Monthly Archives: May 2018

POTALAKA

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Chapter 9 – Potalaka

  Altair was alone in the cave. After six months he began look more deeply into his journey across the bridge between worlds as his mind and heart grew calmer. He saw more of the light because he now saw more of the darkness. 

  He began to question the nature of consciousness itself. If everything around him and within him was God or Source or Buddha then surely he could communicate with that pure consciousness like he did with extraterrestrials and dolphins and Tanya. 

  He let his mind grow calm and surrendered to the stillness within the cave.

  At first nothing happened. Altair knew not to expect anything. He just sat still with his inner eye fixed on the third eye area and waited. He sent out a soul call to the One, the Source of All Love like a dart filled with desire to see the Beloved and he rested In total faith that an answer would come. 

  Altair became aware of a subtle change. The air around him became still as if matching the stillness he was resting in within. The consciousness that was the air began to arrange itself like a cosmos of consciousness and he could feel tendrils of that consciousness reaching out to touch him, the awareness that he called Altair.

  He felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. He became aware of the cave and the paintings and statues, the lawn outside, the garden, Priya and the children sleeping, the house and other houses with people asleep in the neighborhood, the beach that started just down at the end of the street, the waves and the great ocean the waves were part of, the waves that were conscious, the ocean that was breathing, the sky above that was listening, the stars looking down, everything connected, to us. 

  It was as if he had connected to he heart of the world, the mind of the cosmos. The stars themselves were whirling and spiraling around him, jumping and diving in the universal currents. 

  Then he heard a voice. And saw a face. In front of him. It could have been Swami Shyam or Sai Baba. Mother Mary or Guan Yin. 

  And all it said was 

  “Sleep. Remember your dreams and visions, meditate upon them. Then act. So sleep child.”

  So he did. 

  

  His dream was simple and very clear. Sai Baba came to him in the dream. 

  “Visit Bruce. Tell him I want to see him. That is all you need to do. When it is time I will come to you in another form, as a Chintamani Stone in the form of a pearl and Amrita in the form of nectar. Until then know that the living consciousness of All That Is comes to you in the form of the Masters. All of them, Christ Krishna Buddha Mohammed Thoth All Divine Mothers are all embodiments of the one pure existence consciousness and bliss that is Love and Wisdom and speak the same truth with One Voice.”

  When he woke he took a deep breath, pushed the covers back and opened the garden shed door. The morning was bright and filled with wonder. He could feel his heart racing with fresh new blood, a cosmic detective on the trail of the greatest mystery of all. Life.

  He didn’t go in for breakfast, he got straight in his car and drove over to Bruce’s place. He had known Bruce for years, Bruce was a friend of both he and Priya and Tanya’s and a wild man when it came to love. He had no end of female suitors pursuing him but he always claimed he was free and open so no one woman ever lasted long. He was still in bed when Altair called.

  “Bruce, wake up!”

  “Altair, are you nuts? I’m not awake. Go away. Go home. Do something useful with your life!”

  “I had a dream about Sai Baba. He came to me and told me he wants to see you.”

  There was complete silence.

  “Bruce?” Altair opened the door and walked in. Bruce was lying awake on the sofa in the lounge.

  “I had the same dream. Sai Baba told me he wants me to go and see him in India.”

  “So are you going?”

  “Nah, I always believe in three signs. Tell me if he visits you again.”

  Altair walked out, irritated. Surely Bruce wasn’t that stupid.

  He drove into town and had to get some cash out before he started work. He stopped at an ATM machine just next to the cathedral.

  There was a woman standing in front of him in the line at the machine. She was taking a long time withdrawing her cash. Altair hummed a tune impatiently. He didn’t want to be late for his first meeting.

  The woman turned around but instead of leaving she stared straight at, or rather through Altair.

  “Tell your friend Bruce he needs to come and see Sai Baba in India.”

  Then she turned on her heel and walked off into the early morning breakfast crowd.

  Altair now knew he must find a Chintamani Stone in the form of a pearl. Both Sai Baba and Manjushri had mentioned it. But where? He knew it would come from the heart of Guan Yin but what did that mean? The only answers ever came when he surrendered totally to the stillness and right now he had to attend a meeting. He was late when he arrived. And he was dreamy when he was supposed to be concentrating on their next marketing trip to Europe.

  “What?” asked Altair.

  “You should go on your own,” said Mark.

  “You’re the most experienced,” said Frances. She looked at Altair with concern.

  “Are you OK? No sleep?”

  “Right,” said Altair.

  “Get a coffee at the break. The Arts Centre has the best.”

  “The Arts Centre? But I don’t drink coffee.”

  Frances laughed. “That’s code for take a decent break. Walk off those blues.”

  Altair took the hint. As business partners Mark and Frances had been very good to him. Allowing him time away from the business whenever he needed it. So after an hour he walked down to the Arts Centre, which was full of crazy stalls and market bargains at any time of the year.

  “Want custom clothes?” asked Colleen, the auburn haired woman at ZigZag. She dealt in one off clothing and Altair rather liked what she imported.

  “This top is great,” said Altair, choosing a pattern of black, red, green and white that he had never seen before. “How about the bottoms?”

  “Sorry,” said Colleen. “Strangely a young woman bought them this morning just before you came here. Striking blonde. Said she wanted them for a singing audition. Didn’t want the top.”

  Altair looked at Colleen for a moment. “Oh well, if they are supposed to get back together they will,” he said.

  Pity, he thought, they would have looked so good together.

  Altair slept fitfully in the cave that night, filled with dreams of Dakinis that beckoned him on the one hand into the light and Demons on the other that enticed him into the dark. He was drowsy when he woke and hurried into the house once he saw Priya’s car drive off with the children for school. He had a band meeting after work where he was auditioning a new singer and he wanted to make sure he had all the music. He made tea and toasted barley bread with Manuka Honey. As well as starting a company he also had formed a band so his world was taking shape again.

  And as so often happens, things that look good together, find each other again, no matter how slim the odds.

  “What song do you want to do first up?” said Tim. Tim was a doctor, guitarist and lyricist extraordinaire. Tim and Altair were rehearsing at a friend’s house near the beach. 

  “An original,” said Altair. “That will give her a better feeling for what we are about.”

  “Agreed.”

  “What’s her name again?”

  “Aria.”

  “Good name for a singer.”

  “I think that’s her now.”

A blue Toyota pulled up outside on the road between the beach and the house. They watched a blonde woman in a green tie-dye dress get out. They had advertised for a new singer so had auditioned a few before today. 

  “Did you check her stars?” grinned Tim. 

  “Not yet,” smiled Altair. 

  “I would, you’re pretty spot on with that sort of stuff.”

  “I used to be, I haven’t touched it in a while.”

  The door opened and a woman with sparkling blue eyes strode in. She held out her hand to Altair. 

  “Hi, I’m Aria.”

  “Altair, and this is Tim.”

  “Shall I sing first?”

  “Why not?”

And that was it. She set up the music stand she’d brought with her as if she were giving a concert on a stage and began to sing. 

She had the voice of a nightingale and couldn’t keep her eyes off Altair. There was no doubting their connection. Altair could feel it from the moment she walked in. When she had finished she was the consummate professional. 

  “Will you let me know?”

  “Sure,” said Altair. “You have a beautiful voice.”

  “Thank you,” she said with an equally beautiful smile. And she left. 

Tim was silent for a few moments. He hadn’t spoken at all in the time she was there. 

  “She had eyes for you man.”

  “I noticed,” said Altair. “She has an amazing voice.”

  “There are lots of good voices.”

  “I felt something. Something old. Something very familiar.”

Something had stirred in Altair. 

  “She’s knows what she wants man, that’s all I’m saying.”

Altair wasn’t listening. Just like he hadn’t  listened to his good friends Tom and Derek or his Mum when they’d talked to him early on about Priya. 

That was his hubris. A stubborn pride when it came to love. Yet uncannily and in spite of everything Aria would accompany him to one of the greatest treasures of all, a Chintamani Stone, from the Goddess of Deep Listening Herself, Avalokiteshvara Guan Yin. 

 Altair and Aria quickly formed a love duet and a musical partnership. On their first date something extraordinary happened, a sign to make sure he wouldn’t miss their connection.

  They were back at Aria’s place after a restaurant outing. Altair happened to walk past her bedroom on the way back from the bathroom and sneaked a look as the door was open. There on the bed were a pair of pants. An unmistakable pattern of black, red, green and white. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “Aria can I ask you something?” he said when he returned to the lounge.

  “Sure,” she smiled expectantly.

  “I noticed a pair of pants in your bedroom, an unusual pattern. Where did you get them from?”

  “Oh,” she looked puzzled. “A lady at the Arts Centre. They were a pair actually, but I didn’t want the top. Why?”

  “You won’t believe this, but I bought the top the very same day as you bought the bottoms. I must have just missed you buying them. From the lady at the Arts Centre.”

  And so it continued, from this unmistakeable sign, to another and another.

But something was missing in his heart. He had tried going through months of counseling with Priya in the hope of winning her back but all she ever said was “I don’t want this relationship.” That was devastating enough on top of the pain that comes along with the actual separation. The children were doing OK but Altair was suffering. He realized just how much when Priya announced one day that she had met Brinn, an airline pilot with the same birthday as her. And that they were taking the children to America and wanted Altair’s permission. Altair agreed with a heavy heart. He had watched his son Orion born in water under the constellation Orion and his daughter Skye born in their living room. He wept a long time with his children on the night they left for Washington. And then he tried to pick up the pieces of his life. 

 Aria wanted to sing in Europe so Altair decided to accompany her. He had marketing to do for the new company he had set up so they travelled Europe together, singing in King Ludwig’s Ballroom in Neuschwanstein Castle, doing duets for the British National Opera in London and eating pizza with world-renowned violinist Nigel Kennedy and singer Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin in the Cotswolds. 

 They returned to New Zealand and had to choose whether to continue on and live in Europe or move to the US. 

 That night Altair had a dream. He was standing on a beach in Los Angeles and three dolphins swam along and one stood on its tail and waved to him. 

 “We’ve got to go to America,” said Altair and he told Aria his dream. 

 “Then we will,” she said and they flew out the following morning. 

 Three days later they were standing on a Palos Verdes beach and three dolphins swam along and one stood on its tail and waved to him. 

  Altair and Aria stayed with relatives right on the coast. They arrived the day after a massive earthquake in which their uncle’s swimming pool had slipped 1.5 meters into the neighbors’ property. That day Altair drove to Trader Joe’s to pick up some organic veges to cook for dinner and some grains to soak for breakfast. As he was leaving the store he noticed a young girl crying on the sidewalk. 

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” 

  “I’m homeless,” she said. She looked up at him through a tear-soaked face and then began to sob again. She must have been no more than fifteen years old thought Altair. 

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said with a smile. “I’ve just bought these groceries for the family for tonight. There’s enough to feed one person for a week. Why don’t you have them?”

  He knelt down in the road in front of her and placed the bags at her feet. 

  She looked up at him and then rubbed her eyes in bewilderment and then shock. 

  “What’s that, what’s…that…at your shoulder…”

  She could hardly breathe or get her words out. 

  Altair felt it first and then saw it. The most serene calm came over him as if he too had gone past his last breath and was floating somewhere indescribable in human terms. He looked just past his left shoulder and saw the most magnificent glow like a million suns concentrated in a ball behind him and a tall beneficent female form reached out past him towards the girl’s heart. 

  “It’s an angel!” she cried. 

  And indeed it was. 

  A gift from God sent in this most unlikely of places to bring redemption from pain and freedom from suffering. 

  Years later Altair would learn Her Name. 

  Auriel. 

  Something had happened and Altair knew it. The One Consciousness we call God or Source was communicating to him through the most unlikely channels, dreams, dolphins, a homeless girl and an angel. The angel was a distinct sign and it galvanized him into action. He and Aria headed north, working for a spiritual publishing house then singing as they went to Festivals and groups from Self Realization Foundation at Lake Shrine and Sri Daya Mata to Ananda Village and Kriyananda. One night when they reached Canada they stayed with Josephine, a yoga teacher on Qualicum Beach in Vancouver Island. None of them could have predicted what came next. 

 “Altair, how is your search for magic and the stars unfolding?” asked Josephine. 

 Altair laughed. “Slowly. I’m waiting for the One Consciousness to speak to me when it’s ready.”

 “No more angels?”

 “Just the ones I see around me,” said Altair with a smile gesturing at the guests attending Josephine’s dinner party. 

 “That’s what I wanted to speak to you about. Do you see that couple over there?” She nodded towards the doorway. A couple looked just about ready to leave. 

Altair nodded back. 

 “They heard you read the stars and wondered if you had time to read theirs.”

 “When?”

 “Tonight if possible. They’re having marriage troubles. I have a small room out back you can use.”

 “Sure. Tell them yes. I can do the reading for them in about an hour. Can you get their details?”

 An hour later Altair found himself sitting across from the couple he had just met. Jennifer and Dave were having a great deal of trouble even listening to each other when they came in. Altair settled them down with presence and meditation.  

 “OK I want you to breathe with me. God is sitting here in both of you. Your breath is God’s breath and your words are God’s sacred words of the One Shared Heart,” Altair began. 

 He asked them to visualize that breath of God rising and falling in a cycle around the interior planets of the chakras.

 He asked them what their God-Self would each want from the relationship. 

 Then he began to read their soul path, both individually and together. 

 An hour later and they both came out of the room smiling. 

 They paid Altair by Koha which for Maori people is a gift of the heart. The Shared Heart. 

 The next morning a line of more than fifty people were lined up outside Josephine’s door. 

 Jennifer and Dave had been very generous with their gratitude and spread the word. It spread like wildfire.

  All the way through Canada and the US the same lines appeared outside someone’s door as if by magic, guided by the stars. When Altair got tired he would move on to a different city, hoping to remain anonymous, but word would get around, and he would be invited to a different house and there would be a new line of people. He did it all on Koha and received gifts of original paintings, silver tea sets, cash and jewelry, crystals and offers of exchanges like massage, many gifts he could not carry or take up so he gave them away. There were so many miracles that people began to call him Merlin. 

  A Native American Indian came to visit him. Altair had helped her with her business which had been in a slump and now two weeks after a Reading was flourishing. 

  “How can I help you?”

  “It’s my son.”

  “How can I help your son?”

  “It’s a very difficult case.”

  “Nothing is too difficult for the Lord. We do nothing on our own. Everything is the will of the Lord.”

  “He was in an accident. He’s a logger. There was an accident at the mill and he was trapped between two logs. His spine was crushed. He’s in a full cast and won’t get out for six months.”

  “How can I help?”

  “Would you put something on a tape for him? There’s no phones there so I need to send it by mail.”

  “Sure.”

  Then she hesitated. 

  “There’s one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “He thinks you can help him with his dream.”

 “What is it?”

  “He wants to become an actor in Hollywood.”

  “Does he have a family to support?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he have any experience in acting?”

  “No.”

