Chapter XX: Kailash, 1927, part I

Chapter XX: Kailash, 1927, part I

n the Hall of Comprehension Maria had not merely heard the words that were put into thoughts, but also sensed the feelings I and emotions of her fellow companions. She had felt Merwan touch her — not physically, but at a level where spirits entwine in an eternal dance and become one in their search for fulfilment. She had begun longing for the man’s nearness, sensing his warmth even through the closed doors and walls that were between them.

The words of the lama were burning on her mind. Was she to give birth to another child? Why was that child meant to have such importance? She was eager to discuss these things with the lama, but he no longer showed himself and Maria’s telepathic powers weren’t strong enough to enable her to speak to the lama outside the Hall of Comprehension.

She spent the next day in a library which was like a labyrinth of books. It was called the Hall of Knowledge, and the energy in that hall made the ancient manuscripts sing. The words — in unknown languages, perhaps no longer spoken by anyone — seemed to float from the sheets and reveal their secrets. Merwan was by her side: he, no doubt, had taken a look in Maria’s heart and had seen it reflect his own emotions.

The baron was presented with a manuscript that had been kept in the vault for over a thousand years.

“Here it is!” he gasped, as a monk laid it before him. “The story of our Lord Jesus, as told by Apostle Thomas on his arrival in India.” His hand was visibly shaking as he opened the cover.

Glowing letters took off from the fragile pages like fireflies, filling the hall, attaching themselves to the minds of those in it. They brought along intuitive knowledge of what had been written; not words, but memories and emotions.

That night, Maria was awakened by the sound of the ominous horn and realized that someone must be at the gates. She sat up on her bedstead and looked out of the window, facing the inner sanctum of the mountain.

There was a group of people, maybe some eight to ten of them, on horses. They wore western clothing and there was a lady among them. On the back of one of the horses a wooden crate was fastened. These had to be Nicholas Roerich and his team, arriving here in Kailash exactly as planned. And the woman on the horse — she had to be the one who for the last two weeks had contacted Maria telepathically.

The lama had said that the gates to Shambhala would be opened before them in three days. This would be the second day. Did the holy man mean it literally — that they would be accompanying Roerich to his appointment with the ruler of the mystic city? This idea seemed so fantastic and unbelievable that Maria gave an involuntary chuckle. She felt the room awaken around her, probing her, to decide if any action should be taken, and then closing its eyes again, while she held her breath. Living in this place was like sleeping in the lap of a dragon.

Maria slept late and dressed hurriedly. Madame Roerich had no longer invaded her dreams — instead of that, almost everyone in the monastery had. It appeared there was no privilege of private dreams in here, where all the conscious and subconscious minds were shared and explored.

She stepped out of her room, not sure where she should go to find the newcomers. Behind her door, she saw a monk meditating. At the sound of Maria exiting, he opened his eyes and beckoned Maria to follow him.

They went down many corridors, past the library, until they reached a round doorway opening into a little indoor garden with a view over the waterfall. Sitting on small carpets and pillows on the floor were a group of people, among them the baron and Merwan. She also recognized Madame Roerich — even though she hadn’t actually seen her or her likeness, the image that had formed in her mind was remarkably accurate.

The baron rose to her feet, as did the other gentlemen.

“We were waiting for you, my dear,” he said in French, to indicate the common language in the company.

Madame Roerich also arose, hastened towards Maria and embraced her as if meeting an old friend.

“Did you hear my call?” she whispered. “I know you did, I can feel

it!”

“I did,” Maria replied. “I would have known you anywhere. But… why?”

“We can discuss this later, in private,” Madame Roerich replied quietly and then turned towards the gentlemen.

“May I present Mademoiselle Orsic — a medium as powerful as myself,” she exclaimed.

She introduced Maria to her husband, the leader of the expedition, Nicholas Roerich, who looked older than his years; there followed their son George, a young man also appearing older than his years due to a full beard, and six gentlemen who were introduced as representatives of various scientific organisations, mostly from the United States.

“I believe you’ve already met Mister Chapman Andrews,” Madame Roerich concluded rather cautiously.

Maria felt her face turn pale. Roy had been sitting behind the group of men and she hadn’t noticed his presence.

“Yes,” she said, her tongue dried to her palate. “And not by coincidence.”

“I know Mister Chapman Andrews would also wish to discuss this with you personally, later,” Madame Roerich said, indicating that she was aware of the cause of Maria’s bitterness.

