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© Victor
& Victoria Trimondi
The
Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Part II – 11. The Shambhala Myth and the west
11. THE SHAMBHALA MYTH AND THE WEST
The spread of the Shambhala myth and the Kalachakra
Tantra in the West has a history of its own. It does definitely not
first begin with the expulsion of the lamas from Tibet
(in 1959) and their diaspora across the whole world, but rather commences
at the beginning of the twentieth century in Russia with the religious
political activity of an ethnic Buriat by the name of Agvan Dorjiev.
The Shambhala missionary Agvan Dorjiev
Even in his youth, Agvan Dorjiev (1854–1938), who
trained as a monk in Tibet,
was already a very promising individual. For this reason he was as a young
man entrusted with caring for the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. The duties of the
Buriat included among other things the ritual cleansing of the body and
bedroom of the god-king, which implies quite an intimate degree of contact.
Later he was to be at times the closest political adviser of His Holiness.
Dorjiev was convinced that the union of Tibet with Russia
would provide the Highlands with an
extremely favorable future, and was likewise able to convince the hierarch
upon the Lion Throne of the merits of his political vision for a number of
years. He thus advanced to the post of Tibetan envoy in St. Petersburg and at the Russian court.
His work in the capital was extremely active and varied. In 1898 he had his
first audience with Tsar Nicholas II, which was supposed to be followed by
others. The Russian government was opening up with greater tolerance
towards the Asian minorities among whom the Buriats were also to be
counted, and was attempting to integrate them more into the Empire whilst
still respecting their religious and cultural autonomy, instead of
missionizing them as they had still done at the outset of the 19th century.
Even as a boy, Nicholas II had been fascinated by Tibet and the “yellow pontiff” from Lhasa. The famous
explorer, Nikolai Przhevalsky, introduced the 13-year-old Tsarevitch to the
history and geopolitics of Central Asia.
Przhevalsky described the Dalai Lama as a „powerful Oriental pope with
dominion over some 250 million Asiatic souls” and believed that a Russian
influence in Tibet
would lead to control of the entire continent and that this must be the
first goal of Tsarist foreign policy (Schimmelpennink, 1994, p. 16). Prince Esper Esperovich Ukhtomsky,
influential at court and deeply impressed by the Buddhist teachings, also dreamed
of a greater Asian Empire under the leadership of the “White Tsars”.
Since the end of the 19th century Buddhism had
become a real fashion among the Russian high society, comparable only to
what is currently happening in Hollywood,
where more and more stars profess to the doctrine of the Dalai Lama. It was
considered stylish to appeal to Russia’s Asiatic inheritance
and to invoke the Mongolian blood which flowed in the veins of every
Russian with emotional phrases. The poet, Vladimir Solovjov declaimed,
“Pan-Mongolism — this word: barbaric, yes! Yet a sweet sound” (Block, n.d.,
p. 247).
 Agvan Dorjiev
The mysto-political influences upon the court of
the Tsar of the naïve demonic village magician, Rasputin, are common knowledge.
Yet the power-political intrigues of an intelligent Asian doctor by the
name of Peter Badmajev ought to have been of far greater consequence. Like
Dorjiev, whom he knew well, he was a Buriat and originally a Buddhist, but
he had then converted to Russian Orthodox. His change of faith was never
really bought by those around him, who frequented him above all as a mighty
shaman that was “supposed to be initiated into all the secrets of Asia” (Golowin, 1977, p. 219).
Badmajev was head of the most famous private
hospital in St. Petersburg.
There the cabinet lists for the respective members of government were put
together under his direction. R. Fülöp-Miller has vividly described the
doctor’s power-political activities: “In the course of time medicine and
politics, ministerial appointments and 'lotus essences' became more and
more mingled, and a fantastic political magic character arose, which
emanated from Badmajev’s sanatorium and determined the fate of all Russia.
The miracle-working doctor owed this influence especially to his successful
medical-political treatment of the Tsar. ... Badmajev’s mixtures, potions,
and powders brewed from mysterious herbs from the steppes served not just
to remedy patient’s metabolic disturbances; anyone who took these medicaments
ensured himself an important office in the state at the same time”
(Fülöp-Miller, 1927, pp. 112, 148). For this “wise and crafty Asian” too,
the guiding idea was the establishment of an Asian empire with the “White
Tsar” at its helm.
In this overheated pro-Asian climate, Dorjiev
believed, probably somewhat rashly, that the Tsar had a genuine personal
interest in being initiated into the secrets of Buddhism. The Buriat’s goal
was to establish a mchod-yon
relationship between Nicholas II and the god-king from Lhasa, that is, Russian state patronage
of Lamaism. Hence a trip to Russia
by the Dalai Lama was prepared which, however, never eventuated.
Bolshevik Buddhism
One would think that Dorjiev had a compassionate
heart for the tragic fate of the Tsarist family. At least, Nicholas II had
supported him and the Thirteenth Dalai Lama had even declared the Russian
heir to the throne to be a Bodhisattva because a number of attempts to give
him a Christian baptism mysteriously failed. At Dorjiev’s behest, pictures
of the Romanovs adorned the Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg.
Hence, it is extremely surprising that the Buriat
greeted the Russian October Revolution and the seizure of power by the
Bolsheviks with great emotion. What stood behind this about-face, a change
of attitude or understandable opportunism? More likely the former, then at
the outset of the twenties Dorjiev, along with many famous Russian
orientalists, was convinced that Communism and Buddhism were compatible. He
publicly proclaimed that the teaching of Shakyamuni was an “atheistic
religion” and that it would be wrong to describe it as “unscientific”. Men
in his immediate neighborhood even went so far as to celebrate the
historical Buddha as the original founder of Communism and to glorify Lenin
as an incarnation of the Enlightened One. There are reliable rumors that
Dorjiev and Lenin had met.
Initially the Bolsheviks appreciated such currying
of favor and made use of it to win Buddhist Russians over to their ideas.
Already in 1919, the second year of the Revolution, an exhibition of
Buddhist art was permitted and encouraged amidst extreme social turmoil.
The teachings of Shakyamuni lived through a golden era, lectures about the
Sutras were held, numerous Buddhist books were published, contacts were
established with Mongolian and Tibetan scholars. Even the ideas of
pan-Mongolism were reawakened and people began to dream of blood-filled
scenes. In the same year, in his famous poem of hate Die Skythen [The Scythians], Alexander Block prophesied the
fall of Europe through the combined
assault of the Russians and the Mongolians. In it we can read that
We shall see through the
slits of our eyes
How the Huns fight over
your flesh,
How your cities collapse
And your horses graze
between the ruins.
(Block, n.d., p. 249)
Even the Soviet Union’s highest-ranking cultural
official of the time, Anatoli Vassilievich Lunacharski, praised Asia as a
pure source of inexhaustible reserves of strength: “We need the Revolution
to toss aside the power of the bourgeoisie and the power of rationality at
the same time so as to regain the great power of elementary life, so as to
dissolve the world in the real music of intense being. We respect and honor
Asia as an area which until now draws its life energy from exactly these
right sources and which is not poisoned by European reason” (Trotzkij,
1968, p. 55).
Yet the Buddhist, pan-Asian El
Dorado of Leningrad
transformed itself in 1929 into a hell, as the Stalinist secret service
began with a campaign to eradicate all religious currents. Some years later
Dorjiev was arrested as a counterrevolutionary and then put on trial for
treason and terrorism. On January 29, 1938 the “friend of the Dalai Lama”
died in a prison hospital.
The Kalachakra temple in
St. Petersburg
There is a simple reason for Dorjiev’s enthusiasm
for Russia.
He was convinced that the Kalachakra
system and the Shambhala myth had
their origins in the Empire of the Tsar and would return via it. In 1901
the Buriat had received initiations into the Time Tantra from the Ninth
Panchen Lama which were supposed to have been of central significance for
his future vision. Ekai Kawaguchi, a Buddhist monk from Japan who visited Tibet
at the turn of the last century, claims to have heard of a pamphlet in
which Dorjiev wrote “Shambhala
was Russia.
