“Ow! Honourable Lama! Where are you?” I cried, running across the road in search of my Guide. Into the little park I stumbled, almost tripping over my own eager feet. “So!” smiled my Guide, sitting peacefully on a fallen bole, “So! You are excited, you have just discovered that the ‘blind’ man sees as well as you.” I stood panting, panting from lack of breath and from indignation. “Yes!” I exclaimed, “the man is a fraud, a robber, for he steals from those of good heart. He should be put in prison!” The Lama burst out laughing at my red, indignant face.
“But Lobsang,” he said mildly, “why all the commotion? That man is selling service as much as the man who sells prayer-wheels. People give insignificant coins to him that they may be thought generous; it makes them feel good. For a time it increases their rate of molecular vibration -raises their spirituality – places them nearer the Gods. It does them good. The coins they give? Nothing! They do not miss them.” “But he is not blind!” I said in exasperation, “he is a robber.” “Lobsang,” said my Guide, “he is harmless, he is selling service. Later, in the Western world, you will find that advertising people will make claims the falsity of which will injure one’s health, will deform babies yet unborn, and will transform the passably sane (rimelig fornuftige) into raving maniacs (syklig oppstemt).
He patted the fallen tree and motioned for me to sit beside him. I sat and drummed my heels on the bark. “You must practice using the aura and telepathy together,” said my Guide. “By using one and not the other – our conclusions may be warped (fordreid) – as in this case. It is essential to use all one’s faculties, bring all one’s powers to bear, on each and every problem. Now, this afternoon I have to go away, and the great Medical Lama, the Reverend Chinrobuobo, of the Menzekang Hospital, will talk to you. And you will talk to him.”
“Ow!” I said, ruefully, “but he never speaks to me, never even notices me!” “All that will be changed – one way or another – this afternoon,” said my Guide. “One way or another!” I thought. That looked very ominous.
Together my Guide and I walked back to the Iron Mountain, pausing momentarily to gaze anew at the old yet always fresh rock coloured carvings. Then we ascended the steep and stony path. “Like life, this path, Lobsang,” said the Lama. “Life follows a hard and stony path, with many traps and pitfalls, yet if one perseveres (holder ut), the top is attained.” As we reached the top of the path the call to Temple Service was made, and we each went our own way, he to his associates, and I to others of my class. As soon as the Service had ended, and I had partaken of food, a chela even smaller than I, came somewhat nervously to me. “Tuesday Lobsang,” he said diffidently(forknyttet), “the Holy Medical Lama Chinrobnobo wants to see you immediately in the Medical School.”
I straightened my robe, took a few deep breaths that my twanging nerves might be calmed, and walked with assurance that I did not feel over to the Medical School. “Ah!” boomed a great voice, a voice that reminded me of the sound of a deep Temple conch. I stood before him and paid my respects in the time-honoured way. The Lama was a big man, tall, bulky, broad-shouldered, and a wholly awe-inspiring figure for a small boy. I felt that a swipe from one of his mighty hands would knock my head straight off my shoulders and send it tumbling down the mountainside. However, he bade me be seated before him, bade me in such a genial manner that I almost fell into a sitting position!
“Now, boy!” said the great deep voice, like rolling thunder among the distant mountains. “I have heard much of you. Your illustrious Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup claims that you are a prodigy, that your para-normal abilities are immense. We shall see!” I sat and quaked. “You see me? What do you see?” he asked. I quaked even more as I said the first thing that entered my mind; “I see such a big man, Holy Medical Lama, that I thought it was a mountain when I came here first.” His boisterous laugh caused such a gale of wind that I half feared that it would blow my robe off. “Look at me, boy, look at my aura and tell me what you see!” he commanded. Then, “Tell me what you see of the aura and what it means to you.” I looked at him, not directly, not staring, for that often dims the aura of a clothed figure; I looked toward him, but not exactly “at” him.
“Sir!” I said, “I see first the physical outline of your body, dimly as it would be without a robe. Then, very close to you I see a faint bluish light the colour of fresh wood smoke. It tells me that you have been working too hard, that you have had sleepless nights of late and your etheric energy is low.” He looked at me with eyes somewhat wider than normal, and nodded in satisfaction. “Go on!” he said.
