For a time we sat there meditating upon the past, and my Guide said to me, "I see you are mediatating og attempting to meditate.' Now there are two very good ways

of meditating, Lobsang. You must be content (tilfreds), you must be tranquil (rolig). You cannot meditate with a disturbed mind, and you cannot meditate with a whole gathering of people. You have to be alone or with just one person whom you love."

He regarded me, and then said, "You must always look at something black or at something which is white. If you look at the ground, you may be distracted by a grain of pebble (småsten), or you may be doubly distracted by some insect. To meditate successfully you must always gaze at that which offers no attraction to the eye, either entire black or pure white. Your eyes then become sick of the whole affair and become, as it were, disassociated (bortkoplet) from the brain, so then the brain having nothing to distract. It optically is free to obey what your sub-conscious requires, and thus if you have instructed your sub-conscious that you are going to meditate -meditate you will. You will find in that sort of meditation that your senses are heightened(forsterke), your perceptions more acute (skarp), and that is the only meditation worthy of the name. In the years which will come to you, you will encounter many cults, proffering meditation at a price, but that is not meditation as we understand it - nor is it meditation as we want it. It is just something which cultists play with, and it has no virtue (fortrinn)."

So saying he rose to his feet exclaiming, "We must get back for the day is far advanced. We shall have to spend another night in the mountains for it is too late to start off for Chakpori."

He set off down the tunnel and I jumped to my feet and scurried (jaget) after him. I had no desire to be left in this place where inside-worlders, or whatever they liked to call themselves, could perhaps pop up and take me down with them. I did not know what they would be like, I did not know how they would like me, and I certainly did not want to stay alone in the dark of that place. So I hurried, and at last we reached again that entrance by which we had entered.

The horse and the pony were resting peacefully, and we sat down beside them and made our simple preparations for our meal. The light was already far gone, much of the Valley was in darkness. At our altitude the Westering Sun was yet shining upon us, but the orb itself was dipping ever more deeply beneath the mountains on its path to illumine other parts of the world before returning to us.

After some small talk we rolled ourselves in our blankets again and committed ourselves to sleep.

Extract  from page 80

Life at Chakpori was hectic. The amount of things I had to learn really shocked me; herbs-where they grew, when to gather them, and be sure that if they were gathered at the wrong time they would be quite useless. That, I was taught, was one of the great secrets of herbalism. The plants, or the leaves, or the barks, or the roots could only be gathered efficiently within the span of two or three days. The Moon had to be right, the stars had to be right, and then the time had to be right also. One must also feel tranquil (fredfylt) when gathering such herbs because, so I was told, one who gathered herbs when in a bad mood would make the herbs not worth the taking. (The same said Rudolf Steiner - the founder of antroposofy. R.Ø..)

Then we had to dry the things. That was quite a task. Only certain parts of herbs were useful. Some needed to have just the tips of the leaves removed, others needed to have stalks or bark, and each plant or herb had to be treated in its own individual way and regarded with respect.

We took the barks and rubbed them between hands specially cleaned for the purpose - an ordeal (ildprøve) in itself!-and so the bark would be reduced to a certain size, sort of granular powder. And then everything had to be laid out on a spotlessly clean floor, no polish on this floor, just rub, rub, rub until there was no dust, no stain, no mark. Then everything was left out and left to Nature to "dry-seal" the virtues of the herb within that which we had before us.

We made herbal tea, that is, infusions of steeped herbs (uttrekk av bløtlagte urter), and I could never understand how people could get the noxious stuff down their throats. It seemed to be an axiom, that the worse the taste and the stronger the smell -the more beneficial the medicine, and I will say from my own observation, that if a medicine is sufficiently evil-tasting, the poor wretched patient will get better out of fright rather than take the medicine. It is like when one goes to the dentist, the pain will have vanished so that one hesitates (nøler) on the doorstep wondering whether one should go through with it. It reminds me rather of the pallid (bleke) and anxious young man - a recent bridegroom (brudgom)- who was accompanying his very, very pregnant (gravide) bride to the hospital for "her time was upon her." As he turned before the Reception Desk he said, "Oh gee, honey, are you sure you really want to go through with this?"