The Emperor, moreover, was an incarnation of Tsongkhapa, and would sooner
or later subdue the whole world and found a gigantic Buddhist empire”
(Snelling, 1993, p. 79). Although it is not certain whether the lama really
did write this document, it fits in with his religious-political ideas.
Additionally, the historians are agreed: “In my opinion,” W.A. Unkrig
writes, “the religiously-based purpose of Agvan Dorjiev was the foundation
of a Lamaist-oriented kingdom of the Tibetans and Mongols as a theocracy
under the Dalai Lama ... [and] under the protection of Tsarist Russia ...
In addition, among the Lamaists there existed the religiously grounded hope
for help from a ‘Messianic Kingdom’ in the North ... called 'Northern Shambhala’”
(quoted by Snelling, 1993, p. 79).
At the center of Dorjiev’s activities in Russia stood the construction of a
three-dimensional mandala — the Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg. The shrine was dedicated
to the Kalachakra deity. The Dalai
Lama’s envoy succeeded in bringing together a respectable number of
prominent Russians who approved of and supported the project. The
architects came from the West. A painter by the name of Nicholas Roerich,
who later became a fanatic propagandist for Kalachakra doctrine, produced the designs for the stained-glass
windows. Work commenced in 1909. In the central hall various main gods from
the Tibetan pantheon were represented with statues and pictures, including among
others Dorjiev’s wrathful initiation deity, Vajrabhairava. Regarding the décor, it is perhaps also of
interest that there was a swastika motif which the Bolsheviks knocked out
during the Second World War. There was
sufficient room for several lamas, who looked after the ritual life, to
live on the grounds. Dorjiev had originally intended to triple the staffing
and to construct not just a temple but also a whole monastery. This was
prevented, however, by the intervention of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The inauguration took place in 1915, an important
social event with numerous figures from public life and the official
representatives of various Asian countries. The Dalai Lama sent a powerful
delegation, “to represent the Buddhist Papacy and assist the Tibetan Envoy
Dorjiev” (Snelling, 1993, p. 159). Nicholas II had already viewed the Kalachakra temple privately together
with members of his family several days before the official occasion.
Agvan Dorzhiev in the Kalachakra temple of
St. Petersburg
Officially, the shrine was declared to be a place
for the needs of the Buriat and Kalmyk minorities in the capital. With
regard to its occult functions it was undoubtedly a tantric mandala with
which the Kalachakra system was
to be transplanted into the West. Then, as we have already explained, from
the lamas’ traditional point of view founding a temple is seen as an act of
spiritual occupation of a territory. The legends about the construction of
first Buddhist monastery (Samye) on Tibetan soil show that it is a matter
of a symbolic deed with which the victory of Buddhism over the native gods
(or demons) is celebrated. Such sacred buildings as the Kalachakra temple in St. Petersburg are
cosmograms which are — in their own way of seeing things — employed by the
lamas as magic seals in order to spiritually subjugate countries and
peoples. It is in this sense that the Italian, Fosco Maraini, has also
described the monasteries in his poetic travelogue about Tibet as “factories of a holy
technology or laboratories of spiritual science” (Maraini, 1952, p. 172).
In our opinion this approximates very closely the Lamaist self-concept.
Perhaps it is also the reason why the Bolsheviks later housed an
evolutionary technology laboratory in the confiscated Kalachakra shrine of St.
Petersburg and performed genetic experiments
before the eyes of the tantric terror gods.
The temple was first returned to the Buddhists in
June 1991. In the same year, a few days before his own death, the English
expert on Buddhism, John Snelling, completed his biography of the
god-king’s Buriat envoy. In it he poses the following possibility: “Who
knows then but what I call Dorjiev's Shambhala
Project for a great Buddhist confederation stretching from Tibet to
Siberia, but now with connections across to Western Europe and even
internationally, may well become a very real possibility” (Snelling, 1993,
xii). Here, Snelling can only mean the explosive spread of Tantric Buddhism
across the whole world.
If we take account of the changes that time brings
with it, then today the Kalachakra
temple in Petersburg would be comparable
with the Tibet House in New York. Both
institutions function(ed) as semi-occult centers outwardly disguised as
cultural institutions. In both instances the spread of the Kalachakra idea is/was central as
well. But there is also a much closer connection: Robert Alexander Farrar
Thurman, the founder and current leader of the Tibet House, went to Dharamsala at the beginning of the
sixties. There he was ordained by the Dalai Lama in person. Subsequently,
the Kalmyk, Geshe Wangyal (1901-1983), was appointed to teach the American,
who today proclaims that he shall experience the Buddhization of the USA
in this lifetime. Thurman thus received his tantric initiations from
Wangyal.
This guru lineage establishes a direct connection
to Agvan Dorjiev. Namely, that as a 19-year-old novice Lama Wangyal
accompanied the Buriat to St.
Petersburg and was initiated by him. Thus, Robert
Thurman’s “line guru” is, via Wangyal, the old master Dorjiev. Dorjiev —
Wangyal — Thurman form a chain of initiations. From a tantric viewpoint the
spirit of the master live on in the figure of the pupil. It can thus be
assumed that as Dorjiev’s “successor” Thurman represents an emanation of
the extremely aggressive protective deity, Vajrabhairava, who had incarnated himself in the Buriat. At any
rate, Thurman has to be associated with Dorjiev’s global Shambhala utopia. His close
interconnection with the Kalachakra
Tantra is additionally a result of his spending several months in
Dharamsala under the supervision of Namgyal monks, who are specialized in
the time doctrine.
Madame Blavatsky and the Shambhala myth
Yet, as the real pioneering deed in the spread of
the Shambhala myth in the West we
have to present the life and work of a woman. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
(1831–1891), the influential founder of Theosophy, possibly contributed
more to the globalization of a warlike Buddhism than she was aware of. The
noble-born Russian is supposed to have already been a gifted medium as a
child. After an adventurous life (among other things she worked as a rider
in a circus) her spiritual career as such began in the 1870s in the USA.
At first she tried her hand at all kinds of spiritualist séances. Then she
wrote her first occult book, later world famous, Isis Unveiled (first
published in 1875). As the title reveals, at this stage she oriented
herself to secret Egyptian teachings. There is almost no trace of Buddhist
thought to be found in this work. In 1879 together with her most loyal
follower, Colonel Henry Steele Olcott, Blavatsky made a journey to Bombay and to the
teachings of Buddha Gautama. There too, the doctrine of the “great White
Brotherhood of Tibet” and the mysterious spiritual masters who determine
the fate of humanity was invented, or rather, in Blavatsky’s terms,
“received” from the higher realms.
Tibet, which, her own claims to the
contrary, she had probably never visited, was a grand obsession for the
occultist. She liked to describe her own facial characteristics as
“Kalmyk-Buddhist-Tatar”. Even though her esoteric system is syncretized out
of all religions, since her work on the Secret
Doctrine Tibetan/Tantric Buddhism takes pride of place among them.
A detailed comparison of the later work of the
Theosophist with the Shambhala myth
and the Kalachakra Tantra would
reveal astounding similarities. Admittedly she only knew the Time Tantra
from the brief comments of the first western Tibetologist, the Hungarian,
Csoma de Körös, but her writings are permeated by the same spirit which
also animates the “Highest Tantra of all”. The mystic Secret Book of Dzyan, which the Russian claimed to have
“received” from a Tibetan master and which she wrote her Secret Doctrine as a commentary
upon, is central to her doctrine. It is supposed to be the first volume of
the 21 Books of Kiu te, in which
all the esoteric doctrines of our universe are encoded according to
Blavatsky. What are we dealing with here? The historian David Reigle
suspects that by the mysterious Books
of Kiu te she means the tantra section of the Tibetan Tanjur and Kanjur, the officially codified Tibetan collections of Buddhist
doctrinal writings, about which only little was known at the time. But this
is not certain. There is also supposed to be a Tibetan tradition which
claims that the Books of Kiu te
were all to be found in the kingdom
of Shambhala
(Reigle, 1983, p. 3). Following such opinions Madame Blavatsky’s secret
directions would have been drawn directly from the kingdom.
