Shambhala Commentary by Victoria LePage

“The so-called Magi, or the ‘Wise Men from the East’, were undoubtedly members of a world Mystery School … In the Far East there is an ancient and widely spread belief in a galaxy of illumined minds living in seclusion in inaccessible parts of Asia . The great Pythagoras was reputed to have travelled to Hindustan, Philostratus described the journey of Apollonius of Tyana to a Trans-Himalayan region which could be nothing but Tibet .”

Andrew Tomas.

In our present chequerboard civilization spread round the globe like a vast patchwork of conflicting religions, worldviews and politico-economic value-systems, the culture of differentiation still reigns supreme. In a world in which viva le difference is the norm the concept of Shambhala as a sacred world-centre can gain little traction. The very idea of centrality as an essential element of any thinking about the human polity as a whole has lost the force it once had in traditional societies, in which the concept of the omphalos, the Centre needed to define the boundaries of a locality, was universally recognized. Indeed, in antiquity the Centre was a mystical concept; it represented the focal point, the singularity from which the divine creation was generated and expanded into space and time. Today the significance of such a metaphysical concept as an essential aspect of a planetary society has not really dawned on our cultural horizon. But as we move into the future and approach the idea of a truly global civilization, one in which all its many racial and cultural facets are in harmony with each other, the idea of a hub common to all, a mystical point of peace uniting all in a single human society, will come into its own. We can then expect the idea of Shambhala, whose very name means a place of peace, to acquire an increasing aura of reality.

In antiquity the function of the omphalos was seen as essentially spiritual. It represented the generative source and well-spring of the life animating the whole community that lay within its boundaries. In occult circles this is precisely the planetary function assigned to Shambhala. The existence of this place in Central Asia, however, has been hidden for many thousands of years. As the sacred power-base of the Earth, its cultural fountainhead, Shambhala was guarded from the profane by impenetrable psychyospiritual barriers up until the end of the nineteenth century, in every sense invisible and unknown to almost the whole of humanity. But from the beginning of the twentieth century, and especially since the sixties of that century, there has been a progressive opening up of information about this mysterious centre. The writings of the Theosophist Helena Blavatsky, as well as those of Intrepid travellers and adventurers into the interior of Asia such as Saint-Ives d’Alvedre, Ferdinand Ossendowski, Nicholas Roerich, Alexandria David-Neal and many others, have alerted the West to the unique nature of a hidden kingdom in High Asia.

René Guénon, perhaps the most distinguished esotericist of our time, states that Shambhala was once to be found at the North Pole. But due to geological changes in the earth’s body many thousands of years ago, Shambhala shifted to Central Asia, to the great Takla Makan area. There, surrounded by a ring of the highest mountain ranges in the world, groups of initiates of every religious persuasion have ever since coexisted harmoniously and peacefully in their various monasteries and ashrams, each pursuing its own tradition without conflict with the others. Today the history of mysticism is opening up, revealing that throughout the centuries bands of high-level Christian Nestorians, mystical Jews, Buddhists, Sufis, Taoists and Hindu yogis have been silently withdrawing from our mainstream civilizations to settle in various parts of High Asia, in its hidden valleys and secret escarpments. For some it has been a response to persecution; others have been impelled by a more mysterious Eastward urge. Each School has its own story and seems to have developed its own special area: shamanism in the Altai Range in Southern Siberia, Taoism in the Kunlun Range north of the Trans-Himalayas, Sufis in the Karakorum mountains of Afghanistan, Buddhists in the Nan Shan Range that flanks the Gobi desert, and so on.

While the West is becoming increasingly familiar with the idea of all these diverse spiritual Schools peacefully sharing the region once known as the Kingdom of Shambhala or the Kingdom of Agharti, their underlying unity is little understood. Indeed, the Russian traveller Ferdinand Ossendowsky called it “the mystery of mysteries.” The true hidden feature of this widespread and wonderfully diverse community of mystics is that, according to Shambalic tradition, all the Schools without exception are united as one in their obedience to a single central authority existing in extratemporal dimensions. That authority is the primordial spiritual Hierarchy for this planet, headed by the one whom Ossendowski called the King of the World.

