setting out he met some nomad herdsmen who knew the territory, and with great difficulty he persuaded one of two brothers to act as a guide for his caravan. He was a shy young man and declared that he was not accustomed to travel in a `crowd' and that he would guide the caravan only under the condition that he would be allowed to go ahead alone, as otherwise he would not be able to concentrate on the landmarks and the direction of the route, Sven Hedin respected his wish, and the caravan followed him without any difficulties or untoward incidents, until one day the young man fell ill and died under inexplicable circumstances. There was no other choice for the caravan but to return the same way they had come. But while they were still several stages away from the place from where they had set out with their young guide his brother came to meet them, and before anybody could tell what had happened he said that he knew that his brother was dead and described the spot and the exact circumstances under which he had died. He had seen it with the mind's eye!

In this case a close relationship favoured the telepathic contact between two individuals. But I remember a case that concerned me personally and in which a third person acted as a transmitter or medium without my co-operation or knowledge. After a year's travelling in Western Tibet without postal communications I was worried about my aged foster-mother, fearing that she might be seriously ill or that she might have died in the meantime. Li Gotami thereupon --- without telling me about it ---consulted a Tibetan friend of ours, who was well trained in Tantric methods of meditation, to perform a Mo or oracle, according to an ancient book of omens in his possession. The answer was that my foster-mother was alive and that there was no cause for worry, but that her legs were swollen and caused her much trouble. I was somewhat skeptical about this answer, because it did not seem to have any connection with any of her former ailments. But a few weeks later I received a letter which proved that the Mo had been correct.

Solitude itself seems to produce a similar effect as certain meditational or yogic exercises: it automatically removes distraction by outer influences and thus creates a state of dwelling within oneself, a state of natural concentration. Whatever thought-object comes before one's mind, it takes on a greater reality and plasticity and can be held and contemplated with full attention. The past is telescoped into the present and the present shows itself not as a dividing line between a past that had died and a future that has not yet been born but as a single aspect of the co-existent and continuous body of living experience in four dimensions.

In the detachment of this solitude I could see how little in our life depends on brainmade decisions and how much on apparently insignificant events and impressions which suddenly reveal the inner direction of our essential being. We generally look upon these insignificant impressions and events as `accidents', happening without apparent cause or connection with ourselves, without noticing that these impressions and events gained importance merely because they set free forces which were at work in us all along, but which we did not notice because our intellectually thought-out plans overshadowed the steady flow of our inner life and the driving forces of our soul.

My childhood dreams hovered about the snow-clad peaks of the Andes and the majestic solitudes of the Bolivian highlands with their clear-cut sculptured mountains which were the haunts of many of my forbears, the birthplace of my mother, and the scene of many adventurous stories of travels by mule and llama caravans with which my grandmother used to regale me to my infinite pleasure, while the other family members around me discussed the affairs of their mines in the mountains of Quechisla; of my grandfathers early days at Cochabamba or the exploits of my greatgrandfather, one of the leading generals in the war of liberation and brother in-arms of Bolivar, for whom he won a decisive victory, which earned him the highest honours and the title of field Marshal de Montenegro.

However, it was not this that impressed me, but the vastness of those bare mountains of the Bolivian highlands and the secrets they bore in their depths: a hidden world of treasures of gold and silver and bismuth, of which I had seen wonderful specimens and which attracted me more by their beauty than by their value, of which I had no conception. To explore this mysterious world in the depths of the earth, and to live on those enchanted highlands of eternal sunshine and wide horizons, I decided to become a mining-engineer to carry on the family tradition.

But while growing up I discovered that I was not so much interested in the depths of the earth as in the depths of the mind. So, instead of engineering I turned to philosophy And since philosophy was for me identical with a quest for truth, I was less interested in systems, i.e. in academical forms of philosophical thought, than in its religious expression and realisation. I was deeply moved by Plato's discourses which appealed to me both by their poetic beauty and their religious attitude. Among modern philosophers, Schopenhauer had a profound influence upon me, and this led me to the Christian mystics as well as to the Upanishads and to Buddhism.

At the age of eighteen I began to write a comparative study of the three world religions, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, in order to clarify my own mind and to decide my own religion, because it did not seem to me reasonable to accept a faith just because my forefathers had followed it or because it was accepted by the society in which I lived. To me religion was a matter of conviction and not merely a matter of belief or convention; and in order to be convinced I had to know.

Therefore, in order to find out the merits of these three great religions and the degree in which they were able to convince me of their truths, I set out on a more or less detailed study of their teachings. But since Islam did not seem to add any substantially new ideas to the common tradition of Judaism and Christianity, the former soon dropped out of the contest, and only Christianity and Buddhism remained. At the outset of my study I had felt more or less convinced of the superiority of Christianity (though not of the Christian Church), but the further I proceeded the more I found myself in agreement with Buddhism, until it became clear to me that Buddhism was the only religion I could follow with the fullest conviction. Thus, the book which resulted from my studies in comparative religion was exclusively devoted to the teachings of the Buddha, and I was its convert. In spite of its somewhat immature character the book was published not only in Germany but also in Japan, as I found out on my arrival in Ceylon eight years after its first appearance.

What brought me to Ceylon was the conviction that here I would find the purest tradition of Buddhism and an opportunity to gain deeper experience in meditation and to continue my pāli studies, which I had begun in my home at Capri as well as at the University of Naples which, thanks to the generosity of King Chulalongkom of Siam, possessed a complete set of the pāli canon in Siamese script.

Ceylon proved indeed fruitful in many respects, and under the friendly guidance of Nyanatiloka Mahāthera, the founder and abbot of the idyllic island monastery of Polgasduwa (near Dodanduwa), who was one of the greatest pāli scholars of his time, I found ample opportunity to continue my studies and to get first-hand experience of the monastic life and tradition of the Theravāda School of Southern Buddhism. I was greatly impressed by the kindliness of the Sinhalese people and the high standard of discipline and education among the monks. But something was missing --- and what it was I discovered only when suddenly a new horizon of religious experience was opened to me at Yi-Gah Chö-Ling, and the great Guru stepped into my life.

Now I could clearly see the pattern of my life and its hidden roots. I could see that this pilgrimage into the unknown was a coming home to the land of my dreams and that dreams are more real than the plans of our brain, provided they are dreams that mirror the deepest yearnings of our soul, the very centre of our being, and not only our reeling desires and ambitions which hide behind the reasons of our intellect. How true are Santayana's words:

`It is not wisdom to be only wise,
And on the inner vision dose the eyes
But it is wisdom to believe the heart.'

Here I was in the land of `turquoise lakes and golden hills' under the flowering shrubs of an unknown oasis, sitting by the camp-fire with two strange men, the only human beings besides me in the immensity of these uninhabited mountain regions, while our horses were grazing contentedly and their silvery bells tinkled assuringly through the night.

When the moon rose, I left the camp-fire and retired to a small clearing among the shrubs, out of sight and earshot from the camp, placed Tomo Géshé's little Buddhaimage (which I carried with me in a little shrine) before me on a piece of elevated ground and entered into silent communion with the Guru. If in the previous days my thoughts had often dwelt in the past, now they were fully directed upon the way that lay before me and the guide that was ever present. I do not know how long I remained in this happy state of contemplation and inner communion. But suddenly clouds appeared over the glaciers, and I returned to the camp. The next day a mild rain descended upon us like a blessing.