In her philosophy the ADI BUDDHA system is of
central importance, and likewise the fivefold group of the Dhyani (or
meditation) Buddhas and the glorification of Amitabha as the supreme god of light, whom she compares with
the “Ancient of Days” of the
Jewish Cabala. Astutely, she recognizes the Chinese goddess Guanyin as the “genius of water”
(Spierenburg, 1991, p. 13). But as “mother, wife, and daughter” she is
subordinate to the “First Word”, the Tibetan fire god Avalokiteshvara. The result is — as in the Kalachakra Tantra — an obsessive solar and fire cult. Her fire
worship exhibits an original development in the principal deity of our age,
Fohat by name. Among other things
he is said to emanate in all forms of electricity.
Madame Blavatsky was not informed about the sexual
magic practices in the tantras. She herself supported sexual abstinence as
“occult hygiene of mind and body” (Meade, 1987, p. 398). She claimed to be
a virgin all her life, but a report from her doctors reveals this was not
the truth. “To Hades with the sex love!”, she cursed, “It is a beastly
appetite that should be starved into submission” (Symonds, 1959, p. 64).
When the sexes first appeared — we learn from the Secret Book of Dzyan — they brought disaster to the world. The
decline into the material began with a sexual indiscretion of the gods:
“They took wives fair to look upon. Wives from the mindless, the
narrow-headed. … Then the third eye acted no longer” (Blavatsky, 1888, vol.
2, p. 13).
Blavatsky was probably convinced that her female
body was being borrowed by a male Tibetan yogi. At any rate her closest
co-worker, Henry Steele Olcott, who so admired her works that he could not
believe they could be the work of a woman,
suspected this. Hence, thinking of Madame, he asked an Indian guru,
“But can the atman [higher self]
of a yogi be transferred into the body of a woman?”. The Indian replied,
“He can clothe his soul in her physical form with as much ease as he can
put on a woman's dress. In every physical aspect and relation he would then
be like a woman; internally he would remain himself” (Symonds, 1959, p.
142). As in the Kalachakra Tantra, androgyny
is also considered the supreme goal along the path to enlightenment in
Theosophy. The gods are simultaneously “male-female”. Their bisexuality is
concentrated in the figure of Avalokiteshvara,
the cosmic Adam.
Through her equation of the ADI BUDDHA with the
Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara Madame
Blavatsky clears the way for a cosmologization of the latter’s earthly
embodiment, the Dalai Lama. For her, the Bodhisattva is “the powerful and
all-seeing”, the “savior of humanity” and we learn that as “the most
perfect Buddha” he will incarnate in the Dalai Lama or the Panchen Lama in
order to redeem the whole world (Blavatsky, 1888, vol. 2, p. 178).
As in the Shambhala
myth, the Russian presumes that a secret world government exists, whose
members, the Mahatmas, were
brought together in an esoteric society in the 14th century by
the founder of the Gelugpa order, Tsongkhapa. The “White Brotherhood”, as
this secret federation is known, still exists in Tibet, even if hidden from
view, and influences the fate of humanity. It consists of superhumans who
watch over the evolution of the citizens of the earth.
Likewise, the catastrophic destruction of the old
eon and the creation of a new paradisiacal realm are part of the
Theosophical world view. Here, Blavatsky quotes the same Indian source from
which the Kalachakra Tantra is
also nourished, the Vishnu Purana.
There it says of the doomsday ruler that, “He ... shall descend on Earth as
an outstanding Brahman from Shambhala
... endowed with the eight superhuman faculties. Through his irresistible
power he will ... destroy all whose hearts have been relinquished to evil.
He will re-establish righteousness on earth” (Blavatsky, 1888, vol. 1, p.
378).
Of course, the Russian was able to read much into
the Tibetan Buddhist doctrine, since in her time only a few of the original
texts had been translated into a western language. But it is definitely
wrong to dismiss her numerous theses as pure fantasy, as her speculative
world brings her closer to the imagination and occult ambience of Lamaism
than some philologically accurate translations of Sanskrit writings. With
an unerring instinct and a visionary mastery she discovered many of the
ideas and forces which are at work in the tantric teachings. In that she
attained these insights more through intuition and mediumism than through
scientific research, she can be regarded as the semi-aware instrument of a
Buddhist-Tibetan world conquest. At any rate, of all the western “believers
in Tibet” she
contributed the most to the spread of the idea of the Land of Snows
as a unfathomable mystery. Without the occult veil which Madame Blavatsky
cast over Tibet
and its clergy, Tantric Buddhism would only be half as attractive in the
West. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama is also aware of the great importance of
such female allies and has hence frequently praised Blavatsky’s pioneering
work.
Nicholas Roerich and the Kalachakra Tantra
A further two individuals who won the most respect
for the Shambhala myth in the
West before the flight of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, were also Russians,
Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) and his wife Helena Ivanovna (1879–1955).
Roerich was a lifelong painter, influenced by the late art nouveau
movement. He believed himself to be a reincarnation of Leonardo da Vinci.
Via his paintings, of which the majority featured Asian subjects,
especially the mountainous landscapes of the Himalayas,
he attempted to spread his religious message. He became interested in the
ideas of Theosophy very early on; his wife translated Madame Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine into Russian. The
occultist led him to Buddhism, which was as we have said en vogue in the society of St. Petersburg at the
time. We have already briefly encountered him as a designer of Agvan
Dorjiev’s Kalachakra temple. He
was a close friend of the Buriat. In contrast, he hated Albert Grünwedel
and regarded his work with deep mistrust. Between the years of 1924
and 1928 he wandered throughout Central Asia in search of the kingdom of Shambhala
and subsequently published a travel diary.
In 1929 he began a very successful international
action, the Roerich Banner of Peace
and the Peace Pact, in which
warring nations were supposed to commit themselves to protecting each
other’s cultural assets from destruction. In the White House in 1935 the
Roerich Pact was signed by 21 nations in the presence of President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt. The migrant Russian succeeded in gaining constant access to
circles of government, especially since the American agricultural minister,
Henry Wallace, had adopted him as his guru. In 1947 the painter died in the
Himalayan foothills of northern India.
With great zeal his wife continued her husband’s
religious work up until the nineteen-fifties. Helena Ivanovna had from the
outset actively participated in the formation of her husband’s ideas. Above
all it is to her that we owe the numerous writings about Agni Yoga, the core of their mutual
teachings. Roerich saw her as something like his shakti, and openly
admitted to her contribution to the development of his vision. He said in
one statement that in his understanding of the world “the duty of the woman
[is] to lead her male partner to the highest and most beautiful, and then
to inspire him to open himself up to the higher world of the spirit and to
import both valuable and beautiful aspects and ethical and social ones into
life” (Augustat, 1993, p. 50). In his otherwise Indian Buddhist doctrinal
system there was a revering of the “mother the world” that probably came
from the Russian Orthodox Church.
Roerich first learned about the Kalachakra Tantra from Agvan Dorjiev
during his work on the temple in St.
Petersburg. Later, in Darjeeling, he had contact to the lama Ngawang
Kalzang, who was also the teacher of the German, Lama Govinda, and was well
versed in the time teachings. It is, however, most unlikely that Roerich
received specific initiations from him or others, as his statements about
the Kalachakra Tantra do not
display a great deal of expertise. Perhaps it was precisely because of this
that he saw in it the “happy news “ of the new eon to come. He thus took up
exactly the opposite position to his contemporary and acquaintance, Albert
Grünwedel, who fanatically denounced the supreme Buddhist doctrinal system
as a work of the devil. “Kalachakra”,
Roerich wrote, “is the doctrine which is attributed to the numerous rulers
of Shambhala. ... But in reality
this doctrine is the great revelation brought to humankind ... by the lords
of fire, the sons of reason who are and were the lords of Shambhala” (Schule der Lebensweisheit, 1990, pp. 79, 81).
