THE TITLE

                            To save a lot of later questions, let
                       me say now that Man is one tenth

                       conscious, the other nine tenths deal

                       with the sub-conscious and all that

                       which comes under the heading
                       ‘Racial Memories’ and the Occult. 

                            This book is about YOU, not just

                       about one tenth of you, but also that

                       which goes
                                           Beyond the Tenth. 

                     A SPECIAL LETTER

Dear Reader,

    For over a decade you have been writing to me from
all over the world, even from the other side of the Iron

Curtain, writing to me some thirty or forty letters a
day, letters which I have conscientiously answered.
But quite a number of you have written to say that an

Author of books such as mine belongs to the Reader,

saying that an Author such as I cannot end with nine

books but must go on writing until reasonable ques-

tions are answered.

    To that I replied by writing to several representa-
tive people with this question; ‘Well, what DO you
want in the tenth book?  Tell me, tell me what you

want, tell me what I've missed in other books, and I

will write that tenth book.’
    So as a result of the letters I have received in answer
to my questions, I have written this book which you
are about to read.
    Some of you, no doubt, will say that it is repetition

here and there.  I can only reply that it is the unani-

mous request of my ‘Panel of Readers’ or it would

not be in this book, and if you think it is repetitious in

places, well, it might serve to refresh your memory.

    One question I am asked in particular is, ‘Oh, Dr.

Rampa, visit me in the astral, cure me of this, cure me

of that, tell me who is going to win the Irish Sweep-

stake, come along to our Group Meeting in the astral.’

But these readers forget that there are only 24 hours

in each day; they also forget the difference in time

zones, etc., etc.  Even more important, they forget that

although I, in the astral, can see them clearly when I

want to, yet they may not always be able to see me,

although  an astonishing number of people have

written to me confirming exactly astral visits, tele-

pathic contacts, etc.

  Well, it's not intended that this shall be a long letter,

so let us get on with the book itself, shall we?

                                                     T.  LOBSANG RAMPA

                      CHAPTER ONE

    THE soft summer night sighed gently, and whispered
quietly to the nodding willows fringing the Serpent

Temple.  Faint ripples undulated across the placid

lake as some early-rising fish sought the surface in

search of unwary insects.  Above the hard, high moun-

tain peaks, with the everlasting spume of snow flying

banner-wise from it, a solitary star shone with glitter-

ing brilliance in the luminescent sky.

    In the granaries faint squeaks and rustles betrayed

the presence of hungry mice foraging in the barley

barrels.  Stealthy footsteps and two glaring eyes as

Watchman Cat appeared on the scene brought a

scuffle  of scurrying mice  and  then  utter  silence.

Watchman  Cat  sniffed  around suspiciously,  then,

satisfied, jumped to a low window and sat looking out

at the fast-approaching dawn.

    Flickering butter-lamps hissed and spat and mo-

mentarily flared brighter as night-duty acolytes re-

plenished their supplies.  From some inner temple

came a subdued murmur and the tiny tinkle of differ-

ent silver bells.  Out upon a high roof a solitary figure

stood to greet the coming dawn, hands already clasped

about the neck of the Morning Call trumpet.

    Shadowy, indistinct figures appeared at some back

entrance and gathered to march down the mountain

trail towards a small tributary of the Happy River

from whence came the water supply for the needs of

the Potala.  Aged men, husky men, and mere wisps of

                                                      9

boys, members of the Serving Class, marched in age-

old procession down the mountain-side carrying hard

leather pails to dip in the river and then laboriously

manhandle up to the kitchens and storage tanks. 

    The downward trip was easy, a half-awake throng

still bemusedly thinking of the joys of sleep.  By the

little well, so constantly filled by the tributary, they

stood  awhile  chatting,  exchanging gossip  gleaned

from the kitchens the day before.  Lounging, killing

time, postponing the inevitable and hard climb up

the mountain-side. 

    Overhead night had already given way to the

approaching day.  The purple curtain of night had

fled to the West before the advancing dawn, the sky

no longer showed the brilliant, hard pinpoints of

light which were the stars in their courses, but instead

was luminous with the rays of the approaching sun

striking through tile lower levels and lighting up the

undersides of  the slight alto-stratus clouds which

scurried above.  The mountain peaks were now tinged

with gold, a white gold which threw rainbows from

the blowing snow at the peak heads, and which made

each mountain top appear as if it were a living foun-

tain of iridescent colour. 

    Swiftly the light advanced and the Valley of Lhasa,

hitherto in the purple shadows of the night, lit up

great flashing gleams shone from the golden roofs of
the  Potala and reflected also from  the  Jo  Kang

Cathedral in Lhasa City.  At the foot of the Potala

near the colored carvings a little group of early risers  

gazed up in awe at the scintillating lights above them

thinking that it must be a reflection of the spirit of

the Inmost One. 

    At the foot of our mountain path, however, the

serving monks, quite immune to the glories of nature,

stood chatting, killing time before taking up their

burdens and proceeding uphill.  The old monk, Big

Ears, stood upon a flat rock and gazed out across the

                                             10 
lake and the nearby river; ‘Did you hear what the
traders were saying in the city yesterday?’  he asked a
younger monk standing beside him.
    ‘No’, replied the younger one, ‘but the traders
always have wonderful tales to tell.  What did you

hear, Old One?’

