“I’ve seen you before,” I said. “You were detained at a checkpoint in Zhongba.”
“Yes,” he said. “You were there?”
“I was behind you in the traffic. You were being questioned by a Chinese official.”
“That’s right,” he replied, nervously looking in all directions.
“What about Wil?” I asked, struggling to stay calm. “Wilson James. Do you know him? Did he tell you anything about a gateway?”
The young man didn’t say anything. His eyes were glazed over with fear. He just turned and ran back through the rocks, heading farther upstream. I chased him for a while but he soon disappeared into the darkness. Finally I stopped and looked back toward where the van and our Jeep were parked. I could still see lights and hear muffled voices.
I turned and headed north again, realizing full well that I had blown my chance. I had gotten no information from him. I tried to shrug off the failure. More important was finding Yin and trying to get away myself. Eventually I found the old road, and minutes later I heard the faint sound of a Jeep.
5
THE CONTAGION OF AWARENESS
I stretched out as best I could in the cramped vehicle. I was completely exhausted and I wondered how Yin had the strength to drive. I knew we had been fortunate. As Yin had supposed, the Chinese military had seemed disorganized and nonchalant about their search. They had posted a single guard at the Dutch couple’s van while the others halfheartedly searched in the other direction, totally overlooking our Jeep. Yin had managed to start it up without making much noise and move around them undetected to pick me up at the river.
At this point Yin was still driving with the headlights off and staring intently though the windshield to see the darkened road.
After a moment he glanced over at me. “The young Dutchman you saw didn’t tell you anything?”
“That’s right,” I said. “He was too frightened. He just ran away.”
Yin was shaking his head. “This is my fault. If only I had told you about the next prayer extension, the Third. You would have been more effective at getting the information.”
I began to question what he meant, but he waved me off with his hand.
“Just remember where you are,” he instructed. “You have experienced the First Extension: connecting with the energy and letting it flow through you, visualizing that it forms a field of energy that flows ahead of you wherever you go. The Second Extension, as I have been explaining, is setting your field of energy so that it will enhance your life flow. You do this by staying ever alert and expectant.
“The Third Extension is setting your prayer-field to go out and increase the energy and vibrational levels of others. When your prayer-field reaches other people in this way, they feel a hit of spiritual energy, clarity, intuition, and they will be more likely to give you the right information.”
Again I knew exactly what he was getting at. Under the tutorship of Wil and Sanchez in Peru, I had explored how to send energy to other people as a new ethical stance toward others. Now Yin seemed to be clarifying how to do this more effectively.
“I know what you mean,” I said. “I was taught that there’s a higher-self expression that can be found on every person’s face. If we speak to that self, that expression, our energy helps to lift a person into higher-self awareness.”
“Yes,” Yin responded, “but this effect is increased if one knows how to extend one’s prayer-field the way the legends explain. We must expect our prayer-field to go out in front of us and increase other people’s vibration at a distance, even before we are close enough to see their faces.”
I regarded him questioningly.
“Look at it this way: If you are truly practicing the First Extension, the energy is coming into you and you are seeing the world more as it really is—colorful, vibrant, beautiful, like a magic forest or a colorful desert. Now, to practice the Third Extension, you must consciously visualize that your energy is overflowing into the field of everyone around you and lifting their vibration so that they, too, begin to see the world as it really is. Once this happens, they can slow down and sense the synchronicity. After setting our fields in this manner, it is easier to observe the higher-self expression on the faces of others.”
He paused and looked over at me as though he had just thought of something else.
“Remember, too,” he continued, “that there are pitfalls that must be avoided when you uplift someone. Each face is a pattern of features, like an… uh… inkblot, and you can see many things there. You can see the anger of your abusive father, the aloofness of an uncaring mother, or the face of someone who has threatened you. This is a projection from your past, a perception created by a traumatic situation that has colored how you expect others to act. When you see someone who even slightly resembles someone who has done you wrong, the tendency is to expect that person to be the same way.
“This problem is very important to understand and must be monitored closely. We all must get beyond expectations dictated by our past experiences. Do you understand?”
I nodded, anxious for him to proceed.
“Now, think again of what happened to you at the hotel in Kathmandu. We must look at that more closely. Didn’t you say that the man at the pool changed the mood of everyone when he sat down?”
I nodded again, thinking back. That was exactly right. The man had seemed to bring a new mood into the pool area before he had even said a word.
“That occurred because his energy was already set to enter the energy fields of others and give them a positive boost. Think about how that felt, exactly.”
I looked away for a moment, trying to re-create what had happened. Finally I said, “Everyone in the area seemed to go from a state of irritation and discontent to a state of mind that was more open and conversant. It’s hard to explain.”
“His energy opened you up to explore something new,” Yin continued, “instead of being stuck in dread or despair or whatever else you people were feeling.”
Yin stopped talking briefly, looking closely at me.