According to Roerich, the “fiery doctrine was
covered in dust “ up until the twentieth century. (Schule der Lebensweisheit, 1990, p. 122). But now the time had
come in which it would spread all over the world. As far as their essential
core was concerned, all other religions were supposed to be included in the
Time Tantra already: “There are now so many teachers — so different and so
hostile to one another; and nonetheless so many speak of the One, and the Kalachakra expresses this One”, the
Russian has a Tibetan lama say. “One of your priests once asked me: Are the
Cabala and Shambhala not parts of
the one teaching? He asked: Is the great Moses not a initiate of the same
doctrine and a servant of its laws?” (Schule
der Lebensweisheit, 1990, p. 78).
Agni yoga
For Roerich and his wife
the Time Tantra contains a sparkling fire philosophy: „This Teaching of Kalachakra, this utilization of the
primary energy, has been called the Teaching of Fire. The Hindu peoples
know the great Agni — ancient
teaching though it be, it shall be the new teaching for the New Era. We must
think of the future; and in the teaching of Kalachakra we know there lies
all the material which may be
applied for greatest use. […] Kalachakra is the Teaching ascribed to the
various Lords of Shambhala […] But in reality this Teaching is the Great Revelation
brought to humanity at the dawn of its conscious evolution in the third
race of the fourth cycle of Earth by the Lords of Fire, the Sons of reason
who were an are the Lords of Shambhala” (Reigle, 1986, p. 38). The interpretation which the Russian
couple give to the Kalachakra Tantra
in their numerous publications may be described without any exaggeration as
a “pyromaniac obsession”. For them, fire becomes an autocratic primary
substance that dissolves all in its flames. It functions as the sole creative
universal principle. All the other elements, out of the various admixtures
of which the variety of life arises,
disappear in the flaming process of creation: “Do not seek the creative
fire in the inertia of earth, in the seething waves of water, in the storms
of the air (H. I. Roerich, 1980, vol. I, p. 5). Keep away from the other
“elements” as “they do not love fire” (H. I. Roerich, 1980, vol. I, p. 7).
Only the “fiery world” brings blessing. Everyone carries the “sparks of the
fiery world in their hearts” (H. I. Roerich, 1980, vol. II, p. 8). This
announces itself through “fiery signs”. “Rainbow flames” confirm the
endeavors of the spirit. But only after a “baptism of fire” do all the
righteous proceed with “flaming hearts” to the “empire of the fiery world”
in which there are no shadows. They are welcomed by “fire angels”. “The
luminosity of every part of the fiery world generates an everlasting
radiance” (H. I. Roerich, 1980, vol. II, p. 8). The “song of fire sounds
like the music of the spheres” (H. I. Roerich, 1980, vol. II, p. 8). At the
center of this world lies the “supreme fire”. Since the small and the large
cosmos are one, the “fiery chakras” of the individual humans correspond to
“the fiery structures of space” (H. I. Roerich, 1980, vol. I, p. 240).
This fire cult is supposed to be ancient and in
the dim and distant past its shrines already stood in the Himalayas: „Beyond the Kanchenjunga are old menhirs of the great sun cult.
Beyond the Kanchenjunga is the birthplace of
the sacred Swastika, sign of fire. Now in the day of Agni Yoga, the element of fire is again entering the spirit.” (N. Roerich, 1985, p. 36, 37). Madame
Blavatsky’s above-mentioned god of electricity, Fohat, is also highly honored by the Roerichs.
The Roerichs’ fiery philosophy is put into
practice through a particular sacred system which is called Agni Yoga. We were unable to
determine the degree to which it follows the traditions of the already
described Sadanga Yoga, practiced
in the Kalachakra Tantra. Agni Yoga gives the impression that
is conducted more ethically and with feelings than technically and with
method. Admittedly the Roerich texts also talk of an unchaining of the kundalini (fire serpent), but
nowhere is there discussion of sexual practices. In contrast -the
philosophy of the two Russians requires strict abstinence and is
antagonistic to everything erotic.
In 1920 the first Agni Yoga group was founded by the
married couple. The teachings, we learn, come from the East , indeed direct
from the mythical kingdom: „And Asia when she speaks the Blessed Shambhala, about Agni Yoga, about the Teaching of
Flame, knows that the holy spirit of flame can unite the human hearts in a
resplendent evolution” (N. Roerich, 1985, p. 294). Agni
Yoga is supposed to
join the great world religions together and serve as a common basis for
them.
With great regret the Roerichs discover that the
people do not listen to the “fiery tongues” that speak to them and want to
initiate them into the secrets of the flames. They appropriated only the
external appearances of the force of fire, like electricity, and otherwise
feared the element. Yet the “space fire demands revelation” and whoever
closes out its voice will perish in the flames (H. I. Roerich, 1980, p.
30).
Even if it is predicted in the cosmic plan, the
destruction of all dark and ignorant powers does not happen by itself. It
needs to be accelerated by the forces of good. It is a matter of victory
and defeat, of heroic courage and sacrificial death. Here is the moment in
which the figure of the Shambhala
warriors steps into the plan and battles with the inexorably advancing Evil
which wants to extinguish Holy Flame: “They shall come — the extinguishers;
they shall come — the destroyers; they shall come — the powers of darkness.
Corrosion that has already begun cannot be checked” (H. I. Roerich, 1980,
vol. I, p. 124).
Shambhala
We hear from Helena Ivanova Roerich that “the term
Shambhala truly is inseparably
linked to fiery apparitions” (H. I. Roerich, 1980, vol. I, p. 26). “Fire
signs introduce the epoch of Shambhala”,
writes her spouse (Schule der
Lebensweisheit, 1990, p. 29). It is not surprising that the Russian
visionaries imagined the temple
of Shambhala
as an “alchemic laboratory”, then a fire oven, the athanor, also stood at the heart of the hermetic art, as
western alchemy was known.
The couple consider Shambhala, the “city of happiness”, to be the “geographic
residence or workplace of the brotherhood and seat of the interplanetary
government in the trans-Himalaya” (Augustat, 1993, p. 153). In an official
fundamental declaration of the two it says: “The brotherhood is the
spiritual union of highly developed entities from other planets or
hierarchs, which as a cosmic institution is responsible to a higher institution
for the entire evolution of the planet Earth. The interplanetary government
consists of cosmic offices, which are occupied by the hierarch depending on
the task and the age” (Augustat, 1993, p. 149). The Mahatmas, as these hierarchs are called in reference to Madame
Blavatsky, have practical political power interests and are in direct
contact with certain heads of state of our world, even if the ordinary
mortals have no inkling of this.
Then it is impossible for normal humans to
discover the main lodge of the secret society: “How can one find the way to
our laboratories? Without being called no-one will get to us”, Roerich
proclaims (Schule der Lebensweisheit,
1990, p. 9). From there the Mahatmas
coordinate an army of in part paid agents, who operate here on Earth in the
name of the hidden kingdom. In the meantime the whole planet is covered by
a net of members, assistants, contacts, and spies of the “international
government” who are only waiting for the sign from their command center in Shambhala in order to step into the
light and reveal themselves to humanity.
Likewise, the activities and resolutions of the
“invisible international government” are all but impenetrable for an
outsider. There is a law which states that each earthly nation will only be
visited and “warned” by an envoy from Shambhala
once in a century. An exception was probably made during the French
Revolution, then “hierarchs” like the Comte de Saint Germain for example
were extremely active at this troubled time. Sadly he died in the year 1784
“as a result of the undisciplined thinking of one of his assistants”. (Schule der Lebensweisheit, 1990, p.