“My wife seems to have great trust in you and I am not in the habit of doubting her words,” Nicholas Roerich said as they all resumed their seats. “She has consulted higher beings and they have vouched for you. Which doesn’t go to say that I value Baron von Sebottendorf ’s equally high opinion of you less than I do the evaluation from inhabitants of the other dimension. Although, you see, the living ones sometimes do have a tendency to lie.”

“Dear Nicholas!” the baron protested expressively. “I plead guilty of only one accusation — of being alive! Of the other — never!”

“I am glad to hear that,” Roerich commented. “Because, ladies and gentlemen, we are currently in the Garden of Truths.”

He paused and seemed to enjoy the confused looks on the faces of the baron and Maria, as well as the members of his own team.

The chief lama, who was sitting among them next to Merwan, smiled omnisciently. Maria was certain that he was able to understand everything that was spoken, perhaps even able to make himself understood had he wanted to.

“Indeed we are,” Roerich proceeded, “and that is one reason why I am willing to disclose the details of my own mission. Because, first of all, you -” this was said to Maria and the baron, “- are dying to find out my real mission. You don’t have to deny it,” he added to the baron, who was getting ready to protest. “Secondly, I’m aware that you are the people who, like myself and my wife, have devoted themselves to the cause of bringing mankind closer to the age of enlightenment. Therefore, you are worthy of the secret that must remain hidden from those who would be tempted to use it for their own benefit. Thirdly: should I be mistaken — and I rarely am — that your motives are selfless, my mistake shall soon be revealed, for, as I said, we are in the Garden of Truth. And, there’s the fourth and perhaps the main argument…”

He really had practiced this oration before, Maria thought involuntarily, listening to the meticulously-argued case, presented with gusto and cleverness.

“This argument is: nobody would believe you anyway,” Roerich concluded.

“Believe what?” the baron asked, looking confused.

“Any of it,” Roerich chuckled. “My mission, your mission, and our trip to Shambhala.”

“So it is true…” Baron von Sebottendorf gasped, and beads of excitement broke out on his forehead and upper lip almost instantly.

“Yes, my friend, it is true — if you dare it to come true!” Roerich said, and his flippant mood of a moment ago was transformed into sudden solemnity.

“I would lay down my life…” the baron raised his hands.

“That might very well be the requirement,” Roerich interrupted him. “And if it were — would you still be willing to lay down your life, just to get a glimpse of the Hidden City?”

“What do you mean?” the baron asked uneasily, his recent selfassurance shattered to pieces.

“Are you willing to tell the truth?” Roerich persisted.

“I am,” the baron said. “I have nothing to hide.”

“That’s good to know, baron,” Roerich said. “If — if you indeed are a baron?”

Von Sebottendorf stared at him blankly. Everyone else was observing the baron with equal astonishment at the question.

“I…” the baron gulped. “I…”

“Are you — or are you not a baron?” Roerich said, and his tone was frighteningly compelling.

“I… am… not…” the baron groaned as if against his own will.

“Well, what are you then?” Roerich continued.

“I…”

The beads of sweat seemed to mix with the baron’s tears, conditioned either by his emotional or physical strain to produce — or resist — these words.

“… am not,” he finally said. “I am born Adam Alfred Rudolf Glauer. My father was an engine driver from Dresden. When I lived in Turkey, before the war, I associated with the Germanenorder and one of my lodge brothers, Baron Heinrich von Sebottendorf, who, as I, had fled Germany in order to live abroad, offered to adopt me.”

“Wonderful, dear baron!” Roerich commended, using the title with intentional respect. “You are capable of telling the truth — even if it happened against your will. But the Garden of Truth cannot be disobeyed.”

He walked over to the baron, who sat crouching on his carpet, and laid his on his shoulder.

“The truth has purified you,” he said. “I could next demand to know about your real mission — in meeting me, and in joining my team with no apparent motivation save your love for Asia. But I shall

not. I shall rest this upon your own conscience. Because, Shambhala doesn’t permit people with secrets to enter its gates.”

Without elaborating on this alarming assertion, Roerich now faced Maria.

“It is an ancient notion that ladies have and are supposed to have their secrets,” he said, speaking in a softer tone than he had used with von Sebottendorf. “So forgive me for breaching this age-old notion. A secret must be told in this garden. It’s like a seal to your affidavit to honesty. Like three drops of blood you give for eternal youth — or for a glimpse of Shambhala.”

