99 Palms: Horn OK Please (6 page)

Monica seemed to be enjoying the wide-eyed audience for she knew she’s struck the right chord with us. She played on our greed. Finally, this was beginning to get exciting for she spoke about money.

“Wow! Cool! We’re talking about finding paradise? Not just unlimited gold and treasure? Damn! This is fantastic. How do the Buddhists know all this?” quipped Hound, his eyes lit up like Motormouth’s headlights when he spoke.

“Yes, Hound. Shambala, per ancient Tibetan scriptures, is referred to as a community of highly evolved beings and minds, where semi-perfect humans swell. This place is also considered the birthplace of ‘Kalachakra’, the most evolved field of Tibetan mysticism. The ancient lamas of Tibet knew a lot, much beyond what we historians can ever know” replied Monica as she shifted her cute butt on the rock. Goose stared at the rock, eyes blazing as if admonishing it. The fool in love.

“This lost city of gold, Shambala, Natalie had explained to us. What do the 99 Palms say about it?” I asked, briefly remembering Dr. Natalie Jackson with respect.

“Shambala is Paradise. There are no diseases, pain, suffering or useless writers. It is a place of eternal love and wisdom. The inhabitants of this place are spiritually, technologically and mentally evolved. It is a higher ground where arts and sciences are highly evolved and have mastered all wisdom that exists in the whole universe. It is a spiritual, cultural and a physical place that may lie in a parallel universe” said Monica in a soft voice as she seemed to enjoy talking about it.

Finally, we were talking about money here. The whole purpose of going on a new adventure this time for me hinged around money. This is exactly what we needed. The Lost City of gold. Damn! That would take care of everything. Imagine the things we can do if we had unlimited wealth and health? Screw wisdom! Now all we needed to do was to drive down there, thump a few weirdos, steal their gold and walk back. Hah! We know how that’s done, we’d grown up watching
Indiana Jones
, piece of cake!

“Chief, Shambala’s not a place that you can punch ‘Shambala’ or ‘Shangi-La’ on the GPS. If you did that, you’d probably reach a cheap Chinese restaurant nearby. It is a legendary city of gold that’s supposed to exist between physical and meta-physical. Everything out there in Shambala seems to be made of gold. How much can you bring back?” said Monica, eyes gleaming as though she were teasing me having read my mind. Maybe the poverty in us shone through brighter than gold.

“Keep goin’, lady, tell us where to find the gold…er…Shambala. What are the coordinates?” asked Derek, extremely focused on all he riches we were about to discover. Maybe, he was also trying to figure out how to spend it all when we got back.

Location of Shambala:

Monica paused to take a gulp of water from her bottle before replying, “Per the scriptures of 99 Palms, The coordinates of this place cannot be physically deciphered for the location coordinates are a mythical combination of ‘Inner’, ‘Outer’ and ‘Alternative’ self. So by definition, it is a hidden place, a secret city of untold riches. Buddhist teachings claim that only the people who are initiated in the teachings of Kalachakra can find the location of Shambala. The ‘Outer’ meaning of Shambala refers to the physical place, the ‘Inner’ meaning refers to the evolution of the human mind and body, whereas the ‘alternative’ points to space beyond space and time – a parallel universe.”

She had us stumped over there.

“Huh? Wuzzat? Come again, lady, in plain simple English this time please?” said Derek, obviously lost like the rest of us as we heard the pretty historian spew out jargon with a vengeance.

“Look, I do not know if the physical location of this Lost city of Shambala lies somewhere under the icy peaks of Tibet, maybe it is the reason for the current strife and dispute over Tibet. Maybe, the secret of Shambala have been revealed in the translations of the Nalanda scriptures by Huen Tsang and maybe, some wise Tibetan monks know about the place” replied Monica, trying to make it as simple for us morons to understand. 

Playing with her hair, she went on, “Maybe, the truth is that the physical coordinates of Shambala point to Tibet, which they do. His Holiness, the 14
th
Dalai Lama, who is an expert on Kalachakra sciences, has often stated that only people with appropriate
Karma
can reach Shambala. I’m just merely telling you what the scriptures of 99 palms say, OK?”

“Got that, so who rules Shambala? You mentioned the Nine Unknown, Monica, who – or what are they really?” asked Hound, trying to get the links between Paradise and a secret society.

“Dude, Shambala is not merely about untold riches and secrets. The 99 Palms actually refers to this place as the land of evolved, enlightened beings. These people were ordinary humans once upon a time, but they evolved in their scientific fields when they transcended the boundaries of science from Physics to Meta-Physics”, said Monica, trying her best to hold back her mild irritation.

“So what have the Nine Unknown got to do with Shambala, love? How do these two add up?” asked Goose, desperately hoping that we wouldn’t have to deal with secret societies.

“OK. Hold your breath, the scriptures of 99 Palms makes a direct reference to this secret society that was formed by Emperor Ashoka post the Kalinga war. You must have heard a bit of the same from Dr. Natalie Jackson that this is the secret society known as the ‘Nine Unknown’.” replied Monica, obvious of the fact that four fools were trying to fathom the research done by her four generations and trying to digest it all in four minutes.

Guarded by the ‘Nine Unknown’:

“We may be dealing with the supernatural here as we try to find the lost city of gold. Are we up against freaks of nature, by any chance? Is Shambala guarded by good or evil?” I asked Monica, hoping she would allay our fears.

She looked at me sympathetically, fully aware of my low IQ and replied, “The ancient scriptures of 99 Palms, from what I could decipher, states that this lost city of gold in inhabited and ruled by the ‘Nine Unknown’. The scriptures of 99 Palms allude to the fact that the evolved beings were humans once, they never died, they just evolved to the next level. The 99 Palm scriptures state that right now, Shambala is being ruled wisely by Emperor Ashoka - if you are to trust my limited knowledge of the Brahmi script. One would presume that they got the leadership position just right, but I’m not so sure of the Nine unknown gatekeepers of the lost world, Chief.”