  “And he’s in a full cast with a broken back somewhere north of here with no phones.”

  “Right.”

  “I see. Give me his details and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Altair made the cassette tape and gave it to his mother to send to her son. He didn’t hear anything for two weeks. Then one day the phone rang. 

  “Altair, Altair,” came an excited voice. “You’ll never guess what happened.”

  “I probably won’t. Who is this?”

  And the Mom who had tried to get Altair to help her son told him this story. 

 “Well, he did what you told him. He meditated on the problem and the solution and then handed it all over to God. Then just as you suggested he called ten movie producers in Hollywood including the numbers you gave him.”

  Altair had recently returned from Hollywood and passed on some contacts in the movie industry that he knew there to the woman’s son. 

  “The first nine said no. When my son got to the tenth he was starting to feel dejected. He still went ahead with the call as you suggested. The secretary to the producer was very kind, took his number, as he was calling from a friend’s house, and said she would call back if there were any auditions coming up that he might be interested in. Only a matter of a minute or so later there was a call. 

  “Hello is this Allan?”

  “Yes.”

  “I happened to be in the office and overheard your call. Would you mind retelling me what you related to my secretary?”

  And so my son told his story all over again. The movie producer was so touched he invited Allan down to visit him in Hollywood when his health was better!”

Three years later Allan’s mom contacted Altair again. She told him the follow up to the phone call. The producer gave her son an audition for a small part in an up and coming play. Then he flew the family down and had them stay in his own private apartments while they got settled. Now Allan is happily based in Hollywood as an actor earning a reasonable salary and living his dream. 

  These were messages from the angel for Altair. 

  He was being given more and more signs that the conscious universe was communicating to him. 

  The numbers of people who sought him out for advice became quite overwhelming so he sought his own advice from a medical intuitive named Ruby. She was employed by hospitals in difficult-to-diagnose cases as she could look into a patients body and see where the trauma was. 

  “Oh,” she said the moment she met him. “You’re a Naga!” 

  Altair looked her straight in the eyes. 

 “You see? You know how to manipulate the energies, you’re doing it right now. You can weave the matrix that exists right across the cosmos and tap into its energies. You can see people’s place in it and help awaken them to it.”

  It was true. Altair had been visited by a number of psychics and spiritual healers all who wanted to go deeper in their experiences. He only had to look into their eyes and raise his own energy and whatever experience they were desiring would be granted instantaneously. It was all to do with the fire of bliss in the inner spine that God or Spirit activated through him when he connected with people by touch or by gaze. 

  “But be careful,” she cautioned. “The Naga energy or serpent Fire is very hypnotic and can lead to enormous trouble with the opposite sex. You must be very careful about your boundaries with people or your relationships will be destroyed.”

  Altair knew this already. The power of the inner fire often activated powerful sexuality mixed in with love so had to be dealt with very sensitively. Altair had spent time in many communities where the leader, often a male, at some point was involved in sexual misconduct and Altair was left to help counsel the many angry devotees. 

  “The Naga is an ancient energy. You can wield powers that may seem miraculous to ordinary folk.”

  Altair had witnessed many miracles merely by him saying that a person would receive healing or abundance or love if they had faith. He had visited a wonderful man called Albert in Ashland who had been a fighter pilot in the war. 

  “I was shot down over the ocean,” said Albert, “and when I bailed I landed near a Japanese freighter whose men opened fire on me with machine guns. I sustained shrapnel wounds in my spine and was left for dead in the water for many hours until a rescue crew found me. I’ve had this pain in my back and legs for years and can hardly walk.”

  “Lie on the bed,” said Altair, “and we’ll see what we can do.”

  Altair worked on Albert’s legs and back for two hours, sometimes praying, sometimes laying hands on, and sometimes using a combination of acupressure and shiatsu touch points. By the time he left Albert was fast asleep. 

  The next morning he received a phone call from a Californian TV station. 

  “Hello, is this Altair?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have a gentleman here called Albert who claims you healed him.”

  “Healed? He’s healed?”

  “Yes, he says he has had bad pain in his back and legs for years and that you came like an angel and touched him and he was healed.”

  Altair was silent. The angel’s hand at work again. 

  “My name’s Joan,” said the voice. “I’m the producer for the show. Would you mind coming down to the studios? We’d like to interview you.”

 Altair told Aria and together they went to the TV studios. Altair told his story and they sang together on air and were promoted across California as the singers who heal the heart. 

  That pretty much summed up Altair’s mission, an earth angel who heals the heart. 

  Altair looked at Ruby. Ruby was beautiful and fierce-eyed, and now he saw something different. He was looking straight into the eyes of another Naga. Her cheeks flushed as he met her gaze and his heart quickened as he felt the familiar rush of energies in his spine.

  In her place it was the Dalai Lama speaking to him.

  “Your brain, your heart is your temple. Look there for what you seek. Let your path be love and kindness.”

  Some years ago Altair had sponsored the Dalai Lama’s first trip to New Zealand and had been fortunate enough to meet His Holiness for a private audience. Then, as in all their meetings, whenever he asked about Avalokiteshvara Guan Yin the Goddess of Compassion, the Dalai Lama would say to him,

  “Study, and then practice being Avalokiteshvara by being love and kindness and compassion for all people in your heart. Then teach ten people and ask them to teach ten more and ask them to do the same and so on until this entire world is transformed and liberated through your loving kindness. Then you will have successfully transformed yourself and all others into Avalokiteshvara.”

  Now the Dalai Lama transformed back into Ruby and then again into Guan Yin.

  “Just as two of the Buddha’s disciples are Great Naga and hold naga-jewels or Chintamani Stones, so you who are Naga will find your own naga-jewel in My Heart.”

  Then Guan Yin gathered Altair into Her own heart and flew with him to Her celestial palace in the Pure Land on Mount Potalaka, where beings of every kind from many worlds came to seek Her Wisdom and Compassion. Altair could see monks and nuns, making their way through the Goddess Tara’s Rosewood Forest, seeking rebirth on Potalaka and even more who had come to seek the advice of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara Guan Yin. The passes on the mountain were very dangerous, its sides precipitous and its valleys rugged. On the top of the mountain was a lake, its waters as clear as a mirror. From the grotto flowed a great river which encircled the mountain and flowed down to the southern sea. The celestial palace lay beside the lake. Rare medicinal herbs grew in its gardens and exquisite lotus flowers bloomed in small ponds. Lions, elephants, horses, peacocks and garuda roamed the larger garden areas, all in the peace and bliss of the presence of Guan Yin.

  The vision vanished and Altair was sitting still facing Ruby.

  “To cross the bridge between worlds takes great love and compassion,” said Ruby. “You never take the trip alone. Because to succeed you need to free humanity of its fear and suffering. That is what we are all here to do, together.”

  Altair travelled up and down the west coast of the United States and Canada bringing healing and love and compassion before he returned to New Zealand and then Australia. Of all the wonders he could imagine it is often the simplest things that bring the deepest joy. He was reunited with his childhood friend Suzie in Sydney and he and Aria and Suzie and her partner Michael all settled in the same suburb in Sydney right near the beach. Every morning Altair brushed tiger sharks and man-o-war jellyfish as he swam, not without incident especially one day when he was stung badly by a jellyfish and had to spend three days in bed, unable to walk.

  While he was looking for work Suzie introduced him to Joan, a Sai Baba devotee and very wealthy millionaire who had made her money in the property market.

  “How would you like to run a health clinic for people here in Sydney,” asked Joan one day out of the blue.

  “I have the money to fund it and Sai Baba came to me in a dream and told me that you are the person to run it.”

  As simple as that, Altair found himself running a clinic with doctors, massage therapists, Chinese acupuncturists, astrologers and counselors all bringing health and healing to the public.

It was on one of those health and healing days that Sai Baba acted again in Altair’s life, in the most mysterious way.

  

  Altair was walking in the local Mosman shopping area with Aria when a woman walking past stopped them.

  “Sai Baba wants you to come and visit him at my sacred shrine. He has a gift for you. He has been waiting for you.”

  “Sai Baba is a Messenger from God,” said Altair.

  The woman nodded and gave them her card.

  “My name is Shanti. I will see you at 5.”

  So that afternoon, Altair and Aria went to a house just above Balmoral Beach and knocked on the door.

  The same woman who had met them earlier bowed and let them in.

  “Follow me,” she said.

  They went with her down into her basement where there were two statues, both sitting in pools of what at first appeared to be water.

  The first statue was of Ganesha, the god of good fortune, remover of obstacles, patron of the arts sciences and wisdom.

  Out of his trunk poured a golden nectar for which Altair could see no obvious source.

  Shanti pointed to the large bowl that was overflowing now with the liquid which dripped onto plastic sheets on the floor.

  “Taste it,” she said. “Nectar from Heaven. Amrita. The Ambrosia of Immortality. To taste it is to attain higher knowledge and power.”

  Altair did taste it and it was sweet, not like honey or sugar but a different sweetness altogether with the lightness and glow of heaven.

  Then he turned to the second statue.

  It was a statue of Guan Yin.

  He looked at Her and She looked at Him and he finally understood what Manjushri and Sai Baba had said, that he would find the Chintamani Stone in the Heart of Guan Yin.

  “Kneel down and pray to Her,” said Shanti. “If She is willing and you touch Her Heart with compassion She will give you a priceless gift.”

  Altair knelt and prayed. He knew he had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

  “Hold out your hands,” said Shanti.

  As Altair held out his hands, cupped, under the Heart of Guan Yin’s statue, the most amazing miracle occurred. From the Heart of Guan Yin the most beautiful pearl began to grow. It emerged little by little like a baby from the womb of Her Heart and to his amazement as the head of the pearl and then the body appeared he saw the beautiful pearl was attached by a thin strand of pearl silk to the statue’s heart like a baby’s umbilical cord to its mother. Gradually the weight of the pearl allowed the silk strand to stretch and lower the pearl and eventually to break off in Altair’s hands.

  “You must be a monk,” said Shanti. “When I travelled to see Sai Baba he guided me to a monastery in Sri Lanka where his monks had prayed over this statue for years. They gave me the statue and said to use it to heal the world. They said it had great powers of manifestation and miracles and would recognize a monk by the power of his compassionate heart and give him a Chintamani Stone accordingly.”

  Altair’s eyes filled with tears of gratitude.

  He bowed deeply to Guan Yin and gave deep and reverent thanks for this miracle.

PLEIADES

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Chapter 8 – Pleiades

  Altair climbed the grey stairs to his family home and pushed the double white doors into all the noise. They opened onto the dining room and lounge. The air was hot and filled with the noise of celebrations, welcoming him home from the Deep South. The room had a big oval oak table around which a number of his friends were sitting. On the right was the family library piled with books and on the left were all the family photograph albums and pictures his mother Mary loved to display. Something made his skin get goosebumps and his heart race. He knew his best friend FiBee loved to matchmake and she had warned him she might bring someone special. FiBee was also from the Deep South, a pixie creature who loved to sniff lavender with Altair and his other best friend Max the Tibetan Monk and together they would all go crazy in the shopping centers having races with the supermarket trolleys. So as he stood there, knowing the magic FiBee could bring to any occasion, his eyes turned to the far corner of the room by the wedding photograph of his parents and he saw her. Their eyes met and they both smiled and he was smitten instantly. She was watching him, and returned to playing a harmonica. He walked over to her amidst the smiles and choruses of ‘Welcome Home’.

  “Hello,” he said. “I’m Altair.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m Priya.”

  “Do you play harmonica?”

  “No, just learning.” And she smiled at FiBee like they knew a secret.

  “Oh? You’re pretty good! You’re not a musician then?”

  “No, I love to dance,” said Priya.

  And that was it. Like two peas in a pod Altair and Priya sat and talked the whole evening as if no one else in the entire world existed and he knew that this was the Sign he’d been looking for. The Dancer the Sanyasi had told him about, his first wife from his life as a Raj. He knew it with all his heart and all his soul. And just now they had found a way into each other’s world.

  Priya was small and slight, almost elfin, with the determination of a tiger and the mystique of the Sphinx. She had a keen sharp intelligence like a knife and could cut away Altair’s concerns like butter. Her eyes were hazel and her hair curly and tawny brown and she smelled like sweet honey. Love, especially deep true love, has a way of working magic with the stars.

  And so it did.

  “Priya,” said Altair one day, many moons into their relationship, after a dream where they both dreamed of flying the same crystal airplane. Altair dreamt he was flying Priya and she was in the back. Priya dreamed Altair was flying her and he was in the front. “Tell me about where you want to fly to. Where is your bridge across forever? What other worlds does it lead to?”

  Priya looked deep into Altair’s eyes. “I want to explore the stars with you. That’s why we fell in love. You can help me go beyond what is here. To find out what lies beyond.”

  “What did that Steve guy say about other worlds?”

Priya and Altair had just attended a seminar on extraterrestrials and other worlds with Steve, a US expert on extraterrestrial contact and had decided to sign up together for a weekend workshop with him. It had been FiBee, their divine connector and fountain of everything spiritual who had told them about it. FiBee seemed to have her pulse on every esoteric heartbeat in town and could weave magical relationships where before there were none. Priya adored her like a goddess.

“He said something about this Venus and Jupiter energy in the spine. That we were like universal connectors or cosmic radio stations for the universe and life out there.”

“I want to find out how it works.”

“Why do you want to find out about life out there so much? What about life here? I mean I want to know but there is so much everyone needs here on earth.”

“I know, I can’t explain all of it but I’ve wanted to explore the stars and other worlds since I was a child.”

“You’ve got an alien inside you,” laughed Priya. “That should be enough.”

“Well I figure we are all like that.  We just don’t know it. We all come from the stars.”

“That guy Steve is just like you, Altair. Weird. When you look into his eyes he looks like he comes from another planet.”

“I thought so too. He seems like he has some answers to all this.”

Steve certainly did have answers. He had been a professional rugby league international totally disinterested in UFOs and that sort of thing when one weekend, when he was on holiday at Bethells Beach, he had been struck down by a blue light which came from the stars and the beings he connected with downloaded him with information from an extraterrestrial civilization that was in direct contact with earth. It had changed his life overnight. And it was about to change Altair and Priya’s.

  The workshop was a massive energy shift. Altair and Priya felt like they were surfing a wave. It started with all the participants, which included FiBee and her friend Penelope, cleansing the chakras by replacing the crystals that composed the petals of those chakras. They worked on the third eye or ajna chakra which had two petals for most of the time. Then they worked on telepathy with partners. Altair’s partner was Penelope and using simple energy breathing techniques in the spine they were able to reach out and touch each other’s essence. When Altair tried it with Penelope he got an enormous shock. As he entered her consciousness Penelope shape-shifted and formed a ferocious tiger which sprang out at him claws and all. It was a stunning, confronting demonstration of power in its rawest form. Penelope confirmed that was exactly what she had manifested and she seemed impressed that Altair had picked up so exactly on it.