As a special student, one who had to learn more, faster, I was not confined only to Chakpori. My time was also devoted to studies at the Potala. Here I had all the most learned lamas, each to teach me his own speciality. I learned various forms of medicine. I learned acupuncture, and in later years, with the weight of many years of experience, I came to the inescapable (uunngålig) conclusion that acupuncture was a wondrous thing indeed for those of the East, those who have been long-conditioned to acupuncture. But when, as I found in China, you get sceptical Westerners to deal with - well, unfortunately, they were hypnotised by their own disbelief of anything that didn't come from "God's own country."

There were sacred passages to be seen deep, deep below the mountain of Potala. Down below there was an immense cave with what seemed to be an inland see - That, I was told, was a remnant of the time so long ago when Tibet was a pleasant land beside the sea. Certainly in that immense cave I saw strange remnants, skeletons of fantastic creatures which much, much later in my life I recognised to be mastodons, dinosaurs, and other exotic fauna.

End of extract from this chapter.

During my exhaustion(utmattelse), while the physical body was repairing itself, I made an astral journey and saw my beloved Guide and friend, the Lama Mingyar Dondup. He said to me, "Your sufferings have truly been great, too great. Your sufferings have been the sour fruit of man's inhumanity to Man, but your body is getting worn out and soon you will have to undergo the ceremony of transmigration.(ombytting)

In the astral world I sat and my companion sat with me. I was told more.

"Your present body is in a state of collapse, the life of that body will not continue much longer. We feared that such conditions would prevail in the wild Western world that you would be impaired(svekket), and so we have been looking about for a body which you could take over and which in time - would reproduce all your own features (ansikts- og karaktertrekk).

"We have determined that there is such a person. His body is on a very very low harmonic of your own, otherwise, of course, a change could not take place. The bodies must be compatible, and this person has a body, which is compatible. We have approached him in the astral, because we saw that he contemplated suicide (overveide selvmord). It is a young Englishman who is very very dissatisfied with life, he is not at all happy with life, and for some time he has been trying to decide on the most painless method of what he calls 'self-destruction.' He is perfectly willing to leave his body and journey here to the astral world provided he doesn't lose by it!

"We persuaded him a little time ago to change his name to that which you are now using, so there are a few more things to be settled and then-well, you will have to change bodies." (Under his hard travel to USA he had - of different reasons - to change his name because of reasons too extensive to be explained here. R.Ø.remark.)

It was very, very necessary, I was instructed, that I should return to Tibet before I could undergo the necessary process of transmigration. Careful instructions were given to me and when I felt well enough, I went to a shipping office and took passage to Bombay. Once again I was subjected to all manner of harassment (plager) because my luggage (baggasje) consisted of just one case. But at last I got aboard the ship and when I was in my cabin two detectives came to visit me to find out why I had only one case. Assured that I had adequate luggage in India they smiled happily and went away.

It was most strange being a passenger aboard ship. Everyone avoided me because I was a pariah who had only one case of luggage. The others, of course, seemed to have enough luggage to stock a whole store, but I - apparently the poorest of the poor - must be a fugitive (flyktning) from justice, or something, to travel as I did, and so I was avoided.

The ship went from New York all the way up along the coast of Africa and through the Straits of Gibraltar. Then we made another stop at Alexandria, before entering the Suez Canal, and so on to the Red Sea. The Red Sea was terrible, the heat was murderous, and I almost got heat stroke. But finally we passed the coast of Ethiopia, crossed the Arabian sea, and docked at Bombay. The noise and smell in Bombay was terrible, fantastic in fact, but I had a few friends, a Buddhist priest and a few influential people, and so my weeks stay in Bombay was made interesting.