“Of course,” he went on, “it could have gone the other way. If the man hadn’t been strong enough in his energy as he walked into the pool area, he might have been overwhelmed by the low energy state of the rest of you and been brought down to your level. That’s what happened to you when you met the young Hollander. He was terrified and his fear affected you. You let his mood prevail.
“You see, the energy fields of all of us mix together out there, and the strongest ones prevail. That’s the unconscious dynamic that characterizes the human world. The state of our energy, our prevailing expectations, no matter what they are, go out and influence everyone else’s mood and attitude. The level of awareness between humans, and all the expectations that go with it, are contagious.
“This fact explains the great mysteries of crowd behavior, why decent people, influenced by a few who are in great fear or anger, can get caught up in lynchings, riots, or other despicable deeds. It also explains why hypnosis works and why movies and television have such great influence on the weak-minded. The prayer-field of each person on Earth intermingles with all the others, creating all the norms and group affiliations and national mindsets and ethnic hostilities that we see out there.”
Yin smiled. “Culture is contagious. Just travel to a foreign land and see how the people not only think differently but feel differently, as a matter of mood and outlook.
“This is a reality that we must understand and master. We must remember to consciously use the Third Extension. When we are relating to people and find we are taking on their mood, being overcome with their expectations, we have to go back and fill up again and overflow very consciously until the mood elevates. If only you could have done this with the young Dutchman, you might have found out about Wil.”
I was impressed. Yin seemed to have a full mastery of this information.
“Yin,” I said, “you’re a scholar.”
His smile faded.<
br />
“There’s a difference between knowing how all this works,” he replied, “and being able to do it.”
I must have slept for hours because when I awoke, the sun was out and the Jeep was pulled off onto a flat area above the road. I stretched, then collapsed back into the seat. For a few minutes I stared out past several mounds of rocks at the gravel highway below us. A nomad leading a horse and small wagon trod by, but otherwise the road was empty. The sky was crystal-clear, and from somewhere behind us I could hear a bird’s call. I took a breath. Some of the tenseness from the day before had eased.
Yin slowly began to move and then sat up, glancing over at me with a smile. He stepped out of the Jeep and stretched, then pulled a camp stove from the back and put on a pan of water for oatmeal and tea. I joined him and again tried to follow him through a set of difficult tai chi exercises.
From behind us, we heard a vehicle racing down the road. We waited behind a rock as the Land Cruiser sped by, both of us recognizing it at the same time.
“That’s the young Hollander,” Yin said, running to the Jeep. I grabbed the camp stove and threw it into the back and hopped into the vehicle as Yin was turning around.
“We’ll be fortunate to catch him at that speed,” Yin commented as we gave chase.
We drove over a small hill and down into a narrow valley, finally catching a glimpse of the vehicle cruising down the road several hundred yards ahead of us.
“We have to reach out to him with our prayer-energy,” Yin said.
I took a deep breath, visualizing my energy outflowing up the road and into the Land Cruiser and having an effect on the young man. I imaged him slowing down and stopping.
As I sent the image, the vehicle actually sped up, pulling away from us. I was confused.
“What are you doing?” Yin yelled, looking over at me.
“I’m using my field to make him stop.”
“Don’t use your energy that way,” Yin said quickly. “It has the opposite effect.”
I looked at him blankly.
“What do you do,” Yin asked, “when someone tries to manipulate you into doing something?”
“I resist it,” I said.
“That’s right,” Yin went on. “At the unconscious level the Hollander can feel you trying to tell him what to do. He feels manipulated, and that gives him the sense that whoever is behind him is up to no good, which produces more fear and adds to his determination to flee.
“All we can do is visualize our energy reaching out and increasing his level of vibration overall. This allows him to more fully overcome the fear and get in touch with his higher-self intuitions, which hopefully will lead him to be less afraid of us and to maybe risk a conversation. That’s all we can do with our prayer-energy. To do anything else is to presume that we know his best life course, but only he knows that. Perhaps it will be that his higher intuition—once we send him enough energy—is to dump us and get out of the country. We have to be open to that. All that we can do is help him make the decision from the highest possible level of energy.”
We rounded a curve in the road, and the blue Land Cruiser was nowhere to be seen. Yin slowed down. To our right was a smaller road that seemed to stand out in appearance.
“That way!” I said, pointing.
A hundred yards ahead, at the bottom of a small hill, was a wide but shallow tributary. In the middle was the Dutchman’s vehicle, racing its engine, spinning its wheels, and spattering mud, but going nowhere. It was stuck.
The young man glanced back at us and opened the door, preparing to run. But when he recognized me, he shut the engine off and got out in the knee-deep water.
As we pulled our Jeep alongside, Yin looked at me closely, and I could tell from his expression that he was reminding me to use my energy. I nodded to him.
“We can help you,” I said to the young man.