  “I’m not comfortable with men,” she said quite candidly. “You’re the first man I’ve allowed to get anywhere near me on that psychic level. My mum has always protected me from unwanted forces. She taught me how to deal with it. Like this.”

  “I want to find a way through,” said Altair. “A bridge. Into your world. Into your being.”

  “I’m not ready for that,” said Penelope. “I prefer to live within my walls. I know I’m safe that way.”

  “Powerful walls!” said Altair.

  That night both Altair and Priya were exhausted but they couldn’t sleep.

  “What did you discover?” said Altair.

  “Amazing energies,” said Priya. “All over my body. Like a zinging up and down my spine. As if everything electrical in my body has been suddenly activated.”

  “Me too,” said Altair.

  They lay awake a long time thinking of the stars and the magic that lay beyond them on the bridge across forever.

  Steve was a hard taskmaster. Priya and Altair signed up for a number of weekend workshops after that initial one. One Saturday night Steve said in front of the group,

  “I’d like to give you all feedback about your progress. Tough stuff to help you.”

  He went around the group praising some and advising others how to fine tune their energies.

  To Priya he said, “You have a pristine energy, very pure and awake, like a new birth.”

  Priya smiled her delicious warm smile that Altair loved so much.

  Finally he turned to Altair.

  “You,” he said, “pretend to be the most spiritual of all, but you have the most to learn, because you are the least spiritually developed.”

  Altair sat a long while after the circle sharing in shock and silence.

  When they got home he asked Priya, “Do you really think I am that immature?”

  She laughed. “You take yourself too seriously. Steve said that to wake you up.”

  Altair worried about the aftereffects of this all weekend. He mulled and stewed over it all week.

  The next weekend was the last workshop where they would all go to Bethells Beach to call craft in from the stars. There was a part of Altair, a sulking part, that didn’t believe this would happen to him right now. Maybe for the others but not to him.

  They all sat high on a hillside above the beach as a group and called the craft in using the Venus Jupiter techniques in the spine that Steve had taught them. Blue lights appeared in the sky and on the horizon and flew at them from all angles.

  It was Contact, but not as Altair wanted it.

Perhaps it was something in the look he had that night, perhaps it was a hunch, or perhaps it was what Steve had said to Altair that shifted things so much, because as time passed Altair began to question whether he would ever have true Contact. He had seen and he believed but he hadn’t felt. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what he wanted from the stars and magic but he knew he wanted more.

He was appointed Director of an educational institution in the Deep South and Priya and he started a family together. There were no more joyful moments than the birth of a son and then a daughter, both of them treasures in his heart that he knew would be there always.

“I’m never apart from you,” he would whisper to them when they were alone. “I’m a part of you and you’re a part of me. We’re part of each other. Every day of my life you will be in my heart and even beyond this life too.”

  Altair wrote birth songs for both of his children. They lived all together beside a beautiful beach. He travelled the world marketing for education. Priya and Altair went through the joys and struggles of all couples. And still he wondered.

  One day Steve returned to the Deep South, invited by Altair to give a seminar on extraterrestrial Contact.

That evening, on a Saturday, after the talk, Altair and Steve were sitting eating pizza together. Priya was at home with the children.

  “What did you think of the seminar?” said Steve sipping a beer.

  “People get very excited by extraterrestrials. Why don’t they reveal themselves?”

  “It’s a simple matter of energy and consciousness. You’ve seen it for yourself. When you raise the energy levels in your system you attract wherever your attention is focused. Like a radio beacon, you tune into the right frequency. You tune into them with the right energy and they will tune into you. And find you.”

   Altair paused.

  “Do you want to see a star craft?”

   Altair couldn’t believe his ears.

  “Right here? Now?”

   They were eating at a beach front restaurant near his house.

   “Sure, right here. Let’s go for a walk.”

  They took a stroll along the beach past a number of people who were also out late. It was just going on 1am. There was a woman with a dog, a man out fishing in a boat, a couple walking on the beach. Most people’s lights were out. It was a beautiful evening and the sky was very clear and littered with stars.

  “Let’s stop here,” said Steve.

  They stopped not far from Altair’s beach front house.

  “You remember the Venus Jupiter exercises?”

  “Sure.”

  “So simply visualize building the energy within the spine as you connect to the emerald green of Venus on the left. Then connect to the craft through the ruby red energy of Jupiter on the right and extend the energy out through the third eye to make contact.”

  Altair and Steve did the exercises together for about five minutes. They were both adept at it and the consciousness flowed easily and smoothly. They gazed up at the heavens together.

  A few minutes passed and a satellite appeared around about the center of the Pleiades constellation and started to move across the sky as they watched.

  It reached the center of the sky and stopped.

  Stopped.

  “It…it stopped!” said Altair, scarcely believing his eyes. “Satellites don’t stop!”

  “Right,” said Steve.

  As Altair watched in disbelief the satellite began to lower, vertically, from its position high up in the stars, and descend towards them. As it grew closer and larger, Altair began to make out details.

  A star craft was right above them, transparent so they could see the stars through it, with three lights at each of the nose and the two wing tips, and an enormous booster engine at the rear. It was gigantic, about the size of two jumbo jets and it descended over Altair’s house. All activity on the beach had stopped and those witnessing just stood there stunned. The craft manoeuvred over Altair’s house before flashing three times in a sign to Altair and then a whooshing sound could be heard as the craft sped off and disappeared at a rate faster than anything Altair has seen move to this day. He stood there, rooted to the spot.

  “Did…” was all he could say.

  “Yes,” said Steve. “Now go home to Priya. She will be missing you. Watch what happens carefully these next few days. And do not report what happened or how you called the craft to the authorities. They will be all over you and you will be tracked forever. Just like the X-Files. Keep it safely between your friends.”

  Altair nodded. He was still rocked by the energies, by the possibilities for humanity, by the knowledge that we could make Contact if we wished, if we raised our energies, if we knew how.

  And he knew how.

  The following days were filled with the news of the ‘alien contact’. In newspapers and television, stories of the craft from eyewitnesses appeared and the United States Air Force flew two jets in to the beach resort with scientists in white coats who posted rewards around the town of $500 for information leading to or pertaining to the extraterrestrial craft. Four young boys who had been sleeping out on the roof of their house had been ‘visited’ by the starship and described exactly the same craft as Altair had seen, the whooshing noise and the incredible speed with which it left their location after it hovered above them. Friends and family who knew of Altair’s experience all wanted to know more. And everyone who laid claim to an alien contact or alien DNA came out of the woodwork.

  Two weeks later Altair was walking along another beach on the same coast a little further north with five of his friends. They were joking with him about his Contact.

  “So you can cross worlds,” said Tanya.

  “And call extraterrestrial craft,” said Mark.

  “Go on, show us,” they all cajoled him.

  “You can do it,” whispered Tanya. “Go on, I know you can do anything.”

  Tanya had been good friends with Altair for such a long time. She was convinced that she walked the same path and they often shared their mystical experiences.

  “Now?” said Altair. “In the middle of the day? The craft came at 1am. From the stars. The Pleiades. If I call it now you might never see it. What would be just as good a test?”

  “The dolphins,” said Tanya. “Call the dolphins.”

  “The dolphins,” they all cried. There was lots of laughter and a good feeling about this suggestion. If anyone could do it Altair could.

  “How do you do it?” said Mark. “Is there an actual bridge or what?”

  “Just an intention,” said Altair. “Then an activation of the current in your body through the Venus and Jupiter exercises. They are very similar to Yogananda’s Kriya Yoga. Then surrender. And wait. That’s it basically. A call of the heart. If my heart is in tune with theirs they will come.”

  “Show me,” said Tanya.

  “All right,” said Altair. “I’ll show you.” And he sat down on the beach and closed his eyes.

  For a moment all he heard was the tumble and falling of the waves, swish, swish. Everything else was quiet.

  He focused on the dolphins, bringing them to his mind’s eye. Then he made an intention to become the ocean and began to breathe and draw the Venus and Jupiter energies up through the left and right sides of his body. It only took a few minutes.       Then something happened.

  As he relaxed his mind into the shape of the ocean waves a new consciousness began to sweep around his body and powers he had hitherto been unexposed to rose to the surface.

  He felt for all the world like a dolphin, leaping and diving in and out of the ocean sprays.

  He felt safe and filled with joy under the water.

  He could breathe!

  “Look, look!” came the cry. Altair opened his eyes.

  The five friends were pointing out to sea. There, swimming along the beach, was a pod of dolphins. Three of them turned and swam into the beach at just the point Altair was sitting.

  Altair rose to his feet, feeling at one with the dolphins. He could hear them, feel them calling to him.

  “C’mon!” he shouted.

  But his friends were too shocked by the sudden appearance of the dolphins to move. They stood there with open mouths, gaping as Altair took off his clothes and dived into the surf. The dolphins waited, playing close to the shore and when Altair joined them they swam with him out to sea, circling and frolicking, jumping and greeting him with clicks and whistles. Altair could understand all that passed between them that day. He could see the worlds they came from, the joy they brought to this world, the sadness they felt at the atrocities committed to their brethren and the damage done to the ocean. They were such peace loving light filled beings. He felt more at home with them here than he did in many other places on this planet. He knew they were his Dolphin Light Family come to acknowledge him.

  Where Priya was smart and elfin, Tanya was passionate and mysterious. She had large dark eyes and black curly hair and she and Altair had an uncanny connection. His meeting with his Star Family, which is how he referred to the extraterrestrials and his Light Family, the dolphins, had opened a way from this world into others. Telepathy with Tanya became as easy and natural as breathing, even without trying. Altair would suddenly find himself in her dreams, so he would call her and she would confirm…

  “Yes, I was wearing a white dress with a necklace of pearls,” or they could be in separate rooms and shown an object or given something to touch and they would both have an identical experience. Tanya could hold a pack of cards, secretly draw a sequence and Altair could tell her what they were.

  They had discovered this by accident one night when they were all in a meditation group. It was shortly after a trip to India and the Himalayas that Altair had made to see Swami Shyam. When Altair came back he was literally glowing. Everyone noticed it. Altair discovered on his return that by raising the energies up his spine while holding an intention he could trigger a similar energy in anyone that looked into his eyes. He knew this was the Naga energies working through him. So one night as they were going around the circle and people were asking Altair to activate this energy or that intention, when he reached Tanya he suddenly felt himself raised up and leaving his body and an instant later found himself in her body. It was most uncanny and incredibly unnerving and greatly upset Priya and Tanya’s husband Mark. They wanted Altair and Tanya to stop immediately which they did but the natural consequences of this unexpected skill was the desire to experiment. So consciously and unconsciously in dreams the telepathy between the two of them unfolded and it led to a great rift between Altair and Priya. 

  Tanya had a friend called Kathleen. Kathleen had a friend called Nigel. Nigel and his wife Pauline ran a small school that Priya and Altair’s children went to. Nigel was the cause of the second great rift between Altair and Priya. Priya was sexually abused by her father. In fact her father had sexually abused all his daughters. Priya and her sisters suffered a great deal in their early years, vulnerable young years when a soul is still gaining knowledge about what is right and wrong or light and dark. Without proper guidance it was easy to fall into addiction to food or alcohol or sex as a way of trying to find answers to the Love that was missing. When Priya was feeling lonely she turned to Nigel. Nigel was a Tibetan Buddhist with a number of consorts or partners and he was looking to extend that harem to include Priya. Priya’s insecurities about Tanya’s relationship with Altair led her to confide in Nigel, who then took advantage of her vulnerability and her past and entered into a sexual relationship with her at the same time as he was in a relationship with both Kathleen and Pauline. 

  One night Altair was talking to Priya while she was taking a bath. The children were fast asleep. He looked into her eyes and he knew. They had been too close and the love that sparkles can also burn. 

  “Are you having a relationship with him?”

  Priya paused a long time. 

  “Are you having a sexual relationship with him?”

  Tears filled Altair’s eyes and then Priya knew that he knew. 

  “Yes,” she said simply with typical elfin defiance. 

  Altair’s spirit was crushed in that instant and his heart broke in two. An anger, a fierce burning smouldering anger emerged from the ashes of his broken heart. 

  “I’ll kill him. I’m going to take my sword and kill him.”

  Priya was horrified. 

  “No,” she said as she rose out of the bath. “No!”

  Altair had no intention of killing anyone but he recognized the past life of a Samurai soldier where he and Greg had faced off over love before. 

  Altair stormed out of the house, ran down the road and emitted the most horrendous flood of expletives over the phone to his poor mother. When he had calmed down he wept uncontrollably. His mother was silent a long while. 

  “Why don’t you come home for a while.”

  Altair thought about this for a long time. 

  “No, I need to sort this out with her. For the children’s sake.”

  Altair was trembling badly when he returned. His nervous system had taken such a shock. It might have been the delayed reaction to Priya’s confession or it might have been finding himself in a totally new reality from the one he had thought he was in just an hour or two ago. He knew this was part of his journey across the bridge between worlds because wherever there was light there was also darkness. And both had to be understood in the path of love and wisdom. Knowing that did not make things any easier however.

  “I want to see other men. I want to have freedom to explore,” said Priya a few days later.

  Altair felt helpless. His childhood, so filled with hope and trust and beautiful nurturing was now crashing down all around him and he was alone.

  “I’ll move out,” said Altair.

  “I’m not asking you to do that,” said Priya. “The children want to see you.”

  “I’ll move into the cave.”

  “Up to you.”

  The cave was the garden shed. In order to be near to the children Altair decided on an impulse to convert the shed in their back yard, which usually held gardening tools and which he had nicknamed the cave as it was so dark, into a meditation cave. He pulled out the tools and hung Thangka of the Buddha and the scroll of Saraswati and made an altar with the Masters of Krishna and Babaji’s line. And he always carried a little statue of Mary and baby Jesus which reminded him that no matter how much suffering he was going through, someone was going through more.

  Tanya helped him a great deal in that terrible time. They both decided to drop all connections of a mystical and telepathic nature which included meditation group gatherings to give Altair a chance to heal.

  “So what do you want to do?” asked Tanya one Sunday afternoon.

  “I feel so broken,” said Altair. “I need to heal. The only thing I can think of is helping others.”

  “I’m manager for all the intellectually disabled groups here in the Deep South,” said Tanya. “If there is anything you can think of that could help them, then I can arrange it.”

  “You know me well,” said Altair managing a small smile. “If there is any way you could use my yoga and meditation experience or performing arts…”

  “Didn’t you do an OT job once?” said Tanya.

  It was true. Some years before Altair went out with a doctor, Maggie. She was in charge of a large hospital wing and their OT, occupational therapist, had a sudden family emergency and took three months off. As Altair was there and he had a counseling degree they employed him to fill in, doing everything from art to yoga to tai chi and meditation. Altair had lots of close run ins with patients as he worked in the psychiatric ward. One day a patient named Bill knocked the orderly clean out. He then stalked other doctors and nurses who were all too afraid of him to go near. Altair had just arrived, didn’t know this had all just happened and came around the corner to be picked up by Bill, who was a mammoth of a man.

