In the morning I arose and had my breakfast and then was about to make my way to the Lamas’ Quarters. As I was leaving the room a hulking monk in a tattered robe grabbed me. “Hey, you!” he said, “you work in the kitchen this morning – cleaning millstones too!” “But Sir!” I replied, “my Guide the Lama Mingyar Dondup wants me.” I attempted to squeeze past. “No, you come with me. Doesn’t matter who wants you, I say you are going to work in the kitchen.’ He grabbed my arm and twisted it so that I could not escape. Reluctandy I went with him, there was no choice. In Tibet we all took our turn at manual, at menial (tjener-formål)tasks.
“Teaches humility!” said one. “Prevents a boy from getting above himself!” said another. “Knocks out class distinctions!” said a third. Boys – and monks – work at any task assigned purely as discipline. Of course, there was a domestic staff of lower-grade monks, but boys and monks of all grades had to take turns at the lowest and most unpleasant tasks as training. We all hated it as the “regulars” – inferior men all – treated us as slaves, well knowing that we could not possibly complain. Complain? It was meant to be hard!
Down the stone corridor we went. Down the steps made of two wooden uprights with bars fixed across. Into the great kitchens where I had been so badly burned on the leg. “There!” said the monk who was holding me, “get up and clean out the grooves in the stones.” Picking up a sharp metal spike, I climbed on to one of the great barley-grinding wheels and industriously dug into the crushed debris lodged in the grooves. This stone had been neglected, and now, instead of grinding, it had just spoiled the barley. My task was to “dress” the surface so that it was again sharp and clean. The monk stood by, idly picking his teeth.
“Hey!” yelled a voice from the entrance, “Tuesday Lobsang Rampa. Is Tuesday Lobsang Rampa here? The Honorable Lama Mingyar Dondup wants him immediately.” Instinctively I stood up and jumped off the stone. “Here I am!” I called. The monk brought his balled fist down hard on the top of my head, knocking me to the ground. “I say you will stay here and do your work,” he growled. “If anyone wants you, let him come in person.” Catching me by the neck, he lifted me and flung me on to the stone. My head struck a corner, and all the stars in the heavens flamed into my consciousness before fading and leaving the world blank and dark.
Strangely, I had a sensation of being lifted – lifted horizontally – and then stood on my feet. Somewhere a great, deep-toned gong seemed to be tolling out the seconds of life, it went “bong-bong-bong” and with a final stroke I felt that I had been struck by blue lightning. On the instant the world grew very bright, bright with a kind of yellowish light, a light in which I could see more clearly than normal. “Ooo,” I said to myself, “so I am outside of my body! Oh! I do look strange!”
I had had considerable experience of astral travelling, I had traveled far beyond the confines (grenser) of this old earth of ours, and I had traveled also to many of the greatest cities upon this globe. Now, though, I had my first experience of being “jumped out of my body”. I stood beside the great mill-stone looking down with considerable distaste at the scruffy little figure in the very tattered robe lying on the stone. I gazed down, and it was only a matter of passing interest to observe how my astral body was joined to that battered figure by a bluish white cord which undulated and pulsed, which glowed brightly and faded, and glowed and faded again. Then I gazed more closely at my body upon this stone slab, and was appalled at the great gash over the left temple from whence oozed dark red blood, blood which seeped down into the stone grooves and mixed inextricably with the debris which so far had not been dug out.
A sudden commotion attracted my attention, and as I turned I saw my Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup, entering the kitchen, his face white with anger. He strode forward and came to a halt right before the head monk of the kitchen – the monk who had treated me so badly. No word was spoken, no word at all, in fact there was a hushed and deathly silence. My Guide’s piercing (gennemtrengende) eyes seemed to strike lightning into the kitchen monk, with a sigh like a punctured balloon he subsided into an inert mass on the stone floor. Without sparing a second glance at him my Guide turned away, turned to my earthly figure stretched out, breathing stertorously (snorkende) upon that stone circle.
I looked about me, I was really fascinated to think that I was now able to get out of my body for short distances. Going “far travels” in the astral was nothing, I always had been able to do that, but this sensation of getting out of myself and looking down upon my earthly suit of clay was a new, intriguing experience.
Ignoring the happenings about me for a moment, I let myself drift – drift up through the ceiling of the kitchen. “Ow!” I said involuntarily as I passed through the stone ceiling into the room above. Here were seated a group of lamas in deep contemplation. I saw with some interest that they had a sort of model of the world before them, it was a round ball upon which were indicated continents and lands and oceans and seas, and the round ball was fixed at an angle, the angle corresponding to the tilt of the earth itself in space. I did not tarry (oppholde) there, this seemed to me to be too much like lesson work, I journeyed upwards. Through another ceiling, through another, and yet another, and then I stood in the Room of the Tombs! About me were the great golden walls which supported the tombs (gravkammerne) of the Incarnations of the Dalai Lama for centuries past. I stood here in reverent contemplation for some moments, and then allowed myself to drift upwards, upwards, so that at last below me I saw that glorious Potala with all its gleaming gold, with all its scarlet and crimson and with the wondrous white walls which seemed to melt into the living rock of the mountain itself.