“Sir!” I continued, “your aura extends from you a distance of about nine feet on either side. The colours are in layers both vertical and horizontal. You have the yellow of high spirituality. At present you are marvelling that one of my age can tell you so much and you are thinking that my Guide the Lama Mingyar Dondup knows something after all. You are thinking that you will have to apologize (be om unnskyldning) to him for your expressed doubts as to my capabilities.” I was interrupted by a great shout of laughter. “You are right, boy, you are right!” he said delightedly, “Go on!”
“Sir!” (this was child’s play to me!) “You recently had some mishap and sustained a blow over your liver. It hurts when you laugh too hard and you wonder if you should take some tatura herb and have deep massage while under its anaesthetic influence. You are thinking that it is Fate which decided that of more than six thousand herbs, tatura should be in short supply.” He was not laughing now; he was looking at me with undisguised respect. I added, “It is further indicated in your aura, Sir, that in a short time you will be the most important Medical Abbot of Tibet.”
He gazed at me with some apprehension. “My boy,” he said, “you have great power – you will go far. Never, never abuse the power within you. It can be dangerou’s. Now let us discuss the aura as equals. But let us discuss over tea.” He raised the small silver bell and shook it so violently that I feared it would fly from his hand. Within seconds a young monk hastened in with tea and – oh, joy of joys! -some of the luxuries of Mother India! (sweet cakes). As we sat there I reflected that all these high lamas had comfortable quarters. Below us I could see the great parks of Lhasa, the Dodpal and the Khati were – so it appeared – within reach of my extended arm. More to the left the Chorten of our area, the Kesar Lhakhang, stood like a sentinel, while across the road, further north, my favourite spot, the Pargo Kaling (Western Gate) towered aloft.
“What causes the aura, Sir?” I asked. “As your respected Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup has told you,” he commenced (startet), “the brain receives messages from the Overself. Electric currents are generated in the brain. The whole of Life is electric. The aura is a manifestation of electric power. About one’s head, as you so well know, there is a halo or nimbus. Old paintings always show a Saint or God with such a ‘Golden Bowl’ around the back of the head.” “Why do so few people see the aura and the halo, Sir?” I asked. “Some people disbelieve the existence of the aura because they can not see it. They forget that they can not see air either, and without air they would not manage very well! Some – a very very few – people see auras. Others do not. Some people can hear higher frequencies, or lower frequencies than others. It has nothing to do with the degree of spirituality of the observer, any more than the ability to walk on stilts (stylter) indicates a necessarily spiritual person.” He smiled at me and added, “I used to walk on stilts almost as well as you. Now my figure is not suited for it.” I smiled too, thinking that he would need a pair of tree trunks as stilts.
“When we operated upon you for the Opening of the Third Eye,” said the Great Medical Lama, “we were able to observe that portions of your frontallobe developments were very different from the average and so we assume that physically you were born to be clairvoyant and telepathic. That is one of the reasons you have received and will receive such intensive and advanced training.” He looked at me with immense satisfaction and continued, “You are going to have to remain here at the Medical School for a few days. We are going to investigate you thoroughly and see how we can even increase your abilities and teach you much.” There was a discreet cough at the door, and my Guide the Lama Mingyar Dondup walked into the room. I jumped to my feet and bowed to him – as did the Great Chinrobnobo. My Guide was smiling. “I received your telepathic message,” he said to the Great Medical Lama, “so I came to you as speedily as I was able so that perhaps you would give me the pleasure of hearing your confirmation of my findings in the case of my young friend.” He stopped, and smiled at me and sat down.
The Great Lama Chinrobnobo also smiled and said, “Respected Colleague! I gladly bow to your superior knowledge in accepting this young man for investigation. Respected Colleague, your own talents are numerous (tallrike) – you are startlingly versatile(allsidig), but never have you found such a boy as this.” Then, of all things, they both laughed, and the Lama Chinrobnobo reached down somewhere behind him and took out – three jars of pickled walnuts! I must have looked stupid for they both turned toward me and started laughing. “Lobsang, you are not using your telepathic ability. If you were, you would be aware that the Reverend Lama and I were so sinful as to have a bet(veddemål). It was agreed between us that if you came up to my statements, then the Reverend Medical Lama would give you three jars of pickled walnuts, whereas if you were not up to the standard claimed by me, I would do a long journey and undertake certain medical work for my friend.”
