The book was recommended to me by a blog friend. Actually, that's not true. He wondered whether I had read it and, if so, what I thought. Although I was vaguely aware of its existence, I had never paid it any attention. However, after a quick reconnoitre, I decided that it might just be the right book at the right time. This all happened shortly before the world shut down, so the book plonked into the hallway in quick time.
I had only read a few pages when it began to dawn on me. It was an old and familiar feeling. "Oh no. It's that kind of book." Sure enough. First, the vacuum cleaner broke down. On taking it apart, my wife announced that an entire piece of the filter system was missing. Quite a big, bulky part. Now, it is theoretically possible that I just threw it out by mistake when emptying the cleaner, but even I would be pushed to do such a thing.
The following day, in the bathroom after having a shower, I glanced at the clock. It had stopped. On closer inspection, however, I discovered that it was still going. But it was running five hours slow. Five hours precisely.
It was that kind of book.
It is possible, I have known for two decades now, to enter that state of being where the mind influences the physical universe, and vice versa. Or, more accurately, where it becomes apparent that this distinction is a fabrication, and that 'mind' and 'outer universe' are one, the distinction itself a mental construct. When that world is entered, one acts upon the other, and it is where synchronous events become, if not the norm, at least fairly normal.
And the book?
The feeling and flavour of 'A Step Away From Paradise: the true story of a Tibetan lama's journey to a land of immortality' is closer to Castaneda than anything else I can think of. The world teems with spirits and supernatural beings, some malevolent, some friendly and helpful. It's a multidimensional world of magic, in which precise, ritualised acts bring about events which, to the rational mind, make no sense and bear little resemblance. Mind and matter influence one another to effect baffling synchronicities, serving to demonstrate that 'mind' and 'matter' are actually poles on a single continuum.
Tulshuk Lingpa, the Tibetan lama in question, while still a young boy, witnesses another high lama throw rice into the air and transform it into phurbas, magical daggers. Unfazed, the little Tulshuk plucks one out of the air, and it becomes his constant companion thereafter. He cures an entire village, which has been shunned by the whole world because all of its inhabitants have leprosy. This he achieves by divining the root cause of the malaise, and banishing the angry spirits who have brought this curse to bear on the village. All the inhabitants are miraculously cured by the ritual magic and great compassion of Tulshuk Lingpa.
The list of events continues. Most significantly, though, is the prediction that Tulshuk Lingpa is the one to 'open' the gates to the secret hidden valley of Beyul Demoshong, a place concealed from normal sight, but which provides refuge for the emperilled Tibetan people.
The tales of Castaneda have their many detractors, and sceptics find the Don Juan thing fairly easy to refute. The tale of Tulshuk Lingpa is far more difficult to dismiss as fiction and fantasy. The book is the result of several years of research and interviews painstakingly undertaken by the author, Thomas K. Shor, only recently, in the early years of the 21st century. Tulshuk Lingpa lived from 1916 until 1963, and there remained at the time of Shor's research a goodly number of Tibetan folk who could recall the lama and the stories connected to his life. Even the craziest of these stories is confirmed time and again, and in detail, by witnesses from the past. It passes the test of corroboration, should corroboration be your thing.
'Tulshuk' means 'crazy'. Tulshuk Lingpa is the crazy high lama. Unconventional, unpredictable, bound by no rules or rituals, not least those associated with Buddhist orthodoxy. He sees through and beyond all this stuff, into the real world behind habits, strictures, appearances. He is a multidimensional hero.
"Don't listen to anybody. Decide by yourself and practice madness. Develop courage for the benefit of all sentient beings." (from Tulshuk Lingpa's 'Guidebook to the Hidden Land')
Part Two
From the bold multidimensional perspectives of Tibetan tantra, prepare to collapse dramatically back into the small and limited box of three-dimensional existence, sometimes referred to by the unimaginative as 'normality'. We are heading towards the claustrophobic and somewhat dark viewpoint of a particular corner of the 'information world' - or the information war - entitled 'Misinformation' or 'Fact-Checking'.
These two expressions are cropping up with increasing frequency. They are, in brief and not to beat about the bush, part of the concerted attempt to shut up, to censor, dissenting voices - in the media in general, and the internet above all. For 'misinformation' read 'information that we don't like or agree with, or which is inconvenient to our ends.' For 'fact-check' read 'information which doesn't suit our view of the world, which doesn't fit into our own tiny-box version of reality.'
When Democrat-led US Congress recently demanded to know what YouTube was going to do about 'misinformation' on climate change, it was clear this had nothing to do with facts, or truth, or reasoned discussion and debate, or indeed climate. They simply wanted to shut up, exclude, anybody who presented data, statistics, which contradicted the madness behind the Green New Destroy-America. Sorry, Green New Deal.
It is with matters of health that misinformation and fact-checking have their real field day. A zealous approach comes immediately into play when controversial topics like vaccination come up. Anti-vaxxers will be hunted down ruthlessly. It's not a question of who is right or wrong. It's a question about whether a discussion should be allowed.
Predictably, fact-checkers are especially vigilant at the moment, when matters concerning coronavirus are rife. Suggest something that seems pretty simple and harmless to me, such as that large doses of vitamin C may help to ward off and assist recovery from corona v., and you will be treated like an enemy of civilisation. In fact, question anything about the official version of events, and you're likely in for trouble, from people who want to censor you out of existence.