  “I’m gonna kill ya!” said Bill.

  Altair wasn’t frightened but he also couldn’t breathe, caught in a behemoth’s bear hug.

  “Scared?”

  Because he couldn’t speak or resist and was feeling like his ribs were going to crack the only thing Altair could do was relax. He let all the life go out of his body and hung limp.

  Suddenly Bill dropped him.

  “Fooled ya!”

  He picked Altair up from a heap on the floor.

  “I wouldn’t ‘ave killed ya. I like ya.”

  And Bill turned around and walked away into the arms of the security guards who had arrived.

  Altair’s memories returned to Tanya.

  “I guess I could do that,” he said. “Set me up with a date and I’ll see what I can come up with.”

  So he relied on his OT experience and built a program with Tanya where he taught the residents of the houses under her direction everything from yoga to tai chi, massage to meditation, art and music. It was just as much therapy for him as for the residents.

  Altair remembered a profound moment in those six months where something began to switch back on for him.

  He was doing a meditation exercise with one of the groups and all was very silent. There was a deep still presence and everything was in harmony. Suddenly Colin, one of the residents opened his eyes wide in awareness and alarm.

  “Here!” he said, pointing to his head again and again. “Listen! I can hear my brain clicking!”

  

  The cave was a difficult place. Every night after Altair went home he would play with the children, kiss them good night and head out to the cave. If Priya went out he would stay in the house, only to disappear into the cave when he heard her car pull into the garage.

  “What’s it like,” asked Tanya one day at one of the resident’s houses, “living in a cave?”

  “For the first few months it was terrible,” confessed Altair. “I had this image from a wee boy of Horton the elephant sitting on Maisie’s egg, and I figured if I could sit long enough with the pain, that one day it would hatch into something different, like a rebirth. Nice idea, but life isn’t always like that.

  In those months I would go into the cave, and I’d try to sit and I’d sit, in desperate hope like Horton, but most of the time my heart would hammer and I couldn’t breathe and I’d have to get up and walk around in the garden and look at the stars until the feelings subsided. It was such a dark time!”

  “You should have told me. You could have gone out or done something with Mark and me.”

  “I was too low, too ashamed to show my head in public. I felt people were silently laughing at me and my situation. I’d lost my marriage, my kids, my job…”

  Altair hung his head.

  “Your job? I didn’t know that.”

  “Yep. The Board of Directors decided I was too vulnerable down here so they transferred me up North. Brought a new director in. Didn’t give me an option of staying. So I resigned.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I’m thinking of starting another company with some friends. When I heal. Not until then.”

  Altair had been putting on a brave face by not letting Tanya see just how low he’d  been, how much fear he’d had to face. He’d always talked about mastering fear and being in love, and here he was unable to simply be and forgive and nurture himself.

  He decided to let his guard down a little more.

  “Sometimes I have the most crazy thoughts,” he told her. “I just want to go and cut his head off. I guess it’s a habit I have from those 16th century Raj days.” He let out a small smile. “It kind of feels good to have those thoughts, to know I’m not going to act on them, but to let out a little wickedness, a little of my wild side.”

  “How do you deal with it?” asked Tanya. “All those pent up feelings. It can’t be good for you to lock them all away.”

  “You’re right,” said Altair. “The main thing is not to do harm to any other human being, no matter how strongly you feel or how angry you are at them.  So when I feel like that I take myself away, high up into the mountains and forests for a day or two. Into the wilderness by myself. The first time I did it I felt such madness overtake me that I found a huge log and pounded enormous rocks for hours until I was exhausted. Then I cried and cried for just as long a time until I was all spent. It was perhaps the most healing thing I have done for myself. Self-compassion. Taking the time to be alone and get in touch with where my heart was truly at. To be totally present with those feelings, no matter how awful I thought they were.”

  Tears filled Altair’s eyes. 

  “And slowly they changed, and I made friends with them, this terrible rage, this crippling anger, this enormous pain that I had carried around like a weight.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “They were my own personal demons, they were the parts of me I feared the most.”

  Tanya gave him a hug.

  “It’s much better when you share.”

  “You’re right, that’s exactly what my Mum says.”

  And both of their eyes filled with tears at the same time.

SARNATH

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Chapter 7 – On the Road to Sarnath

  “Have you travelled the road to Sarnath?”

  “Once only,” said Henry after lunch one day. “I took a cab but you can walk it. It’s about ten kilometers.”

  “That’s where the Buddha taught the Dharma after being enlightened isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Buddha traveled to Sarnath himself to teach and establish the Sangha, as he had seen that the five enlightened ones he was supposed to form the community with would be there.”

  “So it’s not too far.”

  “Not at all. If you leave early in the morning, at sunrise, you can spend all day there and be back by nightfall.”

  “I know I have to go tomorrow. I don’t know why, I just have to go. There is something important that will happen if I do.”

  “Ah, many mysterious things happen on the road to Sarnath,” said Henry with a twinkle in his eye. 

  

  Altair started his journey on the road to Sarnath with a feeling of jubilant exhilaration. Something in the hidden wisdom of Sarnath was about to speak to him and break free.

  Babaji had said it “You will write about the unity between the Christ, Krishna and the Buddha. That inspired sons and daughters of God speak with the same truth.”

  Just how true this was, was about to strike a light in his heart.

  The houses and markets on the roadway were filled with people looking to buy and sell and talk and listen even at this early hour when it was not too dusty and there was not so much traffic. There were the usual peddlers and beggars and cycle rickshaws trying to get him to ride with them but Altair brushed past them all as if they were cobwebs.

  He stopped to buy a mango lassi and talked to some of the locals about Sarnath. After he had been walking for about half an hour Altair found himself moving smoothly along one of the streets flanked by two men. He had no idea where they had come from or why they were there but he felt perfectly safe as if he was with his family. His vision began to blur and the crowds around them seemed to dissipate like a mirage fading. The sky overhead was clear blue but the air seemed to tremble. 

  “Where are you going?” said Altair to break the ice. One man was wearing an ochre robe and had deep-set blue eyes and curly black hair. He seemed to emit a golden hue. The other man was silent but gave off the same glimmering golden aura. Both men moved with dignity and grace and greeted those around them with love and respect.

  “To Sarnath. To meet the five who left me earlier,” said the blue-eyed man.

  “How did you get here?” asked Altair, puzzled as to how the men had snuck up on him unawares.

  “We crossed the Ganges in one step, and entered Benares early this morning, made our alms round, bathed, ate our meal and left by the east gate of the city in time to meet you, walking towards Rishipatana Mrigadava, the rishi’s deer park, like all Buddhas.”

  “Like all Buddhas…” Altair’s voice trailed away in stunned realization. Right ahead of them was a herd of deer grazing. He felt he must be dreaming. He was with the Buddha!

 “Is this Sarnath already?”

   “It is, but not as you know it,” said the Buddha.

   “Are they monks?” asked Altair pointing at the gathering crowds. There seemed to be thousands of people massing on what were now surrounding villages and farms. 

   “They will be,” said the other man. “Monks and nuns, dakinis and bodhisattvas, Altair, just like me. Manjushri.”

    Then five men approached them.

  “Here he comes, that lazy good-for-nothing Siddhartha. Such a quitter! Why would we want anything to do with him?” They spoke directly to Siddhartha and seemed not to see Altair or Manjushri. “Just ignore him, he’ll soon get the message.”

  The Buddha took a step forward to meet the men and something changed. They all seemed to become more erect, more noble and alert, as if he deserved their respect.

They made a place for him on the grass, smoothing some patches, took his robe, brought him water and knelt at his feet.

  “Welcome Siddhartha to Rishipatana Mrigadava, the Rishi’s deer park, we are honored that you returned to join us here.”

  “I thank you for your welcome my five monks, but I am no longer Siddhartha. That is no longer my name.”

  “What Name should we call you by?”

  “The whole world is asleep in ignorance and when we discover the truth we are no longer asleep. We are awake. Awakened Ones are called Buddha.”

  Slowly the scene faded as Altair gazed upon the Buddha, standing in front of him, with great love and respect.

  “O Buddha, teach us what you have learned so that we too may awaken.”

  “What do you want to do with your life?” asked the Buddha. 

  “Free all beings from pain and suffering,” said Altair. 

The Buddha looked at Altair calmly. “Then your wish will be fulfilled.”

The earth trembled and Light radiated from the Buddha’s body illuminating the three thousand worlds as they were made visible to Altair. 

He put out his hand and placed it gently on Altair’s chest, just above the heart.

Altair’s body became immovable, as if was rooted to the road to Sarnath. He suddenly felt more alive than he ever had before.

  And he drew no breath at all.

  He felt the people moving past him on the street, saw the hand that was placed on his heart extend out to touch the hearts of five more hearts and then they reached out to touch five more. The blood that flowed through those hearts was like an inward flow of nectar, a never ending stream. 

  Suddenly Altair’s breath returned. The Buddha and Manjushri were standing motionless in front of him. Altair reached out his hands and placed them in theirs.

  “I am from Vimala,” said Manjushri, “and I can also grant you a wish.”

  “I want to learn how to be the embodiment of prajna or transcendent wisdom.”

  “Then I can grant you Universal Sight, and the first Sign will be when you are given a real Chintamani Stone, a Pearl of Light, manifested from the Heart of Guan Yin. You have been an acolyte of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara Guan Yin, which is why you are attracted to the teachings of the Dalai Lama, whom you died defending in 1959. The second Sign will be when you have a direct experience of the Pure Light of Being through the Kalachakra Tantra with the Dalai Lama. The third Sign will be when you manifest the Rainbow Body, a body of pure light.”

  “Like Long Nu.”

  “Yes, you were a naga too, a dragon’s daughter, just like her. When it is time, you will also offer the Pearl back to the Buddha, which will symbolize surrendering your life and ego to All, and He will accept it.”

  The Buddha looked at Altair directly.

“Here at Sarnath I turned twelve wheels of Dharma …

Keep in mind this most beautiful wood,
named by the great rishi,
where ninety-one thousand kotis of Buddhas
formerly turned the Wheel.
This place is matchless, perfectly calm,
contemplating, always frequented by deer.
In this most beautiful of parks,
whose name was given by the rishi,
I will turn the holy Wheel.

Where two or three are gathered in My Name, there I AM”

  Altair travelled south towards Bihar before he stopped at Yogananda’s foundational ashram and school for Kriya Yoga. While he was waiting he heard two monks arguing. They were having a disagreement about administrative matters and how many foreigners they should allow to stay at the ashram. Altair suddenly felt very lonely. It was near Christmas and he missed his mother Mary. He walked down the dusty street towards a hotel one of the nuns had recommended. 

  “$1 for your shoes,” said a voice. 

  He turned to see an old man, a beggar, holding out an Indian 1 rupee note. 

  “No thank you,” said Altair. 

  “I can take you to see Sadhu.”

  Altair had heard some of the miraculous stories of these holy men. 

  He nodded. 

  The old man held out dirty fingers expecting something in return. 

  Altair dug into his pocket and pulled out a wrinkled fifty rupee note. 

  The old man grinned a toothless grin before gesturing for Altair to follow him down a narrow side road. 

  Altair walked a long way through the countryside. His pack was not that heavy but he wished he had dropped it off at the hotel first and he hadn’t made a booking yet. The sun was still some way off from setting but Altair was calculating how long it would take him to get back when they turned a tight curve in the road and arrived at a grassy knoll with a large round rock at its base. In front of it was an old man painted in grey and yellow with a large red bindu on his forehead and a white loincloth. Other than that he seemed to have no possessions. 

  The toothless man left them at that point. Altair had no idea how he was going to return or whether they had some agreement once they had finished so he sat down at the Sadhu’s feet and bowed. 

 “What do you want to see? You ask and I will do it. I can lift this rock with my mind.”

  The Sadhu closed his eyes momentarily and to Altair’s utter amazement the rock in front of them which was the size of a small man shifted upwards from the earth a few degrees. 

  Altair opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. 

  The Sadhu opened his eyes when there was no sound in response and he gazed directly at Altair. 

  “What do you want?”

  Altair still didn’t speak. 

  “Ah you are a seer.”

  “I am walking the path of magic and the stars,” said Altair. 

  “Yes, a seer,” said the Sadhu. “What do you seek?”

  “To help free those that are bound, to help those that are suffering to find peace.”

  “Ah then you are a Buddha too,” said the Sadhu. “And you love Krishna.”

  “What do you want?” said Altair. 

  “Nothing I don’t already have,” said the Sadhu waving his hand around at the hills and countryside surrounding them. “What can you tell me?”

  Something moved inside Altair like a compass finding its home. His mind began to settle. His body became the Sadhu’s body and the 7 interior stars or chakras lit up like flowers in flames and then danced like planets orbiting a central sun, the heart. Altair watched the inner universe unfold, his breathing reaching a calm rhythm, content to know the universal dance would reveal something soon. Then he saw it, like a twinkle in his mind’s eye.

  “You are a fierce man, dynamic, thirsty for life’s experiences, I see you yoking horses, strong beautiful horses. You are very headstrong. You are quite playful and childlike and honor Shiva daily. You are deeply connected to Surya the Sun. You used to be a divine mystical doctor before you became a sadhu. You have the power and shakti to quickly heal. You are a physician of the gods. You bring youth to the old and life to the dead. You raised the rock by harnessing the forces of prana, the life force. You are here alone because you are stubborn and also because you had a disappointment in life earlier on in marriage. However you have been able to let all that go now. So there is content.”

  “And…”

  “What?”

  “There is a ghost.” Altair hesitated.

  “There are many ghosts in these parts.”

  The hesitancy dissipated with the sun. The sun was so low Altair realized it would soon be dark. He did not want to walk back alone.

  “I have to go.”

  As if by magic his toothless guide reappeared grinning widely and holding out an empty palm. Altair reached into his pocket and pulled out another fifty rupee note. He turned to the Sadhu.

  “Thank you.”

  “It is I who must thank you. What you told me…”

  “I do have one question for you. How did you move the rock?”

  “The same way you move the stars,” said the Sadhu.

  “Practice.”

  Altair was sitting out on the terrace of what was called ‘The Royal Terrace’ in the City of the Octagon in the far south of the Land of the Long White Cloud, his homeland. He had finished his tour of Asia and Oceania and seen and worked at some of the best schools that area of the world had to offer, from Krishnamurti to Gandhi, Yogananda to Rabindranath Tagore, Tibetan Buddhist to Siddha Yoga, Sri Aurobindo to Steiner and Montessori. He had decided as a result of his tour to train in the teaching of performing arts for children. He kept watching the sky and imagined distant stars whirling overhead in slow motion, his eyes tearing up with the patterns of light unfolding in his vision. Murray, a devotee of Ramana Maharshi was encouraging Altair to devote his life to Self Realization which he maintained was the best way to serve the world. Altair had a busy day lined up tomorrow, with two televised performances of ‘Aladdin’ as Aladdin, and then a televised performance for Dance Arts so he wanted to get to bed early, soon after dinner. Laurie was cooking, and she was singing, a habit most of Altair’s flatmates took to often. Cat and Bridget were musicians too so it was a very laid back musical type of gathering they always had together. It was not uncommon for Bridget to sing all the way through dinner, chomping on her organic veges in between singing about lost love or how nature was suffering under men’s hands. However as he headed back down the hallway to his bedroom there was no one else there apart from Laurie. 