After the week in which I tried to recover from all the shocks and strains I had had, I was put on a train and crossed India to the city of Kalimpong. I managed to drop off the train before it actually entered Kalimpong, because I had been warned that the place was absolutely thronged (fulle av..) with Communist spies and newspaper men, and new arrivals were stopped and questioned by newspaper men and - as I found to be true later - if one would not give an interview the newspaper men "invented" one, without any regard whatever to the truth.

I knew Kalimpong slightly, certainly I knew enough to get in touch with some friends and so "went underground," away from spies and away from newspaper men.

By now my health was deteriorating (forverret) very rapidly, and there were serious fears that I would not live long enough to undergo the ceremony of transmigration. A lama who had been trained at Chakpori with me, was in Kalimpong and he came to my assistance with very potent herbs (kraftige urter).

I moved on in the company of this medical lama and after ten weeks of hard travel we reached a lamasery overlooking the Valley of Lhasa. It was high and inaccessible, it was inconspicuous (uanselig), and Communists would not bother about such a small insignificant place. Here again I rested, I rested for some seven days in all. On the morrow, I was told one day, I should journey into the astral and meet the astral body of the man whose physical vehicle I was going to take over.

For the present I rested, and mused upon the problems of transinigration. This person's body was not of much use to me because it was HIS body and had a lot of vibrations incompatible with my own. In time, I was told, the body would conform (tilpasse seg) exactly to my own body when at that same age, and if Westerners find this a difficult matter to believe or understand, let me put it like this. The Western world knows about electro-plating, and the Western world also knows about electro-typing. In the latter system an article can be immersed in a certain fluid and a special "counector" is applied opposite the article, and when current is turned on at the correct rate and amperage (strømstyrke), an exact duplicate of the original item is built up. This is known as electro-typing.

Again, it is possible to do electro-plating. One can plate in a variety of metals; nickel, chromium, rhodium, copper, silver, gold, platinum, etcetera. One merely has to know how to do it. But the current flows from one pole to another through a liquid, and the molecules of one pole are transferred to the other pole. It is a simple enough system, but this is not a treatise on electro-plating. Trans-migration and the replacing molecule by molecule of the "fabric" of the host, by that of the - what shall I say?-new occupant is very real, it has been done time after time by those who know how. Fortunately those who know how have always been people of reliable character, other-wise it would be a terrible thing indeed if one did just take over another person's body and do harm. I felt rather smug (selvgod), foolishly so perhaps, when I thought that - well, I am going to do good, I don't want to take over anyone else's silly body, all I want is peace. But it seemed there was to be no peace in my life.

In passing, and as one who has studied all religions, I must point out that Adepts(the spiritual initiates - with cosmic consciousness. R.Ø.remark) did it for life after life. The Dalai Lama himself had done so, and the body of Jesus was taken over, and it had been common knowledge even in the Christian belief until it was banned because it made people too complacent (overlegen).

From my high viewpoint in this remote isolated lamasery, I could look out upon the distant city of Lhasa; quite a powerful telescope had somehow been smuggled out of the Potala and brought here, so one of my idle amusements was to use the telescope and look at the surly Chinese guards at the Pargo Kaling. I saw the troops rushing about in their jeeps, I saw through that telescope many unspeakable things done to men and to women, and I recalled with great horror that I had fought on the side of the Chinese as had many others, and now the Chinese were not behaving according to their promises, according to their avowed principles. (While he was educated to a doctor - and also to a pilot - in China, the ww2 broke out - and Japan attacked China - and Lobsang had to serve for the Chinese. R.Ø.anm.) All they thought of was violence.

