Chapter 23 - Miraculous Escape and Floating Lights

Before returning to Gangtok, I visited the Maharāja's monastery of Podang. The old abbot, a man with a remarkably beautiful and spiritualised face, remembered Alexandra David-Neel from the time she had stayed in this monastery. I occupied the same room in which she had lived and where a strange voice had warned the young Maharāja (the predecessor of the Maharaja Tashi Namgyal, who ruled at that time) of his impending end and the failure of his intended religious reforms. Like many young men with westernised ideas, he felt it his duty to free his country from what he thought mere superstitions, without realising that this would only have resulted in the disruption of all traditional values.

That these were still alive, though perhaps hidden under the weeds of popular beliefs and customs (as only natural in a country inhabited to the greater part by primitive jungle-folk), became apparent to me when meeting the learned Bermiak Rimpoché, the brother of the Maharājas private secretary, the Kazi of Benniak. Both the Rimpoché and his brother (with whom I have been connected through bonds of friendship for many years) convinced me that if any religious reform was necessary in their country it could only spring from a reassessment of those cultural and traditional values upon which Tibetan Buddhism was based, but never through the introduction of alien ways of thinking, even though they might be nearer to the historical sources of Buddhism. But historical facts and considerations never play any decisive role in religious life, which depends far more on experience and creative imagination than on abstract 'truths' and logical thoughts. The legendary figure of the Buddha, as conceived in the minds of poets and devotees, the very image of the Buddha, as created by countless generations of artists and as a result of inner vision and contemplation, has had a far greater influence on the development and life of Buddhism than all philosophical theories which tried to interpret religious experience in terms of rational thinking, systems, and laws. Such interpretations were not without value; on the contrary, they are a necessity for the thinking mind, whose function it is to experience and reason.

On the way to Podang, my trip almost came to a bad end. During the sleep ascent to the monastery through tropical jungle I had dismounted from my horse, a lovely white steed, which, as the syce had told me, was the Maharājas own riding horse, and had it led behind me together with the horse of my personal attendant (cookbearer) who had likewise dismounted. The path was narrow, leading along yawning precipices and deep gorges. I therefore had warned the syce to be careful and to lead the horses one behind the other. For some time everything went smoothly and I enjoyed the wild scenery of rocks and jungle, but when the path made a turn at a particularly precipitous corner, and I was just about to give another warning to the syce, I found, when looking back, that the horses were walking side by side. But before I could open my mouth the horse which was on the inner side of the bend pushed the Maharāja's white horse over the edge.

I was almost frozen with terror when I saw the white form disappear into the gorge, and the cries of the syce confirmed my worst fears --- the horse was lost! I rushed back to the spot from where it had fallen, steeling myself for the horrible sight of the poor creatures mangled body at the bottom of the gorge. What would the Maharāja say and what would happen to the syce, through whose negligence all this had happened? Weeping and lamenting, he had meanwhile started to climb into the gorge and I myself hurried after him. Halfway down we saw the white body of the horse caught in a clump of bamboo and precariously dangling over the lower part of the precipice. It did not stir, as if conscious that one wrong movement would hurtle it to its death or was it that the legs were broken? The suspense until we reached the place was almost unbearable, and equally indescribable was our relief and joy when we found that the creature was hale and hearty, and not a limb was broken or hurt. We all felt that a miracle had happened and it was almost as great a miracle that we succeeded in getting the horse off from its precarious perch and out of the gorge. With a prayer of thanks in our hearts we continued our ascent, and when the monks of Podang heard what had happened they praised the invisible protectors who had so obviously saved us from disaster.

On my return to Gangtok, where the Maharāja had put the Maharāni's residence, Dilkusha, at my disposal, since the Maharāni was staying in her retreat a few miles outside Gantok, I utilised the opportunity to study many valuable details of Tibetan art and ritual in the beautiful new temple near the Palace, as well as to have certain text copied from manuscripts and block-prints at Enché Gompa. The monks in both these places were very friendly and helpful. I also had special recommendations from Enché Kazi, a Sikkimese nobleman, to whose family estate the last-mentioned monastery and temple belonged.

I had lived in his house as a guest during my first stay at Gangtok in 1932 during my first short trip to Tibet. Both he and his wife had been very kind to me and had accepted me in their house as if I were a member of their family. It was on this occasion that I learned that in this very same house Lama Yongden had lived and served as a young boy, thus earning his livelihood and his education, since he came from a poor family. Enché Kazi and his wife were greatly surprised when I told them of Yongden's career as a Lama and traveller and the fame he had earned as a collaborator and co-author with Mme David-Neel. It was in Enché Kazi's house that she had met him and decided to take him with her with the Kazi's consent. It was a decision that completely changed Yongden's as well as her own life and helped to make Tibet known to millions of readers all over the world. Future events showed that Enché Kazi's house was indeed a place in which destinies were shaped.