  “Hi Laurie?” said Altair. “How’s Pamela?”

  “Good,” said Laurie, not raising her head up from the broccoli and mushroom dish that she was stirring as it steamed vigorously. “We’re going out to a movie tonight so I won’t be around for long.”

  “No worries,” said Altair. “I’ll clean up…”

  He turned into the hallway to see a bearded man dressed in black, wearing a tall black hat, a black cloak and a military uniform staring at him. 

  “Hey!” said Altair in shock. “What are you doing?”

  The man, who was well over six feet tall ran straight towards Altair’s room and through the door. 

  That’s funny, thought Altair trying to gather his thoughts, I’m sure I locked that door this morning. 

  “Hey Laurie, call the Police!” Altair shouted. “We’ve got an intruder!”

  Altair ran to his room, which was locked, and when he opened it he looked around and saw only the barred windows which would stop anyone from jumping through and onto the concrete two stories below. He ran out again and called back to Laurie on a hunch. 

  “Laurie call the landlord instead!”

  Laurie was watching him wide-eyed as he entered the kitchen and handed him the phone. 

  “Yes?” A deep male voice sounded on the other end. 

  “Hello, it’s Altair here from across the road in the Royal Terraces. Look, something strange happened today, I’ve just got home and as I was making my way down the hall to my bedroom I saw a tall man…”

  “About six feet tall or so dressed all in black?”

  “Six feet? Dressed in black?” Altair couldn’t believe what he was hearing. 

  “You should come right over. I’ve got something to show you.”

  Altair hurried over after telling Laurie he might be late for dinner. 

  “Have a seat,” said the Landlord once Altair had come in and followed him to the lounge. 

  “Have a look at this.”

  The Landlord flipped open an old photo album until he came to a well-worn page and pointed to a black and white photo. 

  “Is this the man?”

  And there he was, the tall bearded man in the black hat, dark eyes staring. Straight back at Altair. 

  Altair was stunned. “But…how?”

  “You are the third person in one hundred years to have seen him. Same fellow, tall, bearded, black hat, dressed in a military uniform with a cloak. He fought in a war all those years ago when medical technology was a lot rougher than it is now. They had to bring him back here, on a ship, after he was shot in the leg. They tried to amputate but he lost too much blood. In your very room. In those days it used to be a hospital and your room was a surgical operating room. So, sadly he didn’t survive. And must be very pissed about it because he is still hanging around all these years later. Not sure what you can do. Say a prayer. Maybe.”

   So Altair did. 

   And the ghost never bothered him again. Altair dealt with the ghost in the same way Jesus had taught him to deal with demons. 

  Very clear confident intention and surrender to the power of love and God to intervene and do whatever was necessary to free and liberate this soul. 

  “By the power of Christ begone.”

 And so it was. 

  Because with the power of love and faith anything can be accomplished. 

  Altair was witnessing the power of love and faith in the flow of life manifesting all around him. 

  “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

  This little passage from Matthew was such a treasure of wisdom Altair could scarcely believe it was not being taught at the highest levels of all business and education. 

  He could see how anything he truly believed and wished with deep pure intention was coming true. 

  His path of magic and the stars was even revealing itself through his friends. One night he was talking about love and friendship with his best friend BB and suddenly he disappeared into a star that appeared in her eye and she disappeared into his. They were both shocked and wondered how many other portals like this would appear when love was present. 

 Dreams and visions were not something out there and untouchable but were an intrinsic part of the fabric of reality. Along with imagination, dreams and visions were yogic siddhis or powers that with practice through meditation could become the foundations of our actions and Signs along our path. 

KETUMATI

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Chapter 6 – Ketumati

  Altair travelled overland alone from Nepal to India to visit the Krishnamurti School in Varanasi, or Benares. He sat one day in the late afternoon in the garden of Krishnamurti’s own house. The School had kindly put him up in the house, complete with his own servants, and he was chatting with Krishnamurti’s gardener Henry, who was an exceptionally wise man. 

  “Why do you think Babaji wanted me to meet Krishna?” said Altair although he hadn’t the faintest idea how this could possibly happen. 

  “Because of your knowledge of other worlds,” replied Henry. 

  Altair looked at Henry in surprise. “Other worlds? Like the billions of stars and planets out there with habitable life?”

  Henry laughed. “No not that. You will experience those worlds directly I’m sure. In your future, rather than mine. I am too old for space travel. Not the world of ghosts and spirits either. You will be able to contact those worlds too, in time, perhaps in your homeland. No, I mean the Pure Lands like Maitreya’s Ketumati where we are now, or Amitabha’s Sukhavati or Guan Yin’s Mount Potalaka. Masters, saints and Buddhas have known of these other worlds for thousands of years. Take Shambhala for instance. The Dalai Lama says in the Kalachakra Tantra that the Pure Land of Shambhala, which is ruled over by Maitreya, can only be visited by a worthy person. So I ask myself what a worthy person is, often. Pure Lands are not really part of this universe at all. They intertwine and are woven into the fabric of this world. People like you and Krishnamurti and others who practice the portal of deep constant presence can become aware of them. And aware of the Beings that inhabit them. The Beings we call Buddhas and Christs, Gods and Goddesses, they are in all our religions as well as our myths and legends and fairy tales for a reason.”

  Henry stood up for a moment and gestured around the garden.

  “Take Ketumati for instance.” 

  Altair blinked. He could have sworn he caught a glimpse of a completely different sort of garden, one like he first experienced as Palmo Shonu in the gardens of Zahor with Princess Mandarava. It was a garden glowing with energy, vibrant green, clear energy fields surrounding every flower, plant and tree, any point could be a portal that would transport a person’s awareness into other times or places. 

  “We are closer than close, closer than a heartbeat, worlds that are able to be known through stillness, silence and presence and letting go of the known,” said Henry. 

  Altair touched the grass. His hand disappeared, immersed in energy. 

“Yes, I see it too,” said Henry, “the power of presence and cosmic consciousness. We are truly made of the same stuff as the stars. So how have you come to this awareness Altair? What has helped you along the way?”

 “Firstly my dreams of Samye. That made me very curious about life and what came before and after even at the tender young age of three years old. Secondly, the visions of Zahor and many other places and Masters and guides. They made me aware of worlds beyond our own. The third was meditation, the doorway to Presence which is like the Garden of Eden here on Earth. Fourth would be action, when I was at Koya-san I decided to follow my dreams, however that turned out. Fifth and last is Kriya. My connection with Babaji through Yogananda elevated me to great heights of awareness, like climbing Mt Kailash.”

 “When you breathe in such an active and sacred way as in Kriya Yoga, you actually charge the particles of your inner consciousness, a cosmos of your own creation existing within the astral spine and make the matter of this world very thin, so the portals of the chakras become much more accessible and easier to use and allow you to move between worlds for whatever your destiny and mission is. Great Masters have always known this.

  That is why many institutions fear it. That is why the ignorant imprison us by feeding us limited thoughts and fueling our material desires.”

 “Why?” said Altair. 

 “Think of the possibilities, if we realized just how powerful we were. It would revolutionize churches, temples and governments, schools and businesses. If we realized there was a way to bridge this world and all others. If we knew the power of love language and communication with presence.”

“The key is intention,” said Altair. “We only have to think it and use the power of divine imagination.”

“Yes,” said Henry. “It is in the interests of those who inspire fear and ignorance and limited thought to keep the rest of us thinking the only reality is what we see through our senses. The power that would be unleashed worldwide is beyond anything we can imagine now if we were all to be free. It is about the collective, unity. We are not supposed to do it alone. It is about going home together.”

“So those that want to keep the wealth and power have a vested interest in keeping us imprisoned in our limited thinking?”

“Yes, those who have the most fear are holding on tight to what they have, which is in actuality very little.”

“And the Masters want to open this bridge across forever?” 

“Even the Masters have different perspectives on opening portals. If they open it too soon, before most people have developed awareness, they could create an imbalance in the light and dark forces at play.”

 “What about nature, snakes, dolphins, hummingbirds?” said Altair with a smile.

  The Krishnamurti Foundation was located on a native wildlife reserve in Varanasi. Though there were no dolphins or hummingbirds there were snakes and eagles. 

 Henry smiled. “Those may well serve you in time. They are unconcerned with our problems. In fact we have upset their natural balance more than in any other time in history.”

 “How do I connect with them?”

 “The same way you are connecting to the Masters. Make a clear intention. Quiet the mind, still the heart, open up to limitless possibilities and surrender.”

  “When will it happen?”

  “Don’t be so impatient! Everything has its own time.”

  At that very moment an eagle soared overhead and swooped down low as if feasting its eyes on the garden below. 

  “You see,” said Henry. “They are listening. Give it time. I imagine there are many surprises in store for you.” 

  In the wake of the eagle’s path a sudden brisk wind picked up, ruffling Altair’s hair. 

  Dark black storm clouds loomed swiftly over the horizon where there were none before. 

  “You’d best be getting inside,” said Henry. “There’s a storm brewing.”

  “I need to buy some yoghurt!” Altair said and stood up in a hurry. “Do you think I’ll have time?”

  “Maybe,” said Henry. “Better hurry!”  

  Altair dashed off down the path towards town. He passed by one of the fields where the boys were playing cricket. 

  “Six!” came a cry. 

  Altair turned seeking the source of the call when he received an enormous crack on the nose. He stumbled back, stunned, stars spinning in his vision. 

  A group of boys came running up. 

  “Sorry, Sir!”

  “That’s alright.” Altair was still dazed. “I…I’m from New Zealand. I used to play cricket at school too.”

  “Oh, Sir, do you know Richard Hadlee?”

  It wasn’t long before they were all best of friends. 

  It was Altair’s first day at the school as a teacher. He’d arrived at the office that morning knowing they were expecting him, to find himself sitting beside an auburn-haired woman looking rather pensive, who introduced herself as Angela. 

  “I’m off home today,” she said, “my father is ill and they can’t find a replacement. I don’t want to leave them in the lurch.”

  “What do you teach?” said Altair. 

  “English, drama and music.”

  “I have a background in Performing Arts,” said Altair. “I might be able to help.”

  And so he did, and half an hour later he was signing papers as a substitute teacher and getting Angela to show him around. The school put him up in Krishnamurti’s own house, complete with servants, which initially he felt most uncomfortable about until he discovered that it was their job and they were extremely proud of it having served generations of famous people including Krishnamurti before Altair. 

  So now as he headed into town just before the storm he thought back over the incredible sequence of events that had brought him here to the holy city of Varanasi. 

  After Nepal and Tibet he had stayed in New Delhi just to see the Taj Mahal. That was the comedy routine of his adventure so far. 

  “All aboard,” shouted the driver as they lined up for the bus in the dust and fumes of the early morning traffic outside the youth hostel. “We have to be back by 5pm. Evening curfew. Hurry up!”

  That was true. Delhi was in the midst of riots and soldiers with rifles patrolled the streets and roofs looking to shoot looters.

  They knew that to return after 5pm was to place their life in peril.

  Everywhere they looked was a mass of dangling power cables, narrow streets, cycle rickshaws, winding old lanes leading to spice markets and traffic traffic everywhere.

  Some of the stares they got were frankly unfriendly and for a woman more than that showing them places to avoid, especially after dark.

  Altair wore his hair long and had massive curls so from behind looked every bit like a young woman. One of those days in Delhi he had an older man with his wife saunter up beside him in the crowd and grope at his breasts. Altair felt terribly invaded and was so incensed he turned and punched the man hard in the nose. The fellow hurried away with his wife through the madding crowd.

  The bus lurched away from the hostel in a pall of smoke and careered down the highway knocking two cycle rickshaws off the road and into the ditch beside to the insults and waving fists of their drivers. The bus driver didn’t seem to care at all.

  The Taj Mahal is located in Agra so they had a little way to go, some five hours or so, and a number of palaces and scenic spots to see on the way.

  They came to the first stop, Agra Fort. The driver was very clear they didn’t have long as traffic had been heavy these first three hours. “We only have ten minutes so no photos,” he said.

  A young German couple started grumbling immediately.

  “We didn’t pay all this money for a ten minute tour. He can wait.”

  They took their bags and cameras and set off for a stroll.

  The rest of the group looked dubiously at the driver who seemed extremely nervous.

  Sure enough, ten minutes later, on the dot, he climbed up into the drivers cab and shouted “Time to go!” in the direction of the German couple who were the last to get back on. They were still atop the monumental Delhi Gate and waving buoyantly at the bus so when the driver put his foot on the gas pedal to resume his trip, minus the German couple, the tourists were all aghast, there was lots of shouting, and the Germans could still be heard yelling insults in German from the walls.

  To no avail.

  The driver would not turn back, regardless of threats and cajoling, and kept his head down for the rest of the trip to the Taj Mahal.

  They stopped at several other minor attractions, losing at least one passenger at each. 

   By the time they got to the Taj Mahal, they were a decimated group of tourists.

 “We must be hurrying!” continued the driver, scarcely pausing at this beautiful monument for long enough to take some decent pictures. “5 o’clock, 5 o’clock!”

 It was beginning to sound like the rant of a madman. By any reasonable calculations the bus should make it home just in time. 

 So off they went, at a giddy gait, swerving around this obstacle or that car or knocking an occasional rickshaw off the road when they wouldn’t shift for the driver. 

 After about 2 hours they arrived at a fairly nondescript hotel, small, dingy and rather unkept. The driver met with another man out front and they shook hands gleefully. He gestured at them all to come in. 

 “Tea stop, souvenirs,” yelled the driver, proudly clapping the new man on the shoulder as he introduced him. “This is my uncle. My uncle’s hotel,” he waved his hands  with aplomb as if this were the most scenic attraction they had yet feasted their eyes upon. 

 “We have time for a stop,” he said as if to assure the group of his intentions to take good care of them finally. 

 Then the driver and the uncle disappeared, no doubt to discuss commissions and sales and the group were left to the extremely tardy tea service of one older gentleman, the sole waiter, server and tea pourer. Almost one hour later, the longest stop they had made anywhere, and Altair decided to go on the warpath. He found the driver laughing out the back with a group of men, smoking and drinking chai. 

 “The time, the time!”

 The driver looked at his watch and immediately looked like he had been hit with a club. Fear filled his face and he sprung up like a jack in a box. 

 “Hurry up, hurry up!” He began yelling at the top of his voice. 

 They piled back into the bus. 

 “We must be taking a short cut,” said the driver. 

  He put his foot on the gas pedal and belted off at a gut wrenching pace, turning and scurrying down one winding narrow lane after another. 