117). The dissolute life of his sadhaka (pupil), Cagliostro, was probably
to blame for his not being able to participate in the great events of 1789
(the storming of the Bastille).
According to Roerich the members of the government
of Shambhala have the ability to
telepathically penetrate into the consciousness of the citizens of Earth
without them realizing where particular ideas come from: “Like arrows the
transmissions of the community bore into the brains of humanity” (Schule der Lebensweisheit, 1990, p.
10). Sometimes this takes place using apparatuses especially constructed
for this purpose. But they are not permitted to openly reveal their amazing
magical abilities: “Who can exist without food? Who can get by without
sleep? Who is immune to heat and cold? Who can heal wounds? Truly only one
who has studied Kalachakra” (Schule der Lebensweisheit, 1990, p.
77).
Tableau
of N. Roerich: Rudra Chakrin
(Rigden Djapo), the king of Shambhala,
crusading against mlecca
people, the enemies of Buddhism. Detail (Zanabazar Art
Museum, Ulaan
Baatar, Mongolia)
Rudra Chakrin is eating the heart of his enemy.
For the Russian couple all the interventions of
the governing yogi caste have just one goal, to prepare for the coming of
the future Buddha Maitreya Morya
or Rigden-jyepo, who shall then make
all important decisions. According to the Roerichs both names are synonyms
for the Rudra Chakrin, the
“wrathful wheel turner” and doomsday ruler of the Kalachakra Tantra. We thus await a fairytale oriental despot
who cares about his subjects: “Just like a diamond the light shines from
the tower of Shambhala.
He is there — Rigden-jyepo,
untiring, ever watchful for the sake of humanity. His eyes never close. In
his magic mirror he sees everything which happens on Earth. And the power
of his thoughts penetrates through to the distant countries. ... His
immeasurable riches lay waiting to help all the needy who offer to serve
the cause of uprightness” (Augustat, 1993, p. 11).
In passing, this doomsday emperor from Shambhala also reveals himself to be
the western king of the Holy Grail, who holds the Holy Stone in his hands
and who emigrated to Tibet
under cover centuries ago. He is returning now, messengers announce him.
True Knights of the Holy Grail are already incarnated on Earth,
unrecognized . The followers of the Roerichs even believe that their master
himself protected the grail for a time and then returned it to Shambhala on his trip to Asia (Augustat, 1993, p. 114).
Apocalypse now
"Why do clouds gather when the Stone [the
Grail] becomes dull? If the Stone becomes heavy, blood shall be spilled”,
we learn mysteriously (Schule der
Lebensweisheit, 1990, p. 88). Behind this secret of the grail lies the
apodictic statement known from almost all religions that total war, indeed
the destruction of the world, is necessary in order to attain paradise. It
is essential because in a good dualist cliché the “brotherhood of Good” is
always counterposed by the “brotherhood of Evil”. The “sons of darkness”
have succeeded in severing humanity’s connection to the “higher world”, the
“bright hierarchy”. The forces of the depths lurk everywhere. Extreme
caution is required since an ordinary mortal can barely distinguish the
Evil from the Good, and further, “the brotherhood of Evil attempts to
imitate the Good’s method of action” (Schule
der Lebensweisheit, 1990, p. 126).
The final battle between Light and Darkness is —
the Roerichs say- presaged in the prophecies of the ancestors and the
writings of the wise and must therefore take place. When natural disasters
and crimes begin to pile up on Earth, the warriors from Shambhala will appear. At the head
of their army stands the Buddha Maitreya
Morya, who “ [combats] the prince of darkness himself. This struggle
primarily takes place in the subtle spheres, whereas here [on earth] the
ruler of Shambhala operates
through his earthly warriors. He himself can only be seen under the most
exceptional circumstances and would never appear in a crowd or among the
curious. His appearance in fiery form would be disastrous for everybody and
everything since his aura is loaded with energies of immense strength” (Schule der Lebensweisheit, 1990, p.
152). It could be thought that this concerned an atomic bomb. At any rate
the battle will be conducted with a fire and explosive power which allows
of comparison only to the atomic detonations in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki:
Fiery the battle
with blazing torches,
Blood red the arrows
against the shining
shield
(Schule der Lebensweisheit, 1990, p. 110)
Thus the armies of Shambhala storm forth. „Space is filled
with fire. The lightning of the Kalki
avatar [Rudra Chakrin] — the
preordained Maitreya — flashes
upon the” (N. Roerich, 1985, p. 76). Even if Kalki
also goes by the epithet of “Lord of Compassion”, with his enemies he knows
no mercy. Accompanied by Gesar,
the mythic war hero of the Tibetans, he will storm forward mounted on a
“white horse” and with a “comet-like, fiery sword” in his hand. Iron snakes
will consume outer space with fire and frenzy (N. Roerich, 1988 p. 12).
“The Lord”, we read, “ strikes the people with fire. The same fiery element
presides over the Day of Judgment. The purification of evil is performed by
fire. Misfortunes are accompanied by fires” (H. I. Roerich, 1980, vol. I,
46).
Those who fight for Shambhala are the precursors of a new race who take control of
the universe after Armageddon, after the “wheat has been separated from the
chaff” (Augustat,1993, p. 98). That is, to put it plainly, after all the
inferior races have been eradicated in a holocaust.
Distribution in the west
As far as the fate of Tibet
is concerned, the prophecies that Roerich made at the end of the twenties
have in fact been fulfilled: „We must accept it simply, as it is: the fact that
the true teaching shall leave Tibet”, he has a lama announce,
„and shall again appear in the South. In all countries, the covenants of
Buddha shall be manifested. Really, great things are coming.” (N. Roerich, 1985, p. 3) In 1959 the
Fourteenth Dalai Lama fled to India in the south and from this point in
time onwards Tibetan Buddhism began to be spread all around the world.
Roerich and his wife saw themselves as agents of Shambhala who were supposed to make
contact with those governing our world in order to warn them. They could at
any rate appeal to a meeting with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Their
followers, however, believe that they were higher up in the hierarchy and
that they were incarnated Mahatmas
from the kingdom.
In the meantime the Roerich cult is most popular
in Eastern Europe, where even before the
fall of Communism it had penetrated the highest circles of government. The
former Bulgarian Minister for Culture, Ludmilla Shiffkova, daughter of the
Communist head of state Todor Shiffkov, was almost fanatically obsessed
with the Agni master’s
philosophy, so that she planned to introduce his teachings as part of the
official school curriculum. For a whole year, cultural policy was conducted
under the motto “N. K. Roerich — A cultural world citizen”, and she also
organized several overseas exhibitions including works by her spiritual
model as well.
Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife also supported
numerous Roerich initiatives. In Russia, the renaissance of the
visionary painter was heralded for years in advance in elaborate symposia
and exhibitions, in order to then fully blossom in the post-Communist era.
In Alma Ata in October 1992, a major ecumenical event was organized by the
international Roerich groups under the patronage of the president of Kazakhstan, at the geographical gateway, so
to speak, behind which the land
of Shambhala
is widely believed to have once lain. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama hesitated
as to whether he ought to visit the Congress before deciding for scheduling
reasons to send a telegram of greeting and a high-ranking representative.
The “Shambhala warrior” Chögyam Trungpa
In 1975 the Tibetan, Chögyam Trungpa (1940–1987),
gathered several of his western pupils around himself and began to initiate
them into a special spiritual discipline which he referred to as “Shambhala Training”. As a
thirteen-month-old infant the Rinpoche from the Tibetan province of Kham
was recognized as the tenth reincarnation of the Trungpa and accepted into
the Kagyupa order. In 1959 he had to flee from the Chinese. In 1963 he
traveled to England and
studied western philosophy and comparative religion at Oxford. Like no other Tibetan lama of his
time, he understood how to make his own contribution to western
civilization and culture. As a brilliant rhetorician, poet, and exotic free
spirit he soon found numerous enthusiastic listeners and followers. In 1967
he founded the first European tantric monastery in Scotland. He gave it the name
and the ground-plan of Samye Ling
— in remembrance of the inaugural Tibetan shrine of the same name that
Padmasambhava erected at the end of the 8th century despite resistance from
countless demons.