“What… what should I tell you?” Maria stuttered. “I am here to try to regain my powers that are fading. That I am sitting here today, is a sum of coincidental events. Or -” she looked at Roy, “- not so coincidental.”

Chapman Andrews wasn’t looking at her, either because he didn’t understand her — or because he did.

“My dear,” Madame Roerich now spoke soothingly. “It was we who sent Roy to you, to make your acquaintance and study your character. And, eventually, to allow things to develop towards the current outcome — of all of us meeting in the Garden of Truth.”

This confession, even though not yet quite clear to her, eased the cruel grasp Maria had felt around her heart for the last couple of weeks.

“So tell me, child,” Madame Roerich continued, approaching Maria and taking her hands. “Do you love Roy?”

Time seemed to stop for Maria. It was like an electric shock from a malfunctioning switch that appears to be lasting for endless hours whereas in fact it lasts only for a fraction of a second.

“Yes,” she heard herself saying.

Roy looked up at her.

“I was hoping to hear that,” Madame Roerich said. “But do you also love him?”

She pointed at Merwan, who seemed to understand every word.

“Yes,” Maria again replied, even before she had time to ask herself the same question in the privacy of her heart.

“Wonderful,” Madame Roerich smiled again. She then turned to Merwan.

“Do you love her? तम उसे प्यार करते हो?”

Merwan nodded slowly.

“What about you, Roy?” Madame Roerich now smiled at the American, as if leading some wickedly indelicate parlour game. “Do you love Maria?”

“Yes,” the man replied instantly.

“Here we are then,” Madame Roerich sighed blissfully.

Nicholas Roerich now leaned towards the baron who was still stunned and panting heavily, and looked him in the eyes with a sly smile.

“Do you love my wife?”

“Yes!” the baron exclaimed, then bit his lip like an abashed schoolgirl.

“You don’t have to explain or apologize. I’m not going to challenge you to a duel,” Roerich said. “In fact, that was the only acceptable answer. Anyone who wishes to enter Shambhala must enter with a loving heart. I’m not referring to such love as the love one feels for his fatherland or for mankind — I am talking about a simple and humane feeling, the one we often repress even though we should cherish and share it.”

The chief lama now made a sign to one of the monks, who immediately lit some heavily fragrant incense.

“Now that I have heard your secrets, you shall hear mine,” Roerich spoke. “Only it’s not mine — it’s one of the great secrets of the world. And it all began a long time ago, during the reign of Lha Thothori Nyantsen, the 28th king of Tibet, over one and a half millennia ago.”

At the mention of the king, a distant singing bowl, assisting the monks in meditation, began to chime.

“Something descended from the sky — for the lack of better word, the chronicles refer to it as a ‘silvery chest’,” Roerich proceeded. “From it, several relics emerged, among them the original Mani stone with the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum inscribed on it, as

well as a large round green jewel which seemed to be alive, as if made of a constantly moving liquid matter. The king was unable to understand these objects, so the chest was locked again and kept in his palace.

“Years passed, and one day mysterious strangers, who seemed to be not of this world, appeared before the king. They explained him the meanings and purpose of each object. The living jewel was able to show flashes of the past and the future. If one was pure of heart and acted under the rules of dharma — free of greed, jealousy, selfprofit and ignorance — the Stone was able to manifest physical and nonphysical things, such as emotions and feelings or healing powers, which could then be sent out to the four corners of the world. The strangers told the king the Stone must never leave his city; yet, when imminent danger was threatening mankind, be it disease, war or natural disaster, fragments of the Stone could be sent to assist humans, as long as their return to the City was guaranteed.

“They demonstrated to the king the amazing qualities of the Stone: it became pliable like clay; from it fragments could be broken off, while the stone and the fragment both kept their round shape. Once the piece was returned, it was attached to the Stone, which at once became whole again.”

Roerich scanned the group.

“You do know the name of the city, where the king lived, don’t you?” he asked.

No-one said a word, but Maria and everyone else knew it: Shambhala.

Roerich went on.