  Soon he reached a long straight section which looked like it went on forever. 

  “Hold on!” he announced with more than a hint of trepidation in his voice. 

  The bus hurled past shops and doorways with barely a hair’s breadth separating them. 

It was clear this short cut was going to put everyone at death’s door if the driver had anything to do with it. 

  The next moment they saw looming up ahead of them a very low lying bridge under which they would not pass. 

  “Hold on!” commanded the demon driver. 

  So they did and the bus hit the bridge with an enormous crash and a sound like bullets firing out of a cylinder could be heard as packs and bags which were on the roof-rack shot backwards off the top of the bus with the roof-rack and upper connections following in a tangle on the ground. 

  “Sorry! Sorry!” was all the mad driver could repeat over and over. 

  Altair got out slowly in a daze with the other passengers. The bus was still running and they gathered up their possessions and placed them back on board. 

  The driver said very little bar the occasional sorry on his way back to the hostel. 

  Needless to say Altair and the remaining passengers arrived late, past the curfew, and had to clamber secretively on the emergency escape ladders at the back of the hotel and then clutch and scrape at windowsills bruising their shins and fingers and cracking nails as they forced their way into one of the back windows of the hostel in constant fear of their life in case they were mistaken for looters by one of the soldiers positioned on nearby roofs. 

  Perhaps never again would Altair take a bus tour in India. 

  So it was that Altair found himself not on a bus heading to Varanasi but on a train, firstly in the lowest class carriage which was basically the baggage train filled with cattle and chickens, bad smells and cow-shit, and old men chewing betel nuts, teeth stained reddish-black from years of chewing this addictive nut, which they spat out on the floor at his feet. After a couple of hours of olfactory torture Altair upgraded to second class which was just as crowded and had some people riding the roof. A few hours of this experience and he went to first class which meant he had a seat and finally for the last segment he allowed himself the luxury of AC or air conditioning and found himself in a cabin with 4 other men, all with the same birthday as him. September 7th. This birthday had led to a number of synchronistic events. On one bus trip in Nepal he found himself riding on the roof of a bus with three other travelers all with this same birthday. And when he started university, he was walking up the hill to Albert Park when an old woman on the other side of the road pointed at him and called out. 

 “Hey you!”  

 She made her way across the road to him. 

 “You were born the same day as Queen Elizabeth the First.”

 It wasn’t a question. 

 And she was right. 

 She proceeded to tell him many things about his life. How he would work with children in the arts, be a leader, travel to America and work as a healer. 

 So meetings with remarkable people in the most unlikely places never seemed out of place. 

 And so it was in Varanasi. 

 After signing up for the job Angela took him out on a boat on the Ganges for an hour just before lunch. 

The sun was high over the holy river, casting a steady glow, big and imposing in the sky. The air was filled with the aroma of sandalwood and jasmine flowers. Angela found a boatman who rowed them close to the shore, bathing them in the aftermath of the morning cremation rituals. That meant an arm that had not been burned properly by the cremation ghats floated by the boat. An occasional body too.

 “You may not be surprised to know that I heard you were coming,” said Angela. “I was hoping against hope that you would be able to fill my position. You know they are interested in you for other reasons. That is why they accepted you so easily. It’s usually much more difficult to get a job here. There are many volunteers waiting in line. The principal told me you would be here this morning.”

  Altair had a strange feeling the school, the Principal and Krishnamurti were all somehow tied into Babaji’s prophecy of him meeting Krishna. 

  And so it was that he found himself searching the nearby markets for some yoghurt he loved just before the storm set in. 

  The markets were lazy, colorful and chaotic. Old men, stray dogs and bodies close to death lay strewn across his path at every turn. Men with baskets heaped with herbs tried to sell their wares and shopkeepers tried to bargain with him. He quickly found the shop he was looking for and ordered a mango lassi while he was waiting. He listened to the chatter of the customers around him and thought of the vision Babaji and Henry had brought him. A bridge across forever that he could travel over and link other worlds and Pure Lands. He wanted to take all the women and children that were caught up in wars and strife far away from here, to set them free, with stars and magic…

  Sometime in the night he awoke to the sounds of thunder and pelting rain. The servant and his family were fast asleep and the house itself was eerily serene amidst the backdrop of the boom and bang of nature’s titanic forces clashing. 

  There was a soft knock at the door.

  Altair waited. The storm rattled on.

  The knock came softly again.

  No one was going to answer it. The servants were still asleep. They were in the middle of a storm.

  “Hello,” said Altair as softly as the knock. “Who’s there?” And he got up to open the door.

  Standing there in the wind and rain, without an umbrella, as dry as a bone, was a woman. She was dressed in the orange cloth of a sanyasi, a wandering holy person. She had blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and was holding an ancient scroll in her hands. Behind her, in all directions, lay a tumbling sea of water that fell in ever increasing streams, pausing only now and then to catch its breath before resuming its fury, like a constant waterfall pouring straight down.

  “May I come in?” Her voice was soothing, like a clear mountain stream.

  Altair was at a loss for words. He gestured for her to come in and noticed that her sandals left no wet mark on the floor even though she had somehow come through the storm to get here. Now he could see her clearly for the first time. She was very young, yet wore spectacles, wore no hood or rain gear and seemed not to notice nature’s spectacle which had been crashing all around her. She had a simple red bindu between her eyebrows. She stood in the entrance like a goddess. She reminded him of Krishna himself.

  “Altair?”

  Altair nodded.

  “I have been sent to bring you a message.”

  Altair could momentarily see through the veils and perceive the bridge across forever that Henry had spoken of, the unity linking all beliefs and faiths that Babaji had guided him to. He could feel the language of love breaking through to speak to his heart, and know of the timeless awareness that awakens when you are in the presence of divinity.

  The scroll had binding which the woman carefully unwrapped and then unrolled the parchment before handing it to Altair.

  “This is for you. Krishna bid me give it to you.”

  Altair took the scroll and held it at the top and bottom so that he could see it better.

  “This is Saraswati,” said the woman, in a sweet sing-song voice, pointing to the Goddess who sat playing a sitar surrounded by peacocks. “You have been devoted to Her many times over many lives.”

  “Babaji said you would come.”

  She nodded and pointed to another section of the scroll, in Sanskrit.

  “Chapter 12, the Bhagavad Gita. Bhagavad Shri Krishna spoke to Arjuna and said ‘Those who fix their minds on Me, who constantly glorify Me, and possess great faith, I consider them to be most perfect.’ That is the message from Lord Krishna to you.”

  She took the scroll from Altair, rolled it up, bound it and handed it back to him.

  “I think there are things I need to tell you,” she said. “Altair, you were a 16th century Raj in Northern India.”

  The Sanyasi’s voice was so sweet it lifted him above the storm.

  “You were married with three wives. You governed a small kingdom in what is now Rajasthan.”

  Altair felt his body drifting, lifting upwards, soaring into the heavens.

  “You worshipped Saraswati.”

  Just like Palmo Shonu with Princess Mandarava in Zahor, thought Altair.

  Below him the countryside splayed out like a balloon and ahead of him a magnificent palace was sitting in all its grandeur and splendor. He was part of it and it was all around him. Great forts with round towers rose up sprawling over hills and valley plains next to rivers. Temples, houses and markets were held within its walls.

  Altair saw people running in every direction, barricading doors and windows and then he found himself in the midst of a large group of men, brave, armed and ready for fighting, standing before the last of seven massive gates.

  Three women, dressed in beautiful saris stood at his side, all weeping. 

  The one closest to him, took his arm and spoke loudly and clearly to the throng. 

  “We are besieged sire, but should you got out to battle, and die, we will be lost without you, and surely we will not survive what is to follow.”

  Altair simply nodded. He felt heavy and realized he was wearing armor. One of the men was helping him get up on a horse. He was eating his last betel nut together with his troops. He donned his saffron robes which his first wife, the one that had spoken to the crowd, handed him.

  “The invading army outnumbers us ten to one,” said the man now in front of him brandishing a double edged scimitar. 

  Altair nodded again. He knew the warrior’s code. Compassion for defeated foes, generosity towards the helpless, fair play in battle, respect for women and conduct of warfare governed by elegant forms and ceremonies. His people loved him and he was renowned for his courage on the battlefield. He was part of a proud martial tradition and he had a passion for war. Everyone was waiting for his signal. 

  He, drew his sword, holding it aloft and cried out in a wild yell, and the gates opened on his command. The warriors on horseback circled and flew with him out the gates and onto the hills and down into the valleys, many were mounted and some were on foot. 

  They were met by a storm of shrieks and yells and blinding fury as the two armies collided. Horsemen, war elephants, soldiers with swords, lances, matchlocks and bows and arrows battled in the breach, many hurled into the air together, and many crushed by the falling debris caused by siege engines.

  War elephants, as many as three hundred, joined the onslaught. One of them trampled a man near him, rolled him up in his trunk and crushed him. The elephant then turned on Altair, smashed its trunk down on his horse’s back breaking it in two with a terrible crack and throwing Altair in the air. When Altair hit the ground he was stunned and dazed. The battle had carried him right near the center of the fighting as he struggled to his feet, now a short distance away from the invading king. The king came down from the small rise of a hill that he stood upon and faced Altair, the two men now barely meters apart. Altair was trembling like a mighty dynamo, not from fear but from grim determination. He was a warrior and to die in battle was just as honorable as to die for love. He touched his heart as he stood, thinking of his brave wives and the fate they might face if he was vanquished. Brandishing his sword he said to himself,

  “I fight for you my loves. I am a king and he is nothing.”

  The warriors around them continued fighting but formed a protective cordon from which no one could get in or out. The bodies piling up made a wall. Here they were, two futures, two destinies, one would continue while the other would fall.

  The air seemed to grow still and silent.

  Then with a roar and a shaking like two mountains clashing, the two warriors crashed into each other and fell aside, and Altair sprung up first and slashed at the other man’s neck which was his most vulnerable point.

  There was a clash of metal on metal as Altair’s thrust missed its mark but caught the man’s face and a scream split the air. The other king hurled himself in fury onto Altair pummeling him to the ground and the breath was squeezed out of him all at once by that crushing fall. Hands fixed themselves on his throat and hot bloody drops dripped down his helmet.

  Altair threw himself backwards with all his might and ripped downwards, tearing away those vicious hands and swinging the sword which had been underneath him out and across.

  He struck metal and then metal again as the two swords met and parried and thrust.

  Then they stood apart struggling to regain their breath.

  Both men were bleeding and both were panting heavily.

  Altair knew it was going badly for his men. He was their last hope and he would not fail them. He allowed himself the luxury of a single tear. His dear brave fearless wives were going to die if he did not find victory, through love and belief, in fearlessness and valor. He thought of how Krishna assured Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita that the proper thing to do was to fight on the battle field. He thought of his friend Mirabai and her love for Krishna which had inspired his devotion. And it was at this moment, which passed as swiftly as a blink of an eye, that he was lifted out of the battle. He remembered the words Mirabai had taught him,

“Be awake to the Name!

To be born in a human body is rare,

Don’t throw away the reward of your past good deeds.

Life passes in an instant— the leaf doesn’t go

back to the branch.

The ocean of rebirth sweeps up all beings hard,

Pulls them into its cold-running, fierce, implacable currents.

Giridhara, your name is the raft, the one safe-passage over.

Take me quickly.

All the awake ones travel with Mira, singing the name.

She says with them: Get up, stop sleeping—

the days of a life are short.”

  A great swirl lifted Altair up as he raised his sword, and then something pulled him up above all of this, and then a more powerful surge, like a power tearing him away from the battle field and the carnage and the sadness and the loss. Then Altair saw in the air beside him the Sanyasi standing calmly looking at him. 

  “You will meet your three wives again. They are very dear to you and will be always. You will know them by this. One will be a dancer, one a singer and one an actress. Though you will try to hold on to them you cannot. You can only ever free them by letting them go. You can try anything you wish, marriage, children, but the law of karma is very clear. Trust in the flow of life. Go well Altair. Go well my child.” 

  Then she was gone into the storm.

KAILASH

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Chapter 5 – Kailash

  When he returned to his room Altair thought about consulting the ephemeris for himself, but this had never served him well. It always triggered events but never in a way he could foresee. So it was now. Shanti’s fateful words were somehow deeply woven into the fabric of time as within a few minutes he received a call from the temple hostess to say he had a message to call the Chinese Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand. He wondered whether he should call back immediately and following a hunch he decided to wait and telephone his mother Mary a little later. Perhaps she already knew the results of the scholarship to China. 

  He lay on his bed pondering the fires that had ignited within him, the desire to travel across China and study the Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu and the now very new and burning desire, a yearning to travel to Tibet and India and learn from the Siddha Masters. He felt intensely human, as if the stillness of the Shingon Temple was calling to him, and that maybe the continual grind of an academic life was not as attractive as the flow of study with a Master such as Yogananda or the Dalai Lama. It wasn’t long before he fell asleep, dreaming of a monk crossing a very different bridge, a bridge across forever that connected worlds way beyond this one.  

  He awoke suddenly to the voice of his mother. He had no idea what time it was.

  “Altair is that you?”

  Speakerphone.

  “Mmm,” Altair was still half asleep.

  “Altair, the Chinese Embassy rang.”

  Mary hesitated.

  “You didn’t get the scholarship. They gave it to an American scholar already at Beijing University. Professor Ip herself rang to confirm. You were in second place. So if it falls through…”

  “Mum, I’m going to India…”

  “There’s one more thing. I’m so sorry about the scholarship.”

  “I’m not, because I’ve decided to go to…”

  “A telegram arrived this morning…”

  “India! I’m going to go to…”

  “Yes! From India, the telegram is from India! How did you know?”

  “What?”

  “Do you remember you asked to visit that Foundation, the Krishnamurti School in Varanasi?”

  “The Krishnamurti…?”

  Sleep was getting the better of him. Altair was sure he was hearing things, getting the messages all muddled up.

  “Yes, they’ve sent you an invitation.”

  There was a faint light now in the temple room that gave the whole episode more than an edge of mystery. Altair longed to be on the plane right now. India? An invitation? It all seemed too good to be true.

  He stood up and walked over to the speakerphone.

  “Mum, that’s great, that’s just great.”

  “I’m so happy for you darling.”

  “So am I. I’ll call you back later when I’m more awake.”

  Altair walked out into the corridor and headed towards the entrance to the temple. It was just before sunrise as he stepped out.

  He decided to go on the long walk to Okunoin, Kukai’s mausoleum and Japan’s largest cemetery. In the early morning mists it was the perfect place to clear his head. According to Shingon Buddhism belief there are no dead there, only waiting spirits. Kukai, also known as Kobo Daishi, came out of meditation there upon the arrival of Miroku or Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future in his visions.

  As he crossed the Ichi No Hashi Bridge, reaching the outskirts of the first headstones, it was like he was crossing a bridge between two worlds, as something strange was happening in the mists. He thought it was the early morning winds, moving and trembling but something else was stirring. Dizzying cedars dotted the graves, hiding the sky. The atmosphere was different, the air charged with the sacred.