In the opinion of Trungpa’s followers the demonic
resistance was enormous in Scotland
too: In 1969 the young lama was the victim of a serious car accident which
left him with a permanent limp. There is an ambiguous anecdote about this
unfortunate event. Trungpa had reached a fork in the road in his car — to
the right the road led in the direction of his monastery, the road to the
left to the house in which his future wife lived. But he continued to drive
straight ahead, plowing right into a shop selling magic and joke articles.
Nevertheless, his meteoric rise had begun. In 1970 he went to the United States.
Trungpa’s charming and initially anarchic manner,
his humor and loyalty, his lack of respect and his laugh magnetically
attracted many young people from the sixties generation. They believed that
here the sweet but dangerous mixture of the exotic, social critique, free
love, mind-expanding drugs, spirituality, political activism and self-discovery,
which they had tasted in the revolutionary years of their youth, could be
rediscovered. Trungpa’s friendship with the radical beatnik poet Allan
Ginsberg and other well-known American poets further enhanced his image as
a “wild boy” from the roof of world. Even the first monastery he founded, Samye Ling, was renowned for the
permissive “spiritual” parties which were held there and for the liberal
sex and drug consumption.
But such excesses are only one side of things. Via
the tantric law of inversion Trungpa intended to ultimately transform all
this abandon (his own and that of his pupils) into discipline, goodness,
and enlightened consciousness. The success of the guru was boundless. Many
thousands cam to him as pilgrims. All over America
and Europe spiritual centers (dharmadhatus) were created. The Naropa Institute (near Denver, Colorado)
was established as a private university, where alongside various Buddhist
disciplines fine arts could also be studied.
The Shambhala warrior
Trungpa had told one of his pupils that during
deep meditation he was able to espy Shambhala.
He also said he had obtained the teachings for the “Shambhala training”
directly from the kingdom. The program consists of five levels: 1. The art
of being human; 2. Birth of the warrior; 3. Warrior in the world; 4.
Awakened heart; 5. Open sky: The big bang. Anyone who had completed all the
stages was considered a perfect “Shambhala
warrior”. As a spiritual hero he is freed from the repulsiveness which the
military trade otherwise implies. His characteristics are kindness, an open
heart, dignity, elegance, precision, modesty, attentiveness, fearlessness,
equanimity, concentration, and confidence of victory. To be a warrior, one of Trungpa’s pupils writes, irrespective of
whether as a man or a woman, means to live honestly, also in regard to
fear, doubt, depression, and aggression which comes from outside. To be a
warrior does not mean to conduct wars. Rather, to be a warrior means to
have the courage to completely fathom oneself (Hayward, 1997, p. 11). This subjectification of the warrior
ethos brings with it that the weapons employed first of all represent
purely psycho-physical states: controlled breathing, the strict stance,
walking upright, clear sight.
The first basic demand of
the training is, as in every tantric practice, a state of „egolessness”.
This is of great importance in the Shambhala
teachings, writes Trungpa. It is impossible to be a warrior if you have not
experienced egolessness. Without egolessness, your consciousness is always
filled with your ego, your personal plans and intentions (Hayward, 1997, p.
247). Hence the individual
ego is not changed through the exercises, rather the pupil tries solely to
create an inner emptiness. Through this he allows himself to be transformed
into a vessel into which the cult figures of the Tibetan pantheon can flow.
According to Trungpa these are called dralas.
Translated literally, that means “to climb out over the enemy” or in an
further sense, energy, line of force, or “gods”.
The “empty” pupils thus become occupied by tantric
deities. As potential “warriors” they naturally attract all possible forms
of eager to fight dharmapalas
(tutelary gods). Thus a wrathful Tibetan “protector of the faith” steps in
to replace the sadhaka and his
previous western identity. This personal transformation takes place through
a ritual which in Trungpa’s Shambhala
tradition is known as “calling the gods”. The supernatural beings are
summoned with spells and burning incense. When
the thick, sweet-smelling white smoke ascends, the pupils sing a long
incantation, which summons the dralas.
At the end of the song the warrior pupils circle the smoke in a clockwise
direction and constantly emit the victory call of the warrior (Hayward,
1997, p. 275). This latter
is “Lha Gyelo — victory to the
gods” — the same call which the Dalai Lama cried out as he crossed the
Tibetan border on his flight in 1959.
Trungpa was even more fascinated by the ancient
national hero, Gesar, whose
barbaric daredevilry we have already sketched in detail, than he was by the
dharmapalas. The guru recommended
the atavistic war hero to his followers as an example to imitate. Time and
again he proudly indicated that his family belonged to the belligerent
nomadic tribe of the “Mukpo”, from whose ranks Gesar also came. For this reason he ennobled his pupils as the
“Mukpo family” and thus proclaimed them to be comrades-in-arms of Gesar. The latter — said Trungpa —
would return from Shambhala,
“leading an army to conquer the forces of darkness in the world” (Trungpa,
1986, p. 7).
But Trungpa did not just summon up Tibetan dharmapalas and heroes with his
magic, rather he also invoked the deceased spirits of an international, on
closer examination extremely problematic, warrior caste: the Japanese
samurai, the North American plains Indians, the Jewish King David, and the
British King Arthur with his round table — all archetypal leading figures
who believed that justice could only be achieved with a sword in the hand,
who were all absolutely ruthless in creating peace. These “holy warriors”
always stood opposed to the “barbarians” of another religion who had to be
exterminated. The non-dualist world view which many of the original
Buddhist texts so forcefully demand is completely cancelled out in the
mythic histories of these warlike models.
Trungpa led his courses under the name of “Dorje Dradul” which means
“invincible warrior”. Completely in accord with an atavistic fighter
tradition only beasts of prey were accepted as totem animals for his
pupils: the snow lion, the tiger, the dragon. Dorje Dradul was especially enthusiastic about the mythic sun
bird, the garuda, about its fiery
redness, wildness, and its piercing cry commanding the cessation of thought
like a lightning bolt (Hayward, 197, p. 251). Garuda is the sun bird par excellence, and since time immemorial the followers of the
warrior caste have also been worshippers of
the sun. Thus in the center of Trungpa’s Shambhala mission a solar cult is fostered. But it is not the natural
sun which lights up all, but rather the “Great Eastern Sun” which rises at
the beginning of a new world era when the Shambhala warriors seize power over the world. It sinks as a
mighty cult symbol into the hearts of his pupils: “So, we begin to appreciate
the Great Eastern Sun, not as
something outside from us, like the sun in the sky, but as the Great
Eastern Sun in our head and shoulders, in our face, our hair, our lips, our
chest” (Trungpa, 1986, p. 39). Why of all people it was the chairman of the
Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong, who was worshipped by the Red Guard
as the Great Eastern Sun is a
topic to which we shall return.
The basic ideology of the
Shambhala program divides the world into two visions: Great Eastern Sun,
which corresponds to enlightenment in the Buddhist path, and setting sun,
which corresponds to samsara. [...] Great Eastern Sun is cheering up;
setting sun is complaining and criticizing. Great Eastern sun ist elegant
und rich; setting sun is sloppy and poor. To paraphrase George Orwell:
“Great Eastern Sun good, setting sun bad.” (Butterfield, 1994, p. 96).