It was hard to believe, looking out of the glassless window, that this was the same Tibet, the same Lhasa, that I had known before. Here the golden Sun still struck gleaming rays through ravines in the mountains, the silvery Moon still traversed the blackness of the night sky, and the distant pinpoints of coloured light which were the stars - still stabbed down through the roof of Heaven. Night birds did not call, though, as of yore, (før) because the Chinese Communists killed everything on sight. To my horror I found that they were extinguishing the life of those creatures I loved so much. Birds, they say, ate the grain(hveten), which would cause humans to starve. Cats were killed, so no longer, so I was told, were there any cats left in Lhasa. Dogs were killed and eaten by the Chinese. It seemed to be a Chinese delicacy. So not only poor humans were being subjected to death at the hands of the Chinese Communists, animals too, the pets of Gods, were being exterminated (utryddet) for no worthwhile reason. I was sick at heart at all the horrors being perpetrated on a harmless, innocent (uskyldige) people. As I gazed out at the darkening sky I was overcome, with emotion, overcome with sorrow, and then I thought - well I have this job to do, much evil has been forecast in my life. I hope I am strong enough to endure all that which has been foretold.

…in the trees birds sang, birds of a type which I had not seen on Earth for these were glorious creatures indeed, birds of many different colours, birds of many different plumage(fjærdrakt).

The old man and I walked on among the trees, and then we came to an open space which was indeed a garden, a garden of brilliant flowers, none of a type that could be recognised by me. The flowers seemed to nod toward us as if greeting us. In the distance I could see people wandering about as if they were luxuriating (nøt) in this glorious garden. Every so often a person would bend and sniff a flower. At times others would reach up skywards, and a bird would come and land on his outstretched hand. There was no fear here, only peace and contentment.

We walked on a while, and then before us we saw what seemed to be an immense temple. It had a cupola of shining gold and the walls which supported (holdt det oppe) it - were of a light fawn colour. Other buildings stretched away from it, each in a pastel shade, all in harmony, but at the entrance to the temple, a group of people were waiting. Some of them wore the robes of Tibet, and another - I could not understand what he was wearing for the moment, it looked as if he was wearing black or something very dark. And then I saw as we approached, that it was a man of the Western world attired (antrukket) in Western raiment.

At our approach the lamas turned and spread their hands in our direction, spread their hands in welcome. I saw that one of them was my Guide and friend, the Lama Mingyar Dondup, so I knew that all would be well for this man was good and good only. Another figure I saw was even more eminent when upon the earthy plane, but now he was just one of the welcoming "committee" awaiting us.

Our happy greetings were soon exchanged, and then as one we moved into the body of the great temple, traversing the central hall and moving further into that building. We entered a small room the existence of which was not easy to discern, it appeared as if the walls slid away and, admitting us to its presence, closed solidly behind us.

My Guide, obviously the spokesman, turned to me and said, "My brother, there is the young man whose body you are going to inhabit." I turned and faced the young man aghast(forferdet). Certainly there was no resemblance at all between us, he was much smaller than I, and the only resemblance between us was that he was bald (skallet) the same as I! My Guide laughed at me and shook an admonitory (formanende) finger at my nose: "Now, now, Lobsang," he laughed, "not so quick with your decisions. All this has been planned, first I am going to show you some pictures from the Akashic Record." And this he did.

Upon completing our viewing of the Record he said, addressing the young man, "Now young man, I think it is time that you told us something about yourself, for if one is to take over your body then it certainly is time for the one taking over to know that with which he is faced."

The young man, so addressed, looked very truculent (agressiv) indeed and replied in sullen (mutte)tones, "Well, no, I have nothing to say about my past, it has always been held against me. Whatever I do say about my past it will only be used to pull me down." My Guide looked sadly at him and said, "Young man, we here have vast experience of these things and we do not judge a man by what his parentage (herkomst påstås være..) is alleged to be, but what that man is himself."

My Guide sighed and then said, "You were going to commit the mortal sin of suicide, a sin indeed, a sin which could have cost you dear in many many lives of hardship to atone. We offer you peace, peace in the astral, so that you may gain understanding of some of those things, which have troubled you throughout your life. The more you cooperate, the more easily can we help you as well as helping that task which we have before us."