  “Kukai!”

  A figure was forming in the mists, like a ghost. Altair’s surprise was so strong he had to check his feet, that they were still connected to the ground.

  The vision filled the forest. It began to spill out beyond the corners as if delicate fingers of light were searching and trembling for something. Kukai was holding a dragon blossom, coming into bloom, and the mists looked like the ocean rising, both signs of the future Buddha, Maitreya. Kukai was as transparent as fragile silk and shimmered like delicately disturbed water on a calm lake. Altair felt deeply moved. It was as profound as any dream or vision he had ever experienced. The beauty of the sacred, and its holiness touched his eyes with tears. As Altair watched, the vision became a portal, just like when he read someone’s astrology chart, and he was transported beyond the confines of the cemetery and the mountain he was standing upon, into another mountain range, one with its own mists and dreams and visions, as if he was looking across a vast natural vista and into another universe.

  Altair was gifted with a mystical vision of the future, seated on the top of Mt Kailash on an outspread mandala. Shiva and Parvati, turned to look at him, then blended into Saraswati and Brahma. The fusion was deep, immersed in the ecstatic bliss of creation. Then they in turn blended into the wisdom and knowledge of the Bodhisattva Manjushri and the Goddess Benzaiten Saraswati. The fierce sun, the soft snow, the blue skies, the mystic mists, made the journey of the Tibetan pilgrims circumambulating the mountain far below look even more arduous. In the light he saw himself, now at some period in the future, making his way up a mountain range with a group of people, traversing the Himalayas. 

  So Shanti was right after all.

  It was India, not China. 

  Something deeper had called Altair, perhaps the wild of the Himalayas.

  “Boarding for Kathmandu at Gate 22!” came the call over the loudspeakers at Bangkok Airport. Altair had been staying with a friend of his, Ting, at a monastery in Northern Thailand after flying out from Japan and Koya-san.

  “You should follow your dreams,” she said. 

  So he did.

  He decided to follow the dream of Tibet and Samye Monastery, by going overland through Nepal.

  He was ready to get underway to Nepal and had been itching to do so ever since landing in Thailand but he’d promised Ting a visit and it was a good opportunity to weigh up the paths ahead once he decided not to take up the scholarship in China. Some dreams weighed more heavily than others. Even in airport terminals.

  “Excuse me Sir?” It was a gentleman in fine clothes with gold trim, gold-rimmed sunglasses and a very tanned bald head. “Could you lend me a hand?”

  He turned around behind him to lift the largest teddy bear Altair had ever seen.

  “Do you have much check in luggage? I am wondering if I could bother you to take this?”

  Altair nodded dumbly. He seemed to remember somewhere his mother warning him about the Asian drugs trade and Bangkok being a kingpin in the drug triangle. 

  Naively he took the bear which was as large as he was and lifted it clumsily into the plane, to the wide-eyed glances of the hostesses.

  Soon they were skywards and heading towards Nepal. The flight and the landing were smooth and the tender bump on the runway filled Altair’s eyes with tears although he could have never said why. It was like he was coming home.

  He clambered off, hugging the bear and made his way to immigration, looking out for the bear’s owner. There was no sign.

  Altair felt anxious. He could have sworn the gentleman had got off the plane with him, though he didn’t see him sitting in economy class. 

  Suddenly there was a tug on his shirt.

  It was an officer in a military uniform.

  Altair’s heart skipped a beat.

  But his consternation was met with a smile.

  “This way Sir, please.”

  The officer opened a door he hadn’t noticed to the side of immigration.

  It was semi-dark, a long smooth corridor with no distinguishing features or signs.

  The next moment he emerged to a fanfare of trumpets and a crowd surging towards him as he marched with the bear down between a guard of honour, to join the bear’s owner and another man in a wheelchair with a bandage wrapped tightly around his head. 

  “Welcome to Nepal!” said the man with the gold-rimmed sunglasses. That bear belong’s to this man’s son.”

  “What happened to him?” whispered Altair.

  “This man is the King’s brother and I am his Secretary. He was shot and wounded in an assassination attempt a few months ago. We have just returned from America where he was taken for surgery. We are very grateful to you for helping us. We want to repay your kindness. Tell us anything you want or need in Nepal and we will make sure it is done.”

  And so it was that Altair was given a King’s Feast, a luxurious hotel, as well as a Royal Tour of Nepal and its surrounding schools and educational foundations which is how he thought this gift would serve his mission here on earth the best.

  “Namaste”

  A young woman seated with a small group of hikers greeted Altair in Pokhara. He was at the start of the Annapurna Circuit which snakes through lush rice paddy valleys, roaring rivers, Tibetan Buddhist villages, Hindu temples and unassailable arid Himalayan peaks. He had taken some crazy bus rides to get here after the tours of Nepalese schools, on overloaded buses with 20 seats and 40 people to pack in like sardines. He had ridden on the rooftops of buses along insanely dangerous ravines where the slightest mistake would have meant a fatal fall of several hundred meters to their death. He had even driven into Tibet with a truckload of Chinese soldiers which left him feeling completely ill at ease even though they had been very civil and shared their Chinese superfood biscuit rations with him.

  With his pack on his back and his heart beating with excitement, Altair was ready for the first ascent, which he was told would climb to giddy heights of several thousand meters and leave him breathless and with aching muscles especially around his kneecaps.

  So it was with a measure of relief that he met the woman’s smile and greeting.

  “Namaste”

  “Monica”

  “Altair”

  “Climbing alone?”

  Altair nodded.

  “Want to join us?”

  Altair smiled again. As simple as that and he was one of them. He soon discovered they were all ballet dancers from Belgium. Monica was the leader, and she had gathered her friends, Cecilia, Irene, Louise and Peter, to come on the hike with her. Together they made their way through lush hills and over swollen rivers, in and out of bamboo forests and traversing waterfalls. Sometimes they skipped across rocks and at other times the trail wove into and up hillsides, with giant blocks at some parts which went upwards for hours leaving them all with sore knees at each resting point. Each night they stayed at a different village along the trail in very basic tea house accommodation. Mattresses varied from very sparse to somewhat thicker, walls would often have cracks to encourage a view, showers ran from cold to very cold and toilets smelt bad or just plain intolerable. Food was usually Dahl, rice, lentils, potatoes and tea. As their bodies adjusted so did the path, from muddy tracks to dusty paths with valleys revealing the snowy mountain peaks from time to time.

  “Tashi Delek”

  In the light of one early morning high up in the Annapurna mountain range they were met by a young Tibetan monk smiling broadly and sipping tea. His saffron robes flapped in the breeze. 

  “You teach us?”

  Altair felt a chill up his back. He knew this young monk would help him connect to his dream as a child, that this boy would somehow link him to Samye. 

  “I…I’ll…” he had trouble getting his words out. 

  It was Monica, the lead dancer in the Belgian Ballet group who replied. 

  “We dance,” she said, “we love dancing!” And she turned and twirled and did a dainty pirouette right there on the spot. 

  The monk clapped in delight and called out something in Tibetan. Instantly doors opened all around the group and young monks and several nuns gaily skipped out to join them. 

  The monks were composed and free and wild all at once. Then Cecilia danced followed by Irene and Louise. The monks copied them all as Altair breakdanced and Peter showed them some jazz steps. It was a hilarious introduction. The young nuns pointed and giggled. 

  At the end they all bowed respectfully. 

  “We are happy to teach you our meditation,” said the monk with a smattering of English. “Here…”

  And he brought out some ancient texts all in Sanskrit that none of the group could read. 

  “This here,” he said. “Breathing.” He pointed to a diagram of a Yogi sitting. “Like this.” He began to demonstrate so Altair and the dancers all sat down together to practice. 

  The young monk, whose name was Jampa, which means loving kindness and is the Tibetan name for the Buddha Maitreya, took great pride in showing Altair sitting posture, breathing techniques and how to visualize the various deities. 

  “Inside or outside?” he said pointing to their rooms which were simple dwellings built of brick. 

  “We’d rather stay outside,” said Altair laughing as he watched a group of four monks mimicking Peter as they danced in unison across the courtyard. 

  “Not cold?”

  They shook their heads vigorously although it was rather brisk at this high altitude. 

  “You,” said Jampa pointing at Altair. “Who?”

  “Altair,” said Altair. “Shyam.”  

  The monk nodded, gesturing wide with his arms. “Space.”

  “Shyam. That’s right. It means space in Sanskrit.”

  “You monk.” He tapped his chest. It was more a statement than a question. 

  Altair hesitated not knowing whether to nod or shake his head so he decided to smile instead. The other monks had gathered around, listening as Jampa chatted in Tibetan, translating the staccato English conversation. 

  Altair stayed with them like this, exchanging culture and dance, meditation and mindfulness all day until the sun went down, when he headed to the tea houses with the group and the monks and nuns to their own lodgings.

  They were all well wrapped up and ready for the cold night air when they began drinking tea just before dinner.

  After a few sips Altair hesitated.

  “Anyone taste anything funny?”

  “It all tastes the same to me, awful,” said Monica grimacing.

  “Did anyone add their iodine tablets?” said Peter.

  “I did,” said Altair. 

  “Me too,” said Monica. 

  Irene, Louise, and Cecilia all shook their heads.

  “Boiled water?” Altair asked the owner of the tea house in Nepalese.

  The owner nodded.

  “Can we look?”

  He gestured towards the fire where there was a pot heating over logs.

  “It has to be properly boiled to be effective,” said Monica. “And if it isn’t…”

  “Then the water source could be the problem,” said Altair.

  “Can we see the water?” asked Altair. “Where it comes from?”

  The owner nodded and took a flashlight and walked with them outside the simple shelter to the water tank around the back. High up in the mountains some of the lodgings were infamous for polluted water supplies.

  Altair stood on tiptoes and looked over the edge of the water tank.

  What they saw made their stomachs churn. A dead rat, some other indescribable objects and bird shit, was floating in the water.

  “I’m going to be sick,” said Monica.

  Altair felt his stomach clench.

  “Let’s go back to the hotel.” 

  The hotel was little more than a wooden shell with some rooms.

  And it was to this wooden shell that they were all confined together for the next three days, much of it spent moaning or going to the toilet to throw up or emit watery substances from either end, much to the dismay of the other members of the group who were trying to keep everything down.

  Altair struggled up as often as he could to meditate and do yoga, which kept the food down rather than up, and he drank enormous quantities of purified water, much to the delight and then growing consternation of his ever-groaning stomach.

  It was in one of these long nights that he saw Babaji. He could never be quite sure which night it was as he was so sick but the message Babaji gave was clear and direct.

    Babaji looked straight at Altair with dark sparkling eyes. 

  His mere presence engulfed Altair in a wave of spiritual blessing. 

   Altair could not stand to bow at the feet of this angelic being so he let his heart kneel in front of Babaji in humility. 

  Babaji was young, just like in all the pictures Altair had seen of him. 

  Babaji had a power allowing direct telepathy between two souls so what Altair heard was like a stream of nectar flowing between two hearts. 

  “What do you think of the schools you have seen here?”

  “I am looking for so much more sir, the blending of yoga and science, of life and literature, of love and peace.”

  “Child,” the Master said, “the forces on earth are mixed, like sand and sugar, so be wise. Look for schools blessed by men and women of God-realization.”

  “Sir, the Western schools are filled with science and the Eastern with philosophy. One can benefit from the other.”

  “I know you are interested in the East and the West. That is why I am here.

  East and West must share the golden path of spirituality and activity. 

  Your dreams and visions can shake material reality when founded in yoga science and meditation and transformed through action.

   Altair, very soon Krishna will visit you, and help you understand your path in the West. There are many very young Yogis waiting to be awakened. You will know by the signs I send you, the Bhagavad Gita and the Goddess Saraswati. You will write about the unity between the Christ, Krishna and the Buddha. That inspired sons and daughters of God speak with the same truth.”

   “Babaji, how can I undertake such a task?”

   “Why do you doubt? Whose work is all this? Who is the doer behind all your actions? Who is the meditator and who dreams the dreams?”

   The vision was fading. Altair bowed humbly in farewell and Babaji smiled. 

   “I will visit you again.”

   The others were roused and looked up from their beds. 

 “I saw something,” said Monica. “A light. Did you have a visitor?”

   Altair laughed and told them the story of Babaji. Irene looked at Altair curiously. 

  “Does this sort of thing often happen to you?”

   “Only when I’m not expecting it,” Altair said with a smile. “I know I have to meditate more. Then I will be able to see the Great Masters hiding behind the sunlight.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” said Irene as they all laughed. 

KOYA-SAN

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Chapter 4 – Koya-san

 “Altair, come on,” said Mary. “Is everything packed?”  

 His mother always got nervous when Altair went away anywhere and this, being his first overseas trip, made her more nervous than normal. 

 Altair’s possessions were minimal. He had a credo which was to go from place to place with as little as possible. The last place he gave away everything he had except his guitar. So all he had to do was pick up his pack and he was ready. 

 Very Zen. 

 The first thing he was going to do when he landed in Japan was visit the Zen temple in Shikoku he had written to asking if he could be accepted for zazen training. 

  It took a long time to find it. The temple was nestled in the heart of a rural area, hidden from prying eyes by an ancient forest. The Master lived in the temple itself and sent a junior monk ahead to meet Altair at the train station. 

  The young monk served green tea while they were waiting and then knelt in seiza style. Presently the Master arrived, a squat, powerfully built man who looked at them both intensely and then knelt in seiza style for a long time opposite Altair before speaking.

  The junior monk translated as the Master spoke.

  “Stay as long as you like. Follow the rules.”

  He then stood, bowed and left.

  Altair was taken aback.

  He had been expecting a little more since he no idea exactly what “the rules” were.

  The young monk, whose name was Atsushi, explained.

  “Whenever you sit, sit intently. Keep your mind here now. That is Zen.”

  Altair nodded. He had studied Zen at university.

  “You start tomorrow. 6am start. 7:15 breakfast. Then continue. If your mind is distracted the Master will hit you with a stick.”

  “Hit me? How hard?”

  Atsushi laughed. “Hard enough to wake you up.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “One year.”

  “How many times did you get hit in the beginning?”

  “Many.”

  “How about now?”

  “Less than many.”

  “I see. Is there anything else I should know?”

  “Stay fresh. Live freely. Like a cloud floating in the sky.”

  “A cloud.”

  “Every encounter is precious. Cherish them. There are no shortcuts.”

  “I am on a path of stars and magic. Is there any more you can tell me about them?”

  The young monk looked closely at Altair for a moment.

  “Cherish them too.” He smiled, stood up, bowed like the Master and gestured for Altair to follow.

  Altair sipped his tea a few minutes later alone in his room. There was little to distinguish it, tatami floor, rice paper walls with little decoration, a rolled up futon at one end and the small table he was sitting beside.