From anarchy to despotism
Trungpa played brilliantly with the
interchangeability of reality and non-reality, even regarding his own
person, he was especially a master of the tantric law of inversion. He thus
simply declared his excessive alcoholism and his sexual cravings to be the
practicing of the tantra path. Whether alcohol is a poison or a medicine
depends on one’s own attentiveness. Conscious drinking — that is when the
drinker remains self-aware — changes the effect of the alcohol. Here the
system is steeled through attentiveness. Alcohol becomes an intelligent
protective mechanism. But it has a destructive effect if one abandons
oneself to comfort (Hayward, 1997, pp. 306–307). Yet Dorje
Dradul was not free of the aggressive moods which normally occur in
heavy alcoholics. He thus spread fear and horror through his frequent angry
outbursts. But his pupils forgave him everything, proclaimed him a “holy
fool” and praised his excesses as the expression of a “crazy wisdom”. They often attempted
to emulate his alcoholism: I think there is a message for us in his
drinking, Dennis Ann Roberts believed, “I know his drinking has certainly
encouraged all of us to drink more” (Boucher, 1985, p. 243). Another pupil
enthusiastically wrote: “He's great. I love the fact that he works on his
problems the way he does. He doesn't hide it. He drinks, and it's almost
killed him. So he is working on it. I find that great” (Boucher, 1985, p.
243).
Similar reasons are offered for his sexual
escapades. In 1970 he abandoned his vow of celibacy and married a young
British aristocrat. His bride is said to have been thirteen years old in
1969 (Tibetan Review, August
1987, p. 21). In addition he had a considerable number of yoginis, who were
obviously uninformed about the andocentric manipulations of Tantrism. There
was admittedly a minor rebellion among the female followers when the
Karmapa insisted on talking only with the men during his visit to a Trungpa
center, but essentially the western karma
mudras occupied by Tibetan deities behaved loyally towards their lord
and master. A lot of women have been consorts of Rinpoche — one of them
tells that “The Tibetans are into passion, they think sexuality is an
essential energy to work with. You don't reject it. So it's a whole other
perception of sexuality anyway” (Boucher, 1985, p. 244).
Such affirmations of tantric practice by the
female pupils are definitely not exceptions and they most clearly testify
to the charisma which the tantra master projects. Thus we learn from
another of Trungpa’s lovers, “My first meeting with him was a real
turn-off. I mean, I didn't want a guru who did things like that. The irony
was that I had left my other Tibetan Buddhist teacher partly because he was
coming on to me. And I just couldn't handle it. And Rinpoche is very much
into alcohol and having girl friends. Now it makes total sense to me”
(Boucher, 1985, p. 241).
Chögyam Trungpa has obviously succeeded in keeping
his western karma mudras under
control. This was much more difficult for the Tibetan Tantric, Gedun
Chöpel, who died in 1951. He left behind an amusing estimation of the
“women of the west” from the thirties which shows how much has changed in
the meantime: “In general a girl of the west is beautiful, splendorous, and
more courageous than others. Her behavior is coarse, and her face is like a
man's. There is even hair around her mouth. Fearless and terrifying, she
can be tamed only by passion. Able to suck the phallus at the time of play,
the girl of the west is known to drink regenerative fluid. She does it even
with dogs, bulls and any other animals and with father and son, etc. She
goes without hesitation with whoever can give the enjoyment of sex”
(Chöpel, 1992, p. 163).
Towards the end of his life, Trungpa the
“indestructible warrior” moved further and further away from his Hippie
past. As the head of his lineage the Karmapa is said to have not been at
all pleased to observe the permissive practices in the “wild” guru’s
centers. However, in accordance with the tantric “law of inversion”, after
a few years the pendulum swung from anarchy to the other pole of despotism
and all at once Trungpa abandoned himself to his fascistoid dreams. His
protective troops, Dorje Kasung,
initially a kind of bodyguard composed of volunteers was transformed within
a short period into a paramilitary unit in khaki uniforms. The guru himself
put aside his civilian clothing for a time and appeared in high-ranking
military dress as a “Shambhala
general”. We do not know whether, alongside the warlike ethos of the
tantric tradition, the physical handicap which he sustained in his car
accident in England
did not also trigger his unusual interest in military things as a
counter-reaction. At any rate his “military parades” became a fixed part of
the Shambhala training.
On other occasions the former “freak” donned a
pinstripe suit with a colorful tie and looked like nothing more than an
Asian film gangster. Thus he really did play brilliantly through the
ambivalent spectrum completely laid out in the tantric repertoire, from
poetic anarchist and flower power dancer to saber-rattling dictator and
underworld boss. In 1987 the master warrior died and his body was committed
to the flames in Vermont (USA).
“’May I shrivel up instantly
and rot,’ we vowed, ‘if I ever discuss these theachings with anyone who has
not been initiated into them by a qualified master.’ As if this were not enough,
Trungpa told us that if we ever tried to leave Vajrayana, we would suffer
unbearable, subtle, continuous anguish, and disasters would pursue us like
furies. Heresy had real meaning in this religion, and real consequences.
Doubting the dharma or the guru and associating with heretics were causes
for downfall. In Tibetan literature, breaking faith with the guru must be
atoned by such drastic measures as cutting off your arms and offering it at
the door of his cave in hopes that he might take you back.” – “To be part
of Trungpa’s inner circle, you had to take a vow never to reveal or even
discuss some of the things he did. This personal secrecy is common with
gurus, especially in Vajrayana Buddhism. It is also common in the
dysfunctional family system of alcoholics and sexual abusers. This inner
circle secrecy puts up an almost insurmountable barrier of a healthily
skeptical mind.” (Butterfield, 1994, p. 11, 100) Trungpa’s Shambhala Warriors see: http://sealevel.ns.ca/ctr/photo01.html
and http://www.shambhalashop.com/archives/junephoto/june12.html
The inheritance
The immediate inheritance which Trungpa left
behind him was catastrophic. Completely in the spirit of his Tibetan guru, the
American, Thomas Rich, who succeeded him under the name of “Vajra Regent
Ösel Tendzin”, continued the carefree permissiveness of his master with a
tantric justification. However, in 1988 there was a scandal from which the
organization has not fully recovered to this day. The “Vajra Regent” had
been HIV positive for three years and had infected numerous members with
the AIDS virus in the meantime. He died in 1991. Trungpa’s son, Sawang Ösel
Rangdroel, then took over the leadership.
“From Vajrayana point of
view, passion, aggression, and ignorance, the sources of human suffering,
are also the well-spring of enlightenment. Afflictions like AIDS are not
merely disasters, but accelrations toward wisdom, and opportunities to wake
up. They can be transformed into buddha-mind. Trungpa was a Vajra master
who had empowered Tendzin to guide students on this path” (Butterfield,
1994, p. 7).
Even if Trungpa’s Shambhala warriors have
forfeited quite a deal of their attractiveness in recent years, thousands
still revere the master as the “holy fool” and “indestructible warrior”,
who brought the “Eastern sun” to the West. For this reason he is said to
also be prayed to in the whole of Asia as
a great Bodhisattva and Maha Siddha
(Hayward, 1997, p. 319). “For ten years he presented the Shambhala Teachings”, summarizes one
of his sadhakas, “In terms of time and history, that seems insignificant;
however in that short span he set in motion the powerful force of goodness
that can actually change the world” (Trungpa, 1986, p. 157). Only rarely
does a “deserter” go public, like P. Marin for example, a strong critic of
the Naropa Institute, for whom this western Tibetan Buddhist organization
is “a feudal, priestly tradition transplanted to a capitalist setting”
(quoted by Bishop, 1993, p. 101).
On the other hand it goes without saying that the
Tantric Trungpa time and again draws attention to the fact that the warlike
figures he invokes are illusionary reflections of the human ego and that
even the Shambhala kings are
projections of one’s own consciousness. But if everything really can be
reduced to forms of consciousness, then it remains totally unclear why it
is time and again the phantoms of a destructive black-and-white mode of
thought which are summoned up to serve as examples along the personal initiation
path. Wouldn’t it make more sense, indeed be more logical, to directly
conjure up those “peace gods” who have surmounted such dualist thought
patterns? What is the reason for this glorification of an atavistic warrior
caste?