On the day of my departure from Gangtok, the Maharāja had arranged for an early lunch on the veranda of his palace, and I was delighted to find that the table was laid only for the two of us, and that thus I had an opportunity of having an informal and quiet talk with His Highness on religious matters. It was a lovely day and while looking out over the valleys and mountains, spread out before us in all their dazzling beauty, I pointed to a far-away range of hills, where I had observed bright lights moving about at great speed during the previous night, when sitting on the veranda of Dilkusha.

'I never knew that there was a motorable road in those hills', I said, 'or is it that a new road is under construction there?'

The Maharaja looked at me with surprise.

'What makes you think so? There is no road whatever, nor is there any project to build one. The only motorable road that exists in my country is the one by which you came from the Tista Valley'.

I then told His Highness about the swift-moving lights, which I had seen gliding over that range and which I had taken for the headlights of motor-vehicles.

The Maharaja smiled, and then, lowering his voice, he said: 'Many strange things happen here, and I generally do not like to speak about them to outsiders, because they would only think me superstitious. But since you have seen it with your own eyes, I may tell you that these lights have no human origin. They move about over the most difficult ground with an ease and speed that no human being could attain, apparently floating in the air. Nobody has yet been able to explain their nature, and I myself have no theory about them, though the people of my country believe them to be a kind of spirit. However that may be, the fact is that I have seen them moving right through the palace grounds towards the site where now the temple stands. This was always a sanctified place, and some people say that there had also been a cremationplace or a cemetery here'.

Feeling that the Maharāja had touched on something that meant more to him than he liked to say, I did not press him further, confining myself to the assurance that, far from ridiculing the beliefs of the people, I respected their attitude in trying to give a higher significance to the many inexplicable phenomena that surround us, instead of looking upon them as meaningless mechanical processes devoid of any connection with animated life. Why should physical laws be regarded as an antithesis of conscious life if our own corporeality shows itself as a compromise of spiritual and physical forces, of matter and mind, of the laws of nature and the freedom of the individual? Our consciousness makes use of electric currents in nerves and brain, thoughts emit vibrations similar to those of wireless transmitters and can be received over vast distances by sensitive conscious organisms. Do we really know what electricity is? By knowing the laws according to which it acts and by making use of them we still do not know the origin or the real nature of this force, which ultimately may be the very source of life, light, and consciousness, the divine power and mover of all that exists. It is the ultimate mystery of protons, neutrons, and electrons of modern science, before which the human intellect stands as helpless as the primitive tribesman before the visible phenomena of nature. We certainly have no reason to look down upon the animistic beliefs of primitive man, which only express what the poet's of all times have felt: that nature is not a dead mechanism, but vibrant with life, with the same life that becomes vocal in our thoughts and emotions.

The phenomenon of floating lights has also been observed on the sacred mountain of Wu Tai Shan in China, whose Tibetan name is Ri-bo-rtse-Inga, 'the mountain of the five peaks', dedicated to the Embodiment of Wisdom, the Dhyāni-Bodhisattva man̄juśrī. On the southern peak of this mountain there is a tower from which pilgrims can have an unimpeded view. However, this tower is not meant to admire the landscape, but to give the pilgrims an opportunity to witness a strange phenomenon, which many people suppose to be a manifestation of the Bodhisattva himself.

A vivid description of this phenomenon has been given by John Blofeld, who spent many months on the sacred mountain:

"We reached the highest temple during the late afternoon and gazed with great interest at a small tower built upon the topmost pinnacle about a hundred feet above us. One of the monks asked us to pay particular attention to the fact that the windows of this tower overlooked mile upon mile of empty space. Shortly after midnight, a monk, carrying a lantern, stepped into our room and cried: 'The Bodhisattva has appeared!' The ascent to the door of the tower occupied less than a minute. As each one entered the little room and came face to face with the window beyond, he gave a shout of surprise, as though all our hours of talk had not sufficiently prepared us for what we now saw. There in the great open spaces beyond the window, apparently not more than one or two hundred yards away, innumerable balls of fire floated majestically past. We could not judge their size, for nobody knew how far away they were, where they came from, what they were, and where they went after fading from sight in the West. Nobody could tell. Huffy balls of orange-coloured fire, moving through space, unhurried and majestic, truly a fitting manifestation of divinity!"^[1]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

The Wheel of Life, Rider & Co. (London. 1959), p. 549