He eyed us suspiciously for a moment, but gradually warmed as Yin and I got out and pushed the fender of the Land Cruiser as he gunned the engine. Its wheels spun for a moment, spewing mud against my pants leg, then it leaped out of the hole and crossed to the other side of the river. We followed in our Jeep. The young man looked at us for a moment, as though deciding whether to drive away, but got out and walked back toward us. As he approached, we introduced ourselves. He told us his name was Jacob.
As we spoke, I began to look for the wisest expression I could find on his face.
Jacob was shaking his head, still terrified, and spent several minutes finding out who we were and querying us further about his missing friends.
“I don’t know why I came to Tibet,” he said finally. “I always thought it was too dangerous. But my friends wanted me to come with them. I have no idea why I agreed. My God, there were Chinese soldiers everywhere. How did they know we were going to be there?”
“Did you ask for directions from anyone you didn’t know?” Yin asked.
He looked hard at us. “I did. Do you think they told the soldiers?”
Yin nodded, and Jacob seemed to go deeper into panic, looking around in all directions nervously.
“Jacob,” I asked, “I have to know, did you meet Wilson James?”
Jacob still seemed unable to focus. “How do we know the Chinese aren’t right behind us?”
I tried to catch his eye, finally managing to get him to look at me. “This is important, Jacob. Do you remember seeing Wil? He looks Peruvian, but he speaks with an American accent.”
Jacob still looked confused. “Why is this important? We must find a way out of here.”
As we listened, Jacob made several suggestions about where we might camp until the Chinese left the area, or better yet, how we might make a mad dash across the Himalayas into India.
I continued to visualize my energy going into him and to focus on his face, looking for an expression of calmness and wisdom in his features, especially in his eyes. Finally he began to look at me.
“Why do you want to find this man?” he asked.
“We believe that he needs our help. He is the man who asked me to come to Tibet.”
He looked at me for a moment, apparently trying to focus.
“Yes,” he said finally. “I did meet your friend. He was in the lobby of a hotel in Lhasa. We were sitting across from each other and started talking about the Chinese occupation. I’ve been incensed about the Chinese for a long time, and I guess the reason I came here was that I wanted to do something, anything. Wil told me he had seen me three times that day at various locations in the hotel, and that it meant something. I didn’t know what he was talking about.”
“Did he mention a place called Shambhala?” I asked.
He looked interested. “Not exactly. He mentioned something in passing, something about Tibet not being freed until Shambhala was understood. Something like that.”
“Did he mention a gateway?”
“I don’t think so. I can’t remember much of the conversation. It was really very brief.”
“What about his destination?” Yin asked. “Did he mention where he was going?”
Jacob looked away, thinking, then said, “I think he mentioned a place called—Dormar, I think it was—and something else about the ruins of an old monastery there.”
I looked at Yin
“I know that place,” he said. “It’s in the far northwest, four or five days travel. It will be rough… and cold.”
The thought of having to travel that far into the wilderness of Tibet sent my energy crashing.
“Do you want to come with us?” Yin asked Jacob.
“Oh no,” he said. “I have to get out of here.”
“Are you sure?” Yin pressed. “The Chinese seem to be very active right now.”
“I can’t,” Jacob said, looking away. “I’m the only one left to contact my government and look for my friends, if I can find a way to get help.”
Yin scribbled out something on a piece of paper and handed it to Jacob.
“Find a phone and call t
his number,” Yin said. “Mention my name and give them a return number. Once they check you out, they will call and tell you what to do.” Yin went on to tell Jacob the best way back to Saga, and we walked with him as he made his way back to his Land Cruiser.
Once he had climbed inside, he said, “Good luck… I hope you find your friend.”
I nodded.
“If you do,” he added, “then maybe it will turn out that this is why I came to Tibet, huh? So that I could help.”
He turned and started the Cruiser, looked at us one more time, and drove away. Yin and I hurried back to our vehicle, and as we pulled back onto the main road, I noticed he was smiling.
“Do you think you understand the Third Extension now?” he asked. “Think about all that it entails.”
I looked at him for a moment, pondering his question. The key to this extension, it seemed, was the idea that our fields can boost others, lifting people into a higher awareness where they can tap into their own guiding intuitions. What expanded this idea for me, beyond anything I had heard in Peru, was the concept that our prayer-field flows out in front of us, and that we can set it to uplift everyone around us—even though we aren’t talking to them directly or even seeing their faces. We can do this by visualizing fully that it is happening—by expecting it.
Of course, one has to be totally noncontrolling with this energy; otherwise it backfires, as I had seen when I tried to make Jacob stop his vehicle. I mentioned all this to Yin.
“What you are understanding is the contagious aspect of the human mind,” Yin explained. “In a sense, we all share minds. Certainly we have control over ourselves and can pull back, cut ourselves off, think independently. But as I said earlier, the prevailing human worldview is always a giant field of belief and expectation. The key to human progress is to have enough people who can beam a higher expectation of love into this human field. This effort allows us to build an ever higher level of energy, and to inspire each other toward our greatest potential.”
Yin seemed to relax for a moment and smiled over at me.