http://www.livinginthelightms.com/shambahla.html
Shambhala , sometimes referred to in
the West as El Dorado or Shangri La,
is a mythological kingdom, protected by
a psychic barrier so that no
once can find the kingdom who is not meant to.
For centuries the people of Tibet
and Mongolia have believed in the existance
of the mythical kingdom of Shambhala,
hidden behind the distant mountains
north of the Himalaya .
According to the Kalachakra tantra teachings, a line
of enlightened
kings is said to be guarding the highest wisdom for a time
when all spiritual
values in the world outside will be lost in war and
destruction.
Then, according to prophesy, a great king will come out of this
sanctuary
to defeat the forces of evil and establish a golden
age.
The prophecy of Shambhala states that each of its kings will
rule for 100 years. There will be 32 in all, and as their reigns
pass, conditions in the outside world will deteriorate. Men will become
more warlike and pursue power for its own sake, and
an ideology of
materialism will spread over the earth. When the "barbarians" who follow this
ideology are united under an
evil king and think there is nothing
left to conquer, the mists will lift to reveal the icy mountains of Shambhala.
The
barbarians will attack Shambhala with a huge army equipped with
terrible weapons. Then the 32nd king of Shambhala,
Rudra Cakrin,
will lead a mighty host against the invaders. In a last great battle, the evil
king and his followers will be
destroyed.
By definition
Shambhala is hidden. It is thought to exist somewhere between the Gobi Desert
and the Himalayas, but it is
protected by a psychic barrier so that
no one can find the kingdom who is not meant to. Tibetan lamas spend a great
deal of
their lives in spiritual development before attempting the
journey to Shambhala. Those who try to get there who are not
wanted
are swallowed by crevasses or caught in avalanches. People and animals tremble
at its borders as if bombarded
by invisible rays. There are
guidebooks to Shambhala, but they describe the route in terms so vague that only
those already
initiated into the teachings of the Kalacakra can
understand them.
Strange sightings in the area where Shambhala is thought
to be seem to provide evidence of its existence. Tibetans believe
that the land is guarded by beings with superhuman powers. In the early
1900s an article in an Indian newspaper, the
Statesman, told of a
British major who, camping in the Himalayas, saw a very tall, lightly clad man
with long hair. Apparently,
noticing that he was being watched, the
man leaped down the vertical slope and disappeared. To the major’s
astonishment, the Tibetans with whom he was camping showed no surprise
at his story; they calmly explained that he had
seen one of the
snowmen who guard the sacred land.
A more detailed account of these
"snowmen" guardians was given by Alexandra David-Neel, an explorer who spent 14
years
in Tibet. While traveling through the Himalayas she saw a man
moving with extraordinary speed and described him as
follows: "I
could clearly see his perfectly calm impassive face and wide-open eyes with
their gaze fixed on some invisible
distant object situated somewhere
high up in space. The man did not run. He seemed to life himself from the
ground,
proceeding by leaps. It looked as if he had been endowed
with the elasticity of a ball, and rebounded each time his feet
touched the ground. His steps had the regularity of a
pendulum."
While people (especially Tibetan lamas) have been searching
for Shambhala for centuries, those who seek the kingdom
often never
return, either because they have found the hidden country and have remained
there or because they have been
destroyed in the attempt. Tibetan
texts containing what appear to be historical facts about Shambhala, such as the
names
and dates of its kings and records of corresponding events
occurring in the outside world, give Tibetans additional reason
for
believing that the kingdom exists. Recent events that seem to correspond to the
predictions of the mythic kingdom add
strength to their belief. The
disintegration of Buddhism in Tibet and the growth of materialism throughout the
world, coupled
with the wars and turmoil of the 20th century, all
fit in with the prophecy of Shambhala.
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