Chapter XVII
We were up the next morning with every faculty alert with interest and wonder for what that day would reveal. We had begun to look upon each day as a revelation of unfoldment in itself and felt that we were but beginning to realize the deep meaning of the things we were experiencing.
While at breakfast that morning we were told that we would go to a village higher up in the mountains and from that place we would visit the temple that was located on one of the mountains that I had seen while standing on the roof of the temple already described. We were told we would only be able to use our horse for fifteen miles of the journey; and that two of the villagers would go with us that far and would take the horses to another village farther on and care for them until we arrived. We turned our horses over to the two villagers at the appointed place and started to climb to the village up the narrow mountain trail, which at times proved to be steps hewn from the rock. We camped that night at a lodge located on the crest of a point about midway between the place where we had left the horses and the village of our destination.
The keeper of the lodge was fat, old, and jolly; in fact, he was so plump and round that he seemed to roll rather than walk and we could scarcely tell he had eyes. As soon as he recognized Emil he began asking for healing, saying, as we were told afterward, that if he did not get help he would surely die. We were told that he and his forefathers had kept this lodge and served the public for hundreds of years and that he had been in charge about seventy years. About the time he took over the lodge he was healed of what was called an inherited disease and supposed to be incurable. He had become a very active worker for about two years, then gradually had lost interest and begun to depend upon others to help him out of his difficulties. This had gone on for about twenty years and he had seemed to prosper, seeming to enjoy the best of health, when suddenly he dropped back into his old ways from which he would not make the necessary effort to arouse himself from his lethargy. We found that his case was only a fair example of thousands of others. These people live simply and easily and anything that requires an effort becomes a burden to them very quickly. They soon lose interest and their prayer for help becomes a mechanical sound instead of something uttered with deep meaning or desire.
We were up and on our way early the next morning and four o’clock in the afternoon found us at the village, with the temple of our destination perched on a rocky pinnacle almost overhead. In fact so steep were the walls that the only means of approach was by a basket attached to a rope and let down on a pulley supported by a wooden beam made fast in the rocks. One end of the rope was attached to a windlass and the other was passed over the pulley and fastened to the basket, the basket being let down and pulled up in this manner. The windlass was located in a little room hewn from the solid rock of the ledge that jutted out so that it overhung the rocky walls below. The wooden derrick to which the pulley was attached swung out so that the rope and basket just cleared the ledge, making it possible to haul the load up from below until it cleared; then basket and load were swung in and landed safely on top of the ledge in the little rock room hewed out for the purpose. This rock ledge jutted out over the rock walls below so far that the basket would swing out in midair from fifty to sixty feet as it traveled up and down. At a given signal the basket was lowered; we stepped in and were hauled up, one by one, to the ledge four hundred feet above.
When we were landed upon this ledge we began looking about for some trail leading on up to the temple, the walls of which we could see standing out flush with the wall of rock that still towered five hundred feet above. We were told that we would make the ascent in a similar manner to that already described. As we looked, a derrick arm corresponding to the one on the ledge where we were standing swung out, a rope was let down and attached to the same basket, and we were hauled up, one by one, and landed on the roof of the temple five hundred feet above. I again felt as if we were on top of the world. The temple was located on a rocky pinnacle that stood out nine hundred feet above all of the surrounding mountains. The village we had left nine hundred feet below was located at the summit of a mountain pass used in crossing the Himalayas. We found that this temple was about one thousand feet lower in elevation than the one I had visited with Emil and Jast but it commanded a much wider outlook. From where we stood it seemed as if we could look into infinite space.
We were made comfortable for the night and our three friends told us they were going to visit some of our associates and would take any message we wished to send. We wrote messages, carefully dating them, giving our location and including the time of day.
When we handed our friends these messages they shook hands with us, saying they would see us in the morning, and disappeared one by one. We made careful note of the time and of what we had written and found afterward that the messages were at their destination within twenty minutes of the time they left our hands.
After eating a hearty supper served by the attendants, we retired for the night, but not to sleep, for our experiences were beginning to make a deep impression upon us. Here we were nearly nine thousand feet in the air, with no human being near us except the attendants, with not a sound except that of our own voices. There did not seem to be a breath of air stirring. One of my associates said, “Do you wonder that they chose the locations of these temples as places of meditation? The stillness is so intense one can fairly feel it. It certainly is a place in which to meditate.” He then said he was going outside to have a look around. He went out but returned in a few moments, saying there was a heavy fog and nothing could be seen.
My two associates were soon asleep but I could not sleep; so I arose, dressed, and went out on the roof of the temple and sat down with my feet hanging over the wall. There was just enough moonlight filtering through the fog to eliminate the inky blackness that would have prevailed had not the moon been shining. There was just enough light to reveal the great billowy fog banks rolling by, enough to remind me that I was not suspended in space, that somewhere way down, the earth was as ever, and that the place I was sitting upon was somehow connected with it. Then all of a sudden, it seemed as if I could see a great pathway of light, its rays widening like a fan with the wide part extending toward me; where I was sitting seemed to be in about the center of the ever- widening ray and the central ray was the most brilliant of them all. Each ray seemed to project onward in its course until it illuminated one part of the earth. Each illuminated its own particular portion of the earth until the whole blended in one great white ray.
Looking far ahead I could see all gradually converging until they ended in one central point of intense white light, so white that it seemed transparent and crystal. Then, instantly, it seemed as if I stood out in space looking at it all. Looking far, far down the white ray I could see what seemed to be specters of the far-away past marching on and on in ever-increasing numbers but in solid ranks until they reached a certain place; then they separated wider and wider until they filled the whole of the light ray and covered the entire earth. They all seemed to emerge at first from one central white point of light.
They seemed to come forth from this point, first one, then just ahead were two, then just ahead of them were four; and so on until they reached the place of wide divergence, where there were about one hundred abreast in solid fan-like array. When they came to the point of wide separation, they suddenly scattered widely and occupied all of the light paths and each marched on more or less alone until they seemed to occupy the whole earth. When they had occupied the whole earth, it seemed the rays had reached their widest expanse. Then they grew gradually narrower and narrower until the rays again converged into the one point from which they first started; the cycle was complete and they entered again one by one. Before they entered they formed in solid array one hundred abreast, gradually closing up until they became one, and that one entered the light alone. I suddenly aroused myself and, thinking that this was rather an unsafe place to be dreaming, I went in and retired.
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