Sensing our obvious discomfort about battling evil, she patiently tried to explain, “These 99 Palm scriptures clearly indicate that while converting from evil to good, from
‘Candasoka’
to
‘Dharmasoka’
, the Emperor covered himself in cloth from head to toe, dipped himself in 500 barrels of oil and kept himself ablaze for seven days while praying to Buddha and then on the eighth day he coolly had a bath, decked himself in royal regalia and went about spreading the tenets of Buddhism and love. Did he really die or did he evolve?”

“True that! Nobody can survive such an ordeal. Hell! I yelp when my cigarette lighter misfires. Imagine going through an ordeal like that? A human being cannot take it”, said Hound, lighter in hand as he looked around for acknowledgment.

“Yes, I would say the same. Emperor Ashoka had evolved to a higher state after his transformation and he’d became a higher evolved life form on the eighth day for he had transcended to a different plane of thought, realization and consciousness. You know of this from your visit to Dhauli Hill, but the truth according to these 99 Palm scriptures is that his physical form was a mere illusion!” exclaimed Monica.

As we stared at her in utter disbelief, Monica continued, “Though 99 Palms refers to the physical location of Shambala in the Dhauladhar Mountains around McLeodgung where the Dalai Lama lives today, there are many contradicting theories around the actual location of Shambala and the place itself, probably because we still tend to think of a place in terms of a physical location alone! Some say it is under Mount Meru or Mount Sumeru and that’s mighty myopic if you ask me. It’s just one of the roads to Shambala. I’ll try to explain that to you in a bit.”

“Monica, you say it is one of the roads to Shambala, can we drive down to the place in Motormouth?” asked Goose innocently.

“The combination of the inner, outer and alternative selves is
karmic
. Unless a human being is truly evolved beyond the current imagination of man, the place can never be found. The lost city of gold is not for greedy people like you. You cannot just pimp up Motormouth and drive down to Shambala and fill up your rucksacks with gold and drive back home. You understand, don’t you, Goose?” Monica asked is a serious tone.

Goose nodded meekly.

“So these Nine Unknown men will try to stop us from stealing a little bit of their gold when we figure out how to get there? We’re still in India, we could pay our way through? Would that work with the Nine Unknown men?” quizzed Derek, obviously lost in a maze of hopelessness on how to find the lost city of gold.

“Look, first get the basic things right. Please understand that the ancient scriptures of 99 Palms say that Shambala belongs to neither East nor West or to any culture or religion. The Secret of the Nine Unknown is for the benefit and goodness of mankind as a whole. That’s why Emperor Ashoka formed it in the first place. To have kept the secret sciences a secret for over two thousand years, you don’t suppose they just wrote nine books? Remember, the Nine Unknown are highly evolved beyond being human. Referring to them as the
‘Nine Unknown men’
would be ignorance of the highest magnitude! Show some respect to them first” said Monica, obviously rattled by the way we seemed to be approaching the whole subject.

“OK, noted that they are not human beings, but are evolved minds and we don’t know what they look like. Also, we don’t know how to get to Shambala. If we are to find the gold and do our part of the deal, at least tell us where on earth is Shambala located in the broadest sense?” asked Hound, exasperated by his limited knowledge even to find the lost city.

“It is my theory that Shambala may not merely lie on the surface as most people have believed across centuries. From what I could fathom in the scriptures, this land lies much beneath the surface of the earth, or should I say that Shambala possibly exists at the core of the earth? Would you fathom that? Hound, the 99 Palms say that the Shambala is at the center of the Earth…” replied Monica sympathetically.

“Wow. This sure beats all logic. We can’t just try to evolve ourselves by growing brains, smoke up and go on a higher place, can’t drive down to the place. What is Shambala? Is it  Atlantis or what?” said Derek, betraying his helplessness and ignorance.

“Buckle up, Derek. You want unlimited wealth? You want to find Paradise? It’s not easy. I must point out that the scriptures of 99 Palms not only refer to Shambala from a Tibetan and Buddhist standpoint, it also refers to other cultures. For example, it refers to the lost world of Atlantis which disappeared from the face of the earth without a trace. Legend has it that the Atlanteans were a highly evolved race and had transcended the boundaries of exiting knowledge. Atlantis is Shambala, dudes, know that!” said Monica, obviously pleased with her theory.

Now we were supposed to plan a journey to the center of the earth. Cool. I hated the idea.

***
 

CHAPTER SIX

***

Roses are red and violets are blue,

We woke up with an idea as fresh as the morning drop of dew;

To reach Shambala at earth’s center is a different story,

We were driven by our greed, not pride, not glory;

The monuments have an astronomical significance,

To crack the same, one just needs a different lens;

To get inside, we headed for Sanchi Stupa, you’ll know why,

To know hyper-science of Nexus points & Ley Lines in the sky;

The gateways to another world are depicted in our monuments,

There’s a reason behind everything they made, my 2 cents;

Shambala is not a place that most people have seen,

It’s Paradise, a place of your dreams, so calm and serene;

We’re looking for the Stargates, the secret doorways,

As depicted in the Sanchi Stupa, the four cardinal gateways;

The ancients knew more science that we could ever know,

It’s hidden from us by them, as we search high & low;

Driven by greed, fuelled by desire, we try to figure things out,

We’re helped by smart women, we know nothing about;

If smiles and Imagination make you say ‘Cheese’

Drive on, for that’s the philosophy of Horn OK Please…

***