“He knows all the forces of the world and reads all the souls of humankind and the great book of their destiny. Invisibly he rules eight hundred million men on the surface of the earth and they will accomplish his every order.”

Ranging in its initiatory levels from earthly Masters to extraterrestrial Intelligences, the Hierarchy is believed to initiate, govern and direct the course of human evolution on the Earth. In service to this end it disseminates throughout the millennia and across the globe the teachings of a primordial Gnosis, a body of spiritual knowledge often known as the Perennial Philosophy. Although each nation and locality evolves its own version of this Wisdom tradition, thus creating an appearance of religious plurality, there is only one great planetary Tradition, one spiritual Gnosis serving our entire race, but manifesting in many different historic and geographical forms. That Gnosis is preserved in its original pure form in the secret Schools of Shambhala and is seeded again and again throughout the world as the need arises. Many observers believe that time has come round again. Today, some avant-garde authors are opening up a new metaphysical vein through their explorations of Shambhala’s energic role in a new galactic cosmology.

The reason why Shambhala is becoming increasingly well-known is said to be linked to the fact that it lies at the foot of the World Axis. This great current of spiritual energy runs through all the dimensions of the Earth’s system, and at each interface manifests as a door or gate that either bars progress or gives entrance to the next-higher level. As is illustrated in my book on Shambhala, this series of gates has been shut for many hundreds of years, but in 1961, during a rare planetary conjunction, it was observed clairvoyantly that the cosmic Powers had opened them from top to bottom; and so they remained for thirty years. New cosmic energies streamed down onto the Earth as a consequence, irradiating all its life-forms and the planet itself, and inducing the great evolutionary shift of which many of us are becoming increasingly aware. In the process, everything hidden is becoming known. Under the impact of that celestial down-pouring Light, Shambhala’s role as power-base of the Earth is increasingly revealed – and is increasingly vulnerable to attack.

In view of the massive destruction of the environment in High Asia at the hands of the Chinese nation, a major question has arisen regarding the terrible possibility of Shambhala’s demise at this time. Although Eastern tradition has it that in such an eventuality the spiritual Powers in Shambhala will rise and defeat their enemies - and Guénon has intimated that alternatively Shambhala has more than once shifted its headquarters under such circumstances - disquiet remains. Consequently, it is not altogether a surprise that in "The People of the Secret" Ernest Scott, a close disciple of the renowned Afghan Sufi and author Idries Shah, has suggested that it is very possible the site of Shambhala will shift towards the West, and in fact may already be doing so. He even suggests that the Hierarchy's headquarters in High Asia has now been publicly located only because it is no longer there. Is a shift Westward a likely course on the part of the great Directorate?

We cannot tell. Nevertheless, it is notable that in the past few decades a great deal of high-level secret activity has become evident in Egypt, in the environs of the Giza plateau and the great pyramids. Much speculation now surrounds this vortex of occult and archaeological enterprise, which some commentators insist gives an indefinable impression of universal and messianic significance. The Giza area hides many mysteries: it is on the same latitude as Shambhala, is similarly important to all the disparate races of the world, has an equally mysterious history and the same kind of spiritual ambience. Since Shambhala is a transcendent function rather than a place it may well be that something is happening in the Middle East that does indeed augur a new seeding of the Gnosis and a new world order in the foreseeable future – with its Centre in Egypt rather than the environs of the Tarim Basin. Are perhaps preparations afoot for the coming of Maitreya Buddha?

But whether or not evidence is being covertly unearthed in the Giza complex that will reveal it as an ancient analogue of Shambhala – perhaps even a still-living centre of the celestial Light in its own right – we are only at the very beginning of understanding this “mystery of mysteries.” Eastern or Western, Shambhala has hardly begun to unveil the full extent of its powers or its full significance for humanity’s future.

Victoria LePage (January 2007)