'We need to protect the public' is the plea. Total bullshit. Who are 'we'? Why should I trust 'we', judging by past experience? The implication is extremely patronising. 'We' are some kind of super race with a monopoly on love and truth, while the general public is helpless, useless, incapable of making its own decisions. Gullible idiots we are, it seems.
The thing at the moment is the purported link between coronavirus and 5G. The mainstream and misinformation police have been going apeshit about it; which, of course, only goes to make one feel there must be something in it.
Bucking the modern trend, which is that we are all well-informed specialists on everything, and have an expert opinion to go with it, I have no fixed opinion on the 5G thing. I don't know enough. I have, however, managed to root out a couple of articles on the subject (increasingly difficult to do, thanks to the fact-check zealots), and they provide arguments that are reasoned and reasonable, coherent and with inner cohesion. To simply come along, as do the 'official experts', and say that the links are 'baseless' is no good. It's no longer acceptable. And, in the revolution for good that could yet come of the coronavirus situation, it just won't work anymore. The least that needs to appear is a reasoned and reasonable counter-argument. But this does not seem to be forthcoming. The stature of officialdom diminishes by the minute.
Coronavirus represents the final collapse of credibility for officialdom. At least, this is the opportunity, the window of opportunity, it presents to human beings. No more belief in a bunch of people, just because they've got a fancy name. Government aides; who are they? Government health advisers; who are these people, what are their qualities to be in this position? Climate scientists; let's have a butchers at who they really are and what they're up to. OFCOM; who are they? IPCC; who are they? WHO; who are these dudes telling us about health for the planet?
Invariably the answer is the same. They have been put there by someone else. Who has been put there by someone else. Who has been appointed by someone else who's been put there. And so it goes on. It's the manufactured way the world has been fabricated. And it really is the time to bring it down.
Science; the scientific approach; the scientific worldview. This is the key. For two centuries, western civilisation has been fed the superiority and progressive, ameliorative story of science. The world consists entirely of things that can be seen, measured, weighed. That's it. So entrap the population in the thrall, the total belief, of science-as-truth-and-god. Then feed them junk science. Feed them lies clothed in scientific jargon. Feed them uncertains and unknowables dressed up in figures and percentage points. Until we arrive at our current juncture: the world shaped by computer modelling. Junk science at its worst. Modelling, which can be tweaked to show absolutely anything you wish. It has worked a treat. Until now.
Part Three
And the link between fact-check and Tibetan tantriks? The world of Tulshuk Lingpa and the divine madness of the Nyingma lamas is a far more complete model of the theatre of human life than is that of scientific reductionism and misinformation. The contrast is enough for a knock-down in a lock-down. The tantric view celebrates the gamut of magic, illogic, which characterises human existence, human reality. The mainstream scientific worldview sees linear time-and-space, and this alone. The world as a bunch of dominoes.
For the most part, I suspect that fact-checkers and misinformation zealots are not evil people. They are simply folk whose perspective on life is extremely limited. They have fully bought into the modern ways, and have shut themselves into a tiny box, which they fervently believe is the only box, as a result.
It is an occasional sadness of mine that serious practitioners of tantra and other deep energetic work don't see the revolutionary implications of their lives. How distinct their take on life is from that of orthodoxy. Take on board fully the tantric view, and the whole mainstream pack of cards comes tumbling down. The world of authorities and officialdoms as we know it will simply collapse. Their magic over populaces will no longer work, and be revealed for what it is, a hideous act of black magic. Many practitioners of 'alternative spirituality' have failed to connect all the dots. Maybe it's a failure of courage.
To the likes of Tulshuk Lingpa, the felt and experienced world is infinite. Conversely, the main goal of modern mainstream is containment. Keep the souls and spirits of people contained - contained within a bastardised form of science, within a nihilistic system of belief, within a little box - and they are easily cowed into submission. Allow the human spirit to run free, to explore its energetic possibilities, and this will be paradise for the individual, but will open up an infernal Pandora's box for the official view of the world.
This could be the upside of the world-as-coronavirus. In some respects we've hit rock-bottom. It's the best chance many of us will have to see what living in a totalitarian police state is really like. And sometimes you need to hit rock-bottom to wake up the angels, the wise ones, the protectors of true human spirit, to arouse the magnificence of the individual human project.
Postscript: The Unknown Soldier
Big Billy died on Friday. He'd been bad for a while; there's only so much a dodgy heart can take, I suppose.
Spent his life on the buses - thirty five years. He was proud of his service, his contribution, a dying breed, really. He tried to be cheerful with the passengers even when he didn't feel like it, unlike some of his colleagues.
He was in hospital for three days before his heart finally gave up. They gave him his own room at the end, which was nice of them. His daughter was with him at the end.
They tested him for the virus, but he was clear. He didn't make it into the statistics. He never wanted to be a celebrity anyway.
His daughter brushed a tear from her lap, talked to the nursing staff, then hurried into the evening. She hadn't eaten all day, and with the shorter opening hours these days, you never know.
She found an M and S. The lights were dull metallic grey, and lots of staff stood around military-like, making sure nobody strayed into the clothing section. She didn't really notice.
Her room was cold when she got in. She ate her something-and-mash, then turned on the tele. Some kid who'd just died with the virus. Nearly six hundred today, they said. She turned it off again.
Rummaging through a bottom drawer, she found a little photo of Billy. "I love you, dad" she trembled, as she made room for him on the bedside table. She slumped onto the bed and into tears. The next thing she knew it was light outside.
The book
Blake's Urizen the fallen man
Fact Check at work
The Scream by Munsch
The Unknown Soldier, the Doors