  Altair had so many thoughts flooding his head. There were all kinds of things going on beneath his mind such as the vision that had led him here in the first place. It had manifested in his first year of Chinese Philosophy at University and it changed his path forever.

  He was sitting in a lecture studying Zen with Dr. Ip and gazing out the blinds at the sun dappling on the venetians.

  Suddenly he was transported, to an ancient time and past.

  He was on the slopes of TianTai Shan mountain with Master Huang Po. They were on a journey to the summit of the mountain and had stopped beside a waterfall and stream, a sign post on their spiritual pilgrimage.

  The Temple was gloriously surrounded by waterfalls, one of them the Flying Waterfall. The stone bridge that stretched across it, in some places only 10 inches across, was their meditation walk. The Temple sat sprawling over the rocks at the top of the waterfall.

  The Master said to him, “All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. The Mind is without beginning and end, is unborn and indestructible. Sentient beings are attached to form and so seek externally for the Buddha. By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to seek for the Buddha. Stop all your conceptual thought, cease all worrying and the Buddha will appear before you.”

  Then the vision vanished and Altair was staring at the blinds and sun peeking through. Dr. Ip was speaking to him, calling his name.

  “Sorry Dr. Ip,” said Altair. “I was transported.” He began to describe exactly what he had seen.

  “TienTai Shan, the mountain,” said Dr. Ip. “That is what you saw. Fangguang Temple and the Shiliang Flying Waterfall. Have you been there?”

  Altair shook his head.

  “Then you must go,” she said. “It’s quite likely you were a student of Huang Po’s. You have such a versatility with Zen. Have you ever thought about a scholarship in China to study Chinese philosophy? I can nominate you!”

  And so she did. With Japan the first port of call on the path between magic and the stars to explore Zen, this particular temple was dedicated to the Goddess Kannon-Guan Yin, and was one of a pilgrimage of 88 temples in Shikoku. It was a special recommendation of the Professor’s.

  After 3 days at the temple sitting staring into a wall for 8 hours a day and getting hit with a Keisaku or awakening stick every time his awareness faltered, Altair had a dream. In the dream he was led by a man chanting a mantra over and over into the forests and mountains of Shikoku. He asked to talk to the Master.

  “I wondered why you were sent to us,” said the Master. “I know of your vision of TianTai.” Atsushi smiled at this. Altair had mentioned it to him after breakfast one morning as most of their day was spent in silence. “Now I know. I am merely to be a messenger for you. Take this contact. It is a Master in Koya-san, a Shingon Buddhist monastery and temple complex in Wakayama. I have contacted him already. The man in your dream was Kukai, founder of the Koya-san community. Your path continues there. You will leave tonight and arrive tomorrow morning at first light. I have arranged for rooms to be ready on your arrival. There is a retreat this weekend which you will attend.”

  Altair thanked him profusely and bowed low. The Master returned the bow.

  “Two things,” said the Master. “Firstly, Kukai will help you on your path towards magic. Things are not always what they seem. Secondly, Koya-san will help you understand the stars a little better. We are all made of the stuff of stars. When the mind is still and silent the stuff of the stars, light, can be directly realized. This is enlightenment, bright and spotless as the void, having no appearance or form whatsoever. Awaken to the One Mind and there is no enlightenment to be attained. It is within you already. The stuff of the stars, the cosmos, the One Mind, Buddha, has never ever been anywhere else.”

  

    Arriving at the train station at Koya-san there was a different smell in the air, as if the spirits were wild and free here, and the mists filled with mysteries of the mountain. Altair stared around him for signs of life, the town and streets bare at this early hour. Directly ahead lay the mountain, with the little town below it. Wooden houses with ornate tiled roofs, a temple bell ringing out for prayers, and a solitary crow cawing in response. The smell of incense was mixed in with the early morning food smells from a concealed alley as well as cedar and pine and something else, cold and wild. The blanket of secrets that was the mystical Kōya-san. Altair followed the directions on the map he’d been given, while making his way up the mountain to the temple lodgings which catered for foreigners. Squirrels darted in and out of the trees, showing impish faces before dashing off to gather more acorns. There was little wind in the mists, which was fortunate as it was bitterly cold, and every step seemed to make Altair’s clothing thinner until his body started shivering.

  On the path the wind was calm as Altair moved up towards the Danjo Garan temple complex which marked the heart of the Mt. Koya settlement. He knew that secret Shingon Buddhist training had been taking place here for hundreds of years. He began to feel unsteady from the lack of rest as he had been on the go since yesterday. He stopped at a bend in the pathway beside a bamboo grove and settled back on his haunches for a breather. All the sounds died away completely and there was an ominous silence and then suddenly there were voices rumbling, shouts, rocks were thrown and a hand was pulling at his own.

“Come on, Ah-chan!” 

  He hesitated, scrambling for his pack, which he now could not locate anywhere.

  “It’s me, Ren!” The voice was more urgent now. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  A young Japanese woman, about the same age as him, was glaring at him with impatience.

  Altair didn’t try to argue as a crude missile whizzed past his head and embedded itself in one of the walls at his back. He was squatting at some sort of intersection around which a crowd was gathering and throwing insults at each other as well as anything they could lay their hands on. 

  Altair ran as fast as his legs would carry him in the direction the girl was tugging. She didn’t so much as glance behind and ran with a sure, practiced gait he could easily match. 

  They wove through a number of alleys and backstreets until they came to a wide open place where a temple was under construction. There were six other lodgings surrounding it which by the looks of the numbers of people gathered outside must have catered for visiting pilgrims. In the middle of it all stood a monk in robes with a beaming smile, intense benevolent eyes and an aura of calm. As he watched the building’s progress he was chanting under his breath and referring to a map he held in his hands as he gesticulated this way and that like a conductor. 

  “Gyoki-san, sorry we are late. We ran into trouble,” said Ren. 

  “So I heard,” said Gyoki. “The government has not taken kindly to our extending a helping hand to the poor. They see us as a threat to stability. Taking from the rich to give to the poor. They are persecuting us whenever they can find us alone. That rock throwing welcoming committee was organized by none other than the Kansai Office of Priestly Affairs who see me as a renegade and a rebel. My only goal is to teach people about Buddhism while building temples like this that function as community centers. From here we can provide irrigation to the surrounding fields.”

  “But won’t they attack us here?”

  “Ah-chan, it is far too public and the poor farmers would rise up in revolt. They don’t want that. They hope to unsettle us and pick us off one by one, exposing our weaknesses, uncertainties and vulnerabilities and making us look foolish in the eyes of the local people. Luckily I have devoted followers like you and Ren to help me.”

  “It is the Bodhisattva work,” said Ren with a contented sigh. “It is what drew me to you from the beginning.”

  “Meeting all sentient beings in streets and intersections. Teaching and transforming all regardless of means or philosophy.”

  “Magic and the stars,” said Altair. 

  Ren glared at him. 

  “We are endowed with wonder working power and miraculous transformations,” said Gyoki, “so in that sense you are right. It is like magic to the common people. You are both learned in song, dance, music and narratives, the best way to reach the heart of these farmers. You enchant them to hope for more and reach for the stars.”

  Gyoki came across and took both Altair and Ren’s hands in his. Energy vibrated through Altair’s arms, into his heart and down his legs into the soles of his feet which tingled crazily as they connected with the earth. 

  “I have a surprise for you both. Kūkai-san will visit us here soon to pray for the farmers to be free from natural disasters and sickness. You will both meet him personally.”

  He looked at Altair with a twinkle in his eye.

  “To help the poor, the women and children of this world, you need to find magic in the simple things, songs and symbols, dance and stories, enchantments of the heart. Perhaps one day you two will meet again in this place in another life and learn how to bring this same magic in stories and song to the entire world.”

  Altair was speechless. Ren closed her eyes and stayed very still as if in deep prayer and then bowed very low. Altair followed suit. 

  When he raised his head his heart was thumping hard and a presence of great power, both beyond human and very deeply human, seemed to surround him in the mists. He was back at Koya-san, his pack on his back, his body pointing in the direction of the temple complex again, shivering as if to shake the earth with a coldness that was almost overpowering.

  It didn’t take Altair long to find his accommodation. The lodgings were in the east wing of the temple looking out over a valley and a forest. The woman who met him in the genkan or entryway was expecting him and was very polite. She showed him to his room which was extremely quiet and apart from those on retreat with him, who were mostly Japanese, Altair saw very few other foreigners. The retreat was conducted in total silence and at the end he was bursting to share with someone but his Japanese language ability was too limited. On the way back to his room he passed a woman in dark sunglasses with a shaved head. She claimed she was German but looked more Indian and introduced herself as Shanti. He wasn’t sure what to make of her as she looked at him intensely with bright sparkling eyes.

  “I understand you are a reader,” she said, to his great surprise as there was no way she could have known anything about him.

  “Yes,” said Altair hesitantly, “I love books…”

  “No, no,” she said with a laugh, “I meant a purveyor of the stars. A reader. A journeyer.”

  This surprised Altair even more.

  “I understand you see the stars like magic.”

  Altair had never thought of it that way, so he simply nodded.

  Suddenly he plucked up courage.

  “Would you like to see how I do it?”

  “I would like that very much.”

  They had reached his room and it seemed only natural to invite her in so he did. There were no chairs so she sat on the tatami mat. He shuffled inside his pack and pulled out an old manuscript which he placed in front of her. He made tea which he poured and then sat down with her like two conspirators over a treasure map.

  She didn’t look at the manuscript but merely said, “Ephemeris, and an old one at that.”

  “Yes,” said Altair, “Suzie, my friend, gave it to me before I left for Japan. I’ve been studying it.”

  “Do you know how to interpret it?”

  “Yes, well, er, no, I kind of just feel it, like energy patterns.”

  “Do you know anything about Vedic or Hindu astrology?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you will, and a lot, one day. You are a moon seer.”

  “How can you tell?” Altair was perplexed by Shanti.

  “We are made of the stuff of stars,” said Shanti. “We navigate by the stars and astrology was the original science devised by ancients in order to understand the structure and movement of the universe. Spiritual cultures like Egypt, Babylonia, India, China and Mexico were founded on the cornerstone of astrology. Even social systems derived from it as in the rule of sun and moon kings and queens. Our birth chart is a mirror of our soul and its particular incarnation. It gives us the keys to the inner unfoldment of spirit.”

  Shanti picked up the manuscript.

  “So how do you read the energy patterns without a book or teacher to help you?”

  “When I make my mind still by breathing in the central spine like Yogananda taught me then patterns become clear in my mind like a matrix. They look like energy grids, sparkling paths of the soul which appear like pictures connecting one to another in my mind.”

  “Could I ask you to read mine?”

  “What would you like to know?” asked Altair.

  “Ask what I am supposed to be doing in this life, now, right at this moment?”

  Altair found the page in the manuscript corresponding to the date that Shanti gave him. He knew he would not be able to see her rising sign immediately so just focused on the planets in the signs and let his mind go still. He closed his eyes and relaxed. Instantly a wheel, turning slowly, came into his mind’s eye as if he was seeing into a miniature picture of the cosmos when Shanti was born through a circular window. The stars and the planets formed a complicated pattern that slowly took shape like a mandala with light, color and sound. Altair watched it closely until it settled and he could see the configurations.

  Altair looked closely at Shanti. It was as if both of them were caught in a trance.

  “You are a healer and an artist, a dancer. You wanted to have children but couldn’t. Your totem is an elephant and you practice yoga daily, especially pranayama. Someone close to you has just died which is why you are here. You are a leader and will receive an inheritance on return. You are writing a book which is what you are supposed to be doing right now.”

  “How did you know?”

  “The way I see it, the planets are relay stations for the reception and transmission of stellar energies. They bring to us the forces of the cosmos itself. So I see planets in particular positions when you were born as portals, and open myself up to the energy of those portals in their signs, where the signs are like rulers of cosmic forces that originate from the stars. These forces determine the nature of the time in which we live and because we are so focused on the personal events in our lives we miss the great powers altogether. Like hungry fish pursuing prey, we are not deeply aware of the ocean or its current and flow. All I shared with you is what I see when I open up the portals and read the symbols as they flow through by tuning into the current of the ocean.”

  “Thank you,” said Shanti, “for where I am now that was unbelievably accurate.”

  Instead of leaving Shanti stayed sitting and pondering. Then she said, “Can I ask you for one more thing?”

  Altair nodded.

  “Today I went for a Shingon initiation. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it, I just went and did it. Can you tell me what you see? You may be able to shed some light on my true name and the path I am meant to follow.”

  “No problem,” said Altair with a touch too much bravado as he felt the flow of cosmic forces enter him. It was easier now, as he had found before when he did a series of readings for his friends all in a row. Strange things somehow just manifested.

  “I can see you already,” grinned Altair as if he was watching a movie. “You are in a line with many others. Blindfolded. A monk is giving you a flower to hold. You are being led to a mandala. It is shaped like a…”

  Altair hesitated before continuing. “A Diamond…”

  “The Diamond Realm,” confirmed Shanti.

  “The Diamond Realm,” repeated Altair as if he were singing a refrain in a song with her.

  “The flower is landing on a figure, a Buddha, the one you have the deepest karmic connection with, a woman, with 1000 arms.”

  “Senju-kannon,” said Shanti with a sigh. “Avalokiteshvara Guan Yin.”

  Altair looked at her expectantly.

  “Remarkable,” said Shanti. “I couldn’t hope for better confirmation. Do you know who you are?”

  “Watashi wa jinsei ni tsuite benkyo shite imasu,” said Altair.

  “A student studying on the path of life,” said Shanti, translating the Japanese. “And a Naga.”

  “Naga?” It was the first time Altair had heard this name.

  “I have met only one before. A woman. An energy worker like you. In Canada. She could read a person’s body and diagnose them for all manner of ailments. A Naga is a manifestation of some aspect of the cosmos. Enormous responsibility and significant powers or siddhis come along with being a Naga so you must be tremendously careful. It will appear you do magic to other human beings. Patanjali was thought to be a manifestation of the Naga of eternity. Naga is an ancient energy so guard it well. A Naga can cross the place between worlds with remarkable ease and hear immortal whisperings in the ether. You are incredibly innocent, almost naive, so be careful who you trust and help. You will make many mistakes I am sure but that is all part of the path and must be cherished.”

  Shanti reached into her pocket and took out a tiny charm.

  “This is for you. Keep it safe.”

  “I will,” said Altair and looking closely he saw the woman he had seen in his vision, Guan Yin, embossed in gold in a tiny oval locket. “Thank you.”

  He slid it into the manuscript.

  Shanti got up and went to the door. She turned one last time and bowed low with a look of deep serenity written across her face.

  “Where are you off to next?” said Shanti. “India?”

  “China,” said Altair, “on a scholarship.”

  “I think not,” said Shanti, with a most bemused expression on her face. Then she quickly gathered herself. “Sorry, I have no idea why I said that. I just have a hunch. I hope you find success with whatever you do.”