It goes without saying that in Trungpa’s system
no-one is entitled to even dream of critically examining the dralas (gods). Although only
projections of one’s own consciousness according to the doctrine, they are
considered sacrosanct. They are pure, good, and exemplary. Since Trungpa’s Shambhala Training unquestioningly
incorporates all of the established tantric deities, the entire martial
field of Tibetan Buddhism with its entrenched concept of “the enemy” and
its repellant daemonic power is adopted by people who naively and obligingly
set out to attain personal enlightenment.
We thus have the impression that the pupils of the
tantra masters are exposed to a hypnotic suggestion so as to make them
believe that their own spiritual development was the agenda whereas they
have long since become the pawns of Tibetan occultism in whose unfathomable
net of regulations (tantra means
‘net’) they have become entrapped. Once their personal ambitions have been
dissolved into nothingness they can be enslaved as the loyal lackeys of a
spiritual power politics which no longer sees the “higher self” in the
“universal monarch” but rather a real political “wrathful wheel turner” (Rudra Chakrin) who lays waste to the
world with his armies from Shambhala
so as to then establish a global Buddhocracy.
Other Western Shambhala
visions
James Hilton's novella, Lost Horizon, published in 1933, counts among the best-sellers
of the last century. It tells of
a monastery in the Land of Snows whose name, Shangri-La, is reminiscent of the kingdom of Shambhala.
The term has in the meantime become a synonym for leisure, refinement, and
taste, at least in the English-speaking world, and is employed by an Asian
luxury hotel chain. The idyll described in the book concerns people who had
retreated from the hustle and bustle of the modern world to the Himalayas and now devote themselves to exclusively
spiritual enjoyments. It is, however, no Tibetan tulku but rather a
Catholic missionary who collects together those tired of civilization in a
hidden valley in the Land
of Snows so as to
share with them a study of the fine arts and an extended lifespan. The
“monks” from the West do not even need to do without European bathtubs —
otherwise unknown in the Tibet
of the thirties. The essence of the Shangri-
La myth ultimately consists in the transportation of “real” products of
European culture and civilization to the “roof of the world”.
The most recent western attempt at spreading the
Tibetan myth is Victoria LePage's book, Shambhala.
The author presents the secret kingdom as an overarching mystery school,
whose high priests are active as “an invisible, scientific and
philosophical society which pursues its studies in the majestic isolation
of the Himalayas” (LePage, 1996, p. 13).
For LePage Shambhala is the
esoteric center of all religions, the secret location from which every
significant occult, and hence also religious, current of the world has
emanated. Esoteric Buddhism, and likewise the ancient Egyptian priestly
schools, the Pythagoreans, Sufism, the Knights Templar, alchemy, the
Cabala, Freemasonry, Theosophy — yes even the witches cults — all
originated here. Accordingly, the Kalachakra
Tantra is the overarching “secret doctrine” from which all other
mystery doctrines may be derived (LePage, 1996, p. 8).
The mythic kingdom, which is governed by a sun
ruler, is to be found in Central Asia, there where the axis of the world, Mount Meru, is also to be sought. This
carefree adoption of Buddhist cosmology does not present the author with
any difficulties since the axis mundi
is said to only be visible to the initiated. In accordance with the mandala
principle her Shambhala has
distributed numerous copies of itself all over the world — the Pyramids of
Giza, the monastery at Athos, Kailash, the holy mountain. Sites of the
Grail like Glastonbury
and Rennes le Chateau are such “offshoots” of the hidden imperium —
likewise only perceivable through initiated eyes. Together they form the
acupuncture points of a cosmic body which corresponds to the mystic body of
the Kalachakra master (i.e.,
taken literally, in the energy body of the Dalai Lama). LePage too, sees a
great “mystic clock” in the Time Tantra. The segments of this time machine
record the cyclical periods of the course of the world. A “hidden
directorate”, a mysterious brotherhood of immortal beings in the Himalayas, ensures that the cosmic hours marked on
the clockface are adhered to.
The Fourteenth Dalai Lama and the Shambhala myth
LePage's global monopolization of the entire
cultic life of our planet by the Kalachakra
Tantra could be regarded as an important step in a worldwide
Shambhalization plan of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Nonetheless, the Kundun deliberately prefers to leave
such esoteric speculations (which are in no way at odds with his doctrine)
to others, best of all “hobby Buddhists” like the author. So as not to lose
political respectability, the Kundun
keeps his statements about the Shambhala
question enigmatic: “Even for me Shambhala
remains a puzzling, even paradox country”, the highest Kalachakra master reassures his listeners (Levenson, 1992, p.
305). All that we hear from him concretely is the statement that “the kingdom of Shambhala
does indeed exist, but not in the usual sense” (Dalai Lama Fourteenth,
1993a, p. 307).
Can we expect a total world war in circa 300 years
in accordance with the prophecy? His Holiness has no doubts about this
either: “That lies in the logic of circulation!” (Levenson, 1992, p. 305).
But then he modifies his statement again and speculates about whether the
final battle is not to be interpreted as a psychological process within the
individual. For dreamers for whom such a psychological interpretation is
too dry, however, the Kundun
subsequently hints that Shambhala
could perhaps concern another planet and the soldiers of the kingdom could
be extraterrestrials (Levenson, 1992, p. 305).
He understands how to rapidly switch between
various levels of reality like a juggler and thus further enhance the
occult ambience which already surrounds the Shambhala myth anyway. „Secrets partly revealed
are powerful”, writes Christiaan Klieger, and continues, „The ability of
the Dalai Lama to skillfully manipulate a complex of meaning and to present appropriate
segments of this to his people and the world is part of his success as a
leader” (Klieger, 1991, p. 76). Ultimately, everything is possible in this deliberate confusion,
for example that the Shambhala
king in person stands before us in the figure of His Holiness as some
worshippers believe, or that Lhasa is the capital of the mythic country of
“Kalapa” albeit not visible to mortal eyes. Should the Kundun some day return to Tibet as a savior — some people
believe — then the veil would be lifted and the earthly/supernatural
kingdom (Shambhala) would reveal
itself to the world.
Similar speculations are in fact very popular in
the Buddhist scene. On the official (!) homepage of the Kalachakra Tantra the “dharma
master”, Khamtrul Rinpoche, explains to his readers that the current Dalai
Lama is an incarnation of Kulika Pundarika, the eighth Shambhala king famed as the first commentator on the Time
Tantra. But it gets better: “My companion [the goddess Tara, who led him through Shambhala
in a dream]", Khamtrul writes, “told me that the last Kulika King will
be called Rudra with a wheel,
'the powerful and ferocious king who holds an iron wheel in his hand' ...
and he will be none other than His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who will subdue
everything evil in the universe” (Khamtrul, HPI 005). Following this
revelation, which prophecies the Kundun
as the military commander of an apocalyptic army, Rinpoche worries whether
the Shambhala army is a match for
the modern armaments industry with its missiles and nuclear bombs. Here the
kindly Tara
comforts and reassures him that no matter what weapons of mass destruction
may be produced in our world, a superior counter-weapon would automatically
be created by Shambhala’s magic
armaments industry (Khamtrul, HPI 005).
In the words of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama “world
peace” is supposed to be strengthened with every Kalachakra ritual. He repeats this again and again! But is this
really his intention?
With an ironic undertone, the Tibetologist Donald
L. Lopez (formerly one of the closest followers of the Kundun), writes in the final section of his book, Prisoners of Shangri-La, that “this
peace may have a special meaning, however, for those who take the
initiation are planting the seeds to be reborn in their next lifetime in
Shambhala, the Buddhist pure land across the mountains dedicated to the
preservation of Buddhism. In the year 2245 [?], the army of the king will
sweep out of Shambhala and defeat the barbarians in a Buddhist
Armageddon,[!] restoring Buddhism to India and to the world and
ushering in a reign of peace” (Lopez, 1998, p. 207).
Next Chapter:
12. FASCISM
AND IT’S CLOSE RELATIONSHIP TO BUDDHIST TANTRISM
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