My Guide smiled at me again and said, “Of course I’am going to do the journey for him in any case, and you will be going with me, but we had to get matters straight and now honour ‘is satisfied.” He pointed to the three jars and said, “Put them by you, Lobsang, when you leave here -when you leave this room – take them with you for they are the spoils of the victor(seierherrens utbytte), and in this case you are the victor.” I really felt remarkably foolish, obviously I could not use telepathic powers on these two High Lamas. The very thought of such a thing, sent chill shivers along my spine (kuldegysninger langs ryggraden). I loved my Guide the Lama Mingyar Dondup, and I greatly respected the knowledge and wisdom of the Great Lama Chinrobnobo. It would have been an insult, it would have been bad manners indeed to have eavesdropped (tyvlytte) – even telepathically. The Lama Chinrobnobo turned to me and said, “Yes, my boy, your sentiments (følelser) do you credit. I am pleased indeed to greet you and to have you here among us. We will help you with your development.”
My Guide said, “Now Lobsang, you are going to have to stay in this particular building for, perhaps, a week, because you are going to be taught quite a lot about the aura. Oh yes!” he said, interpreting my glance, “I am aware that you think you know all about the aura. You can see the aura, and you can read the aura, but now you have to learn the whys and wherefores of it and you have to learn how much the other fellow does not see. I am going to leave you now, but ‘I shall see you tomorrow.” He rose to his feet and, of course, we rose as well. My Guide made his farewells and then withdrew from that quite comfortable chamber. The Lama Chinrobnobo turned to me and said, “Do not be so nervous, Lobsang, nothing is going to happen to you – we are merely going to try to help you and to expedite your own development. First of all, let us have a little discussion about the human aura.
You of course see the aura vividly and you can understand about the aura, but imagine that you were not so favoured – not so gifted, put yourself in the position of ninety nine and nine tenths, or even more, of the world’s population.” He violently rang that little silver bell again and once again the attendant came bustling in with tea and of course the necessary “other things” which most pleased me when I was having tea! It might be of interest here to say that we in Tibet sometimes drank in excess of sixty cups of tea in a day. Of course, Tibet is a cold country and the hot tea warmed us, we were not able to get out and buy drinks such as people of the Western world had, we were limited to tea and tsampa unless some really kind-hearted person brought from a land such as India those things which were not available in Tibet.
We settled down, and the Lama Chinrobnobo said, “We, have already discussed the origin of the aura. It is the life force of a human body. I am going to assume for the moment, Lobsang, that you cannot see the aura and that you know nothing about the aura, because only in assuming that, can I tell you what the average person, sees and does not see.” I nodded my head to indicate that I understood. Of course I had been born with the ability to see the aura and things like that, and those abilities had been increased by the operation of “the Third Eye”, and on many occasions in the past – I had been almost trapped into saying what I saw, without it dawning (demret for meg..) upon me, that others did not see the same as I. I remembered an occasion sometime previously when I had said that a person was still alive – a person that old Tzu and I had seen lying beside the road – and Tzu had said that I was quite wrong, the man was dead. I had said, “But Tzu, the man still has his lights on!” Fortunately, as I realised after, the gale of wind which was blowing past us had distorted my words so that Tzu had not comprehended the meaning. On some impulse, however, he had examined the man lying beside the road and found he was alive! But this is a digression.
“The average man and woman, Lobsang, cannot see the human aura. Some, indeed, hold to the belief that there is no such thing as a human aura. They might just as well say that there is no such thing as air because they cannot see it!” The Medical Lama looked at me to see if I was following him or if my thoughts were straying walnut-wise. Satisfied with my appearance of attention, he nodded sagely and continued, “So long as there is life in a body, then there is an aura which can be seen by those with the power or gift or ability – call it what you will. I must explain to you, Lobsang, that for the clearest perception of the aura – the subject who is being seen must be absolutely nude. We will discuss why later. It is sufficient for just ordinary readings to look at a person while they have some clothing on, but if you are going to look for anything whatever connected with a medical reason, then the person must be completely and absolutely nude.
Well, completely enveloping the body and extending from the body for a distance of an eighth of an inch to three or four inches – is the etheric sheath. This is a blue-grey mist, one can hardly call it a mist, for although it appears misty one can see clearly through it. This etheric covering is the purely animal emanation(utstrålning), it derives particularly from the animal vitality of the body so that a very healthy person will have a quite wide etheric, it may even be three or four inches (7-10cm) from the body. Only the most gifted, Lobsang, perceive the next layer, for between the etheric and the aura proper there is another band, perhaps three inches across, and one has to be gifted and talented indeed to see any colours in that band. I confess that I can see nothing but empty space there.”
The story continues in part 13: Link to part 13
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