“A famed esoteric teacher Gurdjieff travelled to Tibet before the Great War and learnt about the secret of the Stone, now referred to as the Cintamani Stone. He himself, however, never saw it. After his return to Russia as the war broke out, he found a young pupil who also returned from his travels in Asia and who soon exceeded him in his esoteric powers and spiritual greatness. His name is Pyotr Ouspensky. He began to develop his mentor’s system further, and some years ago decided to go his own way. All news of him stopped a couple of years ago and everyone thought him lost on his journeys.

Yet, we met in London, just before Elena and I were about to leave for America.

“Ouspensky told me that he has a mission for me. You could imagine my surprise — I had barely met him in Russia and not once since the Revolution. Yet he was adamant that it was his duty to empower me to take a mystic stone to the United States, which refused to become a member of the League of Nations. He told me that even though the war was over and Europe was finally settling down, an even greater disaster was approaching. To avoid it, to avoid the devastation and suffering of mankind, the stone was given to him in Shambhala so that he could give it to me.

“I, naturally, was keen to learn about Shambhala, a place that had fascinated me since my youth. Yet Ouspensky was very terse on that subject, saying only that no-one who has ever gained entrance to Shambhala can ever talk about it: as one decides to or is required to leave the City, every trace of memory of it is wiped from that person’s mind.

“I arrived in America to meet President Wilson through a young politician, Henry Wallace, who had been notified of the arrival of a mystic instrument. As a matter of fact, I never met the President in person, but Wallace arranged for the President to have a private viewing of the Stone.

“What took place during that session or what the President was shown by the Stone — of this I have no idea. But Wallace reported the President as saying that the Stone must be shown to Lenin and I, as a Russian, should do it. Wallace was instructed to arrange our journey to Russia and to Tibet.

“I know that you are keen to learn about my detour to Russia. It is often said that you can let go of Russia, but she never lets go of you. This saying is more than a figure of speech: all of us who fled the country from the Bolsheviks are constantly surrounded by Russian agents and spies. When in London, preparing for our trip to Russia, where we hadn’t been for six years, we learnt of Lenin’s sudden death. This upset my plans: I had no idea what sort of upheaval was to follow next. Therefore I decided not to proceed towards Moscow but take the Stone back to Tibet, disregarding the President’s wish.

“From the cover of Time Magazine, I learnt that Russia was now led by Alexis Rykov, whom I had met in Paris where he was exiled before the War. As soon as we reached Continental Europe, Bolshevik agents began to approach me. Evidently Lenin had been informed of my mission and since his demise his successor was privy to it.

“I still hesitated, until, as we reached Central Asia, I received a personal letter from the new premier, promising me every assistance and a safe passage through Russia, should I come to Moscow. I agreed.

“This time I was present when the Stone was uncovered. It contacted us telepathically: we saw horrible visions of war and destruction, of unimaginable weapons and unconceivable suffering. As we emerged from that nightmare, one feeling which remained was the certainty that the new Bolshevik regime was an integral part of it, as it would some day clash violently with another, equally godless regime that would seek to destroy it.

Our meeting didn’t go well. Rykov regarded the Stone as nothing more than a magician’s trick, designed to scare him off the course of Communism. I considered myself lucky that I was able to take my trip back to Siberia on my own, instead of being taken there by the militia.”

“Since the time the Stone was assigned to us,” Madame Roerich now took over, “I have been contacted by a strong entity, who calls himself Allal Ming, the spiritual leader of Tibet. He revealed to me that Nicholas has been chosen to spread the message of a coming pan-Buddhist state which incorporates all the lands from Siberia to China, where the invisible city of Shambhala would be manifested.”

“Isn’t this exactly what the mad baron von Ungern-Sternberg, the self-proclaimed ruler of Mongolia, envisioned?” von Sebottendorf asked.

“Yes, but he was shot by the Reds, whereas I returned,” Roerich replied. “Returned, to go with you all to the city that has remained hidden from Western eyes for a long time.”

“But we are not the first who seek to enter Shambhala, are we?” Maria asked.

“No, there have been many,” Madame Roerich replied, “but very few ever make it far enough to try.” She raised her hands, indicating the monastery, their final stop before the proposed arrival to that mystic city. “We are the lucky ones — and providence has arranged for us, strangers from different corners of the world, to meet here as equals, united by the Great Spirit who led us here!”

The lama said something quietly to Roerich, and Maria found little amazement in a feeling that she had understood what was being said.

“Tonight,” Roerich repeated the lama’s words, confirming her understanding of them, “we shall all attend a ceremony of the utmost importance.”