The young man shook his head in negation(benektelse), and said, "No, the agreement was that I wanted to leave my body, you wanted to stuff someone else in it, that's all the agreement was, I hold you to it."

Suddenly there was a flash and the young man disappeared. The old lama with me, who was now a young man in full health, exclaimed(utbrøt), "Oh dear, dear, with such truculent thoughts, he could not stay with us here on this astral plane. Now we shall have to go to where he is sleeping in a room alone. But for this night we must let him sleep, we do not want to injure the body, so I shall have to return somehow to Lhasa with you until the next night."

Time passed, and I could see that the old lama was falling rapidly, so I said to him, "Time we went into the astral." "Yes," he replied, "I shall not see this body of mine again. I must go, we must go, for if I die before I am in the astral, that will delay us."

Together we encountered that jerk (rykk)and soared on and upwards, but not into the astral world we had visited before. This time we soared across the world to a house in England. We saw in the physical the face of the man whom I had previously seen only in the astral. He looked so discontented, so unhappy. We tried to attract his attention but he was sleeping very soundly indeed. The old lama whispered, "Are you coming?" I whispered, "Are you coming?" And we kept it up, first one and then the other, until at last very very reluctantly the astral form of this man emerged from his physical body. Slowly it oozed out, slowly it coalesced above him in the exact shape of his body, then it reversed its position, head of the astral body to the feet. The form tilted and landed on his feet. He certainly looked very truculent (aggressiv) and, I could see, he had absolutely no recollection of seeing us before. This was astounding to me, but my companion whispered that he had been in such a bad temper and had slammed back in his body so violently that he had completely obliterated (utvisket)all memories of what had happened to him.

"So you want to leave your body?" I asked. "I most certainly do," he almost snarled back at me. "I absolutely hate it here." I looked at him and I shuddered with apprehension and, not to put too fine a point upon it, with pure fright. How was I going to take over the body of a man like this? Such a truculent man, so difficult. But, there it was. He laughed and said, "So YOU want my body? Well, it doesn't matter what you want, it doesn't matter who you are in England, all that matters is who do you know, how much have you got."

We talked to him for a time and he grew calmer and I said, "Well, one thing, you will have to grow a beard (skjegg). I cannot shave my beard because my jaws have been damaged by the Japanese. Can you grow a beard?" "Yes, sir," he replied, "I can and I will."

I thought for a moment and then I said, "Very well, you should be able to grow a suitable beard in a month. In one month's time, then, I will come and I will take over your body and you shall be allowed to go to an astral world so that you may recover your tranquility (ro) and know that there is joy in living." Then I said, "It would help us greatly, greatly, if you would tell us your life story because although we have seen much in the astral by way of the Akashic Records there still is a boon to be derived by hearing the actual experiences from the person concerned."

He looked dreadfully truculent again, and said, "No, no I cannot bear to speak of it, I am not going to say another word."

Sadly we turned away and went into the astral world so that we could again consult the Akashic Record, to see much of his life, but in the Akashic Record one sees all that has happened, one does not necessarily get the unspoken opinions of a person, we see the act but not the thought which preceded the act.

But let us now take a leap forward from those days many years ago. The young man now, many many years in the astral world, has mellowed (blitt mildere) somewhat, and to some small extent appreciates (oppfatter) the difficulties with which we are confronted. He has, then, agreed to tell us his own life story. He upon the astral world, and I, Lobsang Rampa, here upon the world of Earth - trying to write down precisely as dictated those things which the young man tells. We will have his story shortly, but it is necessary to emphasise that names will not be given for they cause distress to others. This is not a story of vengeance(hevn), this is not a story of bitterness. Actually, it is a story in this book of triumph over seemingly impossible obstacles.

Part 1