Turning my gaze slightly to the right I could see the Village of Sho and beyond that the City of Lhasa with the blue mountains in the background. As I rose, I could see the limitless spaces of our fair and pleasant land, a land which could be hard and cruel through the vagaries (luner) of unpredictable weather but which, to me, was home!
A remarkably severe tugging (brytende rykk) attracted my attention and I found myself being reeled in (innspolt) as I often reeled in a kite which was soaring in the sky. I sank down and down, down into the Potala, through floors which became ceilings, and through floors again, until at last I reached my destination and stood again beside my body in the kitchen.
The Lama Mingyar Dondup was gently bathing my left temple (tinning)- picking pieces from it. “Good gracious!” I said to myself in profound astonishment, “is my head so thick that it cracked or chipped the stone?” Then I saw that I had a small fracture, I saw also a lot of the material being pulled from my head was debris (rester)- rubbish – the chippings of stone and the remnants of ground barley. I watched with interest, and – I confess – some amusement, for here standing beside my body in my astral body I felt no pain, no discomfort, only peace.
At last the Lama Mingyar Dondup finished his ministrations(pleie), and he put a patch, a herbal compress, upon my head and bound it about with silken bonds. Then, motioning to two monks who stood by with a litter(båre), he instructed them to lift me so carefully.
The men – monks of my own Order, gently lifted me and placed me upon that litter, with the Lama Mingyar Dondup walking beside. I was carried off.
I looked about me in considerable astonishment, the light was fading, had I been so long that the day was dying? Before I had an answer to that I found that I too was fading, the yellow and the blue of the spiritual light was diminishing in intensity, and I felt an absolutely overwhelming, absolutely overpowering urge to rest – to sleep and not to bother about anything.
I knew no more for a time and then, through my head shot excruciating pains, pains which caused me to see reds and blues and greens and yellows, pains which made me think that I should go mad with the intense agony. A cool hand was placed upon me and a gentle voice said, “It is all right, Lobsang. It is all right, rest, rest, go to sleep!” The world seemed to become a dark fluffy pillow, the pillow was soft as swans down into which I sank gratefully, peacefully, and the pillow seemed to envelop me so that I knew no more, and again my soul soared in space, while upon the earth my battered body remained at rest.
It must have been many hours later when I again regained consciousness, I awakened to find my Guide sitting beside me, holding my hands in his. As my eyelids fluttered upwards and the light of the evening streamed in, I smiled weakly, and he smiled
back at me then, disengaging his hands, he took from a little table beside him a cup with some sweet smelling brew. Gently pressing it to my lips he said, “Drink this up, it will do you good!” I drank, and life flooded through me once again, so much so that I tried to sit up. The effort was too much; I felt as if a great club had been bashed down once more upon my head, I saw vivid lights, constellations of lights, and I soon desisted in my efforts.
The evening shadows lengthened, from below me came the muted sound of the conches, and I knew that the Service was about to start. My Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup, said, “I have to go for half an hour, Lobsang, because the Inmost One wants me, but your friends Timon and Yulgye are here to look after you in my absence and to call me should the occasion arise.” He squeezed my hands, rose to his feet, and left the room.
Two familiar faces appeared, half frightened and wholly excited. They squatted down beside me, and Timon said, “Oh, Lobsang! Did the Kitchen Master get a telling off (skrape) about all this!” “Yes,” said the other, “and he is being turned out of the Lamasery for extreme, unnecessary brutality. He is being escorted out now!” They were bubbling with excitement, and then Timon said again, “I thought you were dead, Lobsang, you really did bleed like a ‘stuffed yak!” I really/had to smile as I looked at them, their voices showed how thrilled they were at any excitement to relieve the drab (triste) monotony of life in a lamasery. I held no grudge (nag) against them for their excitement, knowing that I too would have been excited if the victim had been other than I.
I smiled upon them and was then overpowered by an oppressive tiredness. I closed my eyes, intending to rest them for a few moments, and once again I knew no more.
For several days, perhaps seven or eight in all, I rested upon my back and my Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup, acted as my nurse, but for him I should not have survived, for life in a lamasery is not necessarily gentle or kind, it is indeed survival of the fittest. The Lama was a kind man, a loving man, but even had he been otherwise there would have been the greatest reasons for keeping me alive. I, as I have said before, had a special task to do in life, and I supposed that the hardships which I was undergoing as a boy were meant in some way to toughen me, to make me become immured to hardship and suffering, for all the prophecies that I had heard – and I had heard quite a few!
– had indicated that my life would be a life of sorrow, a life of suffering.
But it was not all suffering, as my condition improved there were more opportunities for talk with my Guide. We talked of many things, we covered common subjects and we covered subjects which were most uncommon. We dealt at length with various occult subjects, I remember on one occasion saying, “It must be a wonderful thing, Honorable Lama, to be a librarian and so possess all the knowledge in the world. I would be a librarian were it not for all these terrible prophecies as to my future.” My Guide smiled down upon me. “The Chinese have a saying, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words,’ Lobsang, but I say that no amount of reading nor looking at pictures will replace practical experience and knowledge.” I looked at him to see if he were serious and then I thought of the Japanese monk, Kenji Tekeuchi, who for almost seventy years had studied the printed word and had failed to practice or to absorb anything that he had read.
The story continues in part 11: Link to part 11