    Old Big Ears worked his jaws around a bit and

wiped his nose on the end of his robe.  Then he spat

expertly  and  with  precision  between  two  filled

buckets.  ‘I had to go into the city yesterday’, he said,

‘and there in the Street of Shops I chanced upon some

traders displaying their wares.  One of them seemed to

be a knowledgeable sort of man, just like me, in fact,

so I tarried in my task and talked to him.’   He stopped

a moment and chewed around his jaws again, and

looked at the rippling water.  Somewhere in the dis-

tance a small acolyte had thrown a pebble and hit a

frog, and now the frog was croaking in astonished

complaint.   ‘A knowledgeable man he was, a man who

had traveled to many strange parts.  He told me that

once he left his homeland of India and traveled

across the great waters to Merikee.  I told him that I

had to see about new buckets because some of ours

were worn out, and he said that in Merikee no one

had to carry buckets of water up a mountain path.

Everyone has water in their houses, he said, it runs

through pipes.  They have a special room, where they

get a lot of water, called a bathroom.’

    The younger monk started with surprise and said,

‘Water in their houses, eh?  And in a special room too;

eh?  That sounds too marvelous to be true, I wish we

had something like it here.  But of course you can't

believe all these travelers' tales.  I once heard a trader

telling me that in some lands they have light as bright

as lightning which they keep in glass bottles and it

turns the night into day.’  He shook his head as if he

could hardly believe the things he had heard, and the

old monk, Big Ears, afraid that he was going to be

                                             11

ousted as the teller of tales, resumed, Yes, in the land

of Merikee they have many wonderful things.  This

water, it is in every house.  You turn a piece of metal

and the water comes gushing out, hot or cold, which-

ever you want, as much as you want, whenever you

want.  It's a great miracle, by Buddha's Tooth, he said. 

‘I certainly would like some other way of getting

water up to the kitchens.  Many a long year I've been

doing this, carrying and carrying water and nothing

but water, I feel that I've walked my feet and my legs

right down to the knees and I’ve got a permanent tilt

to the side through fighting against the mountain's       

pull.  Still, water in every room?  No, it is not poss-
ible!’

    Together they lapsed into silence, and then started

into alertness as down the path strode one of the

Guardians of our Law, the Proctors.  The immense

man strode along, and each one of the monks found

urgent business to attend to.  One poured out his pail

of water and refilled it, another picked up two pails

and hurried up, striding along the mountain path. 

Soon all the monks were on the move, carting water,

the first round of the water carriers for the day.  The

Proctor gazed around for a few moments, then he too

made his way up the mountain path after them. 

    Silence, comparative silence, fell upon the scene,

disturbed only by faint chanting from the mountain

top above and by the sleepy protests of some bird who

thought it was rather too early to get up and go about

the business of the day.

    Old Mrs. MacDunnigan cackled as if she had just

laid an oversize egg and turned to her friend Mrs. 

O'Flannigan.  ‘No more of these lectures for me,’ she

said, ‘telling us that the priests of Tibet can do tele-

pathy.  What nonsense!   What will they ask us to

believe next?’

    Mrs. O'Flannigan snorted like a Salvation Army

                                             12
trumpeter at his best and remarked, ‘Why can't they
use telephones like the rest of us, that’s what I want to

know!’

    So the two ladies went their way unaware that they

were ‘the other side of the coin’; monks in Tibet

could not believe houses could have running water in

rooms and the two Western women could not believe

that priests of Tibet could telepathise.

    But are we not all like that?  CAN we see ‘the other

fellow's’ point of view?   Do we realize that what is

commonplace HERE is the strangest of strange THERE

—and vice versa?

    Our first request is about life after death, or death,

or contact with those who have left this life.  First of

all let us deal with a person who is leaving this Earth.

The person is very, very sick usually, and ‘death’

follows as a result of the breakdown of the human

body mechanism.  The body becomes untenable, in-

operable, it becomes a clay case enshrouding the

immortal spirit which cannot bear such restraint, so

the immortal spirit leaves.  When it has left the dead

body, when it has left the familiar confines of the

Earth, the—what shall we call it?  Soul, Overself,

Spirit, or what? Let's call it Soul this time for a

change—the Soul, then, is in strange surroundings

where there are many more senses and faculties than

those experienced on Earth.  Here on Earth we have

to clomp around, or sit in a tin box which we call a

car, but unless we are rich enough to pay airfares we

are earthbound.  Not so when we are out of the body;

because when out of the body, when in this new
dimension which we will call ‘the astral world’, we

can travel at will and instantly by thought, we do not

have to wait for a bus or a train, we are not hampered

by a car nor by an airplane where one waits longer in

a waiting room than one spends on the actua1 journey.

    In the astral we can travel at any speed we will.

                                             13

‘We will’ is a deliberate pair of words, because we

actually ‘will’ the speed at which we travel, the height

and the route.  If, for example, you want to enjoy the

wondrous scenery of the astral world with its verdant

pastures and its lushly stocked lakes, we can drift as

light as thistledown just above the land, just above

the water, or we can rise higher and soar over the

astral mountain tops. 

    When we are in this new and wonderful dimension

we are experiencing so many changes that unless we

are very careful we tend to forget those who mourn us

on that awful old ball of Earth which we have so
recently left, we tend to forget, but if people on Earth

mourn us too fervently then we feel inexplicable

twinges and pulls, and strange feelings of sorrow and

sadness.  Any of you who have neuritis or chronic

toothache will know what it's like; you get a sudden

vicious jerk at a nerve which nearly lifts you out of

the chair.  In the same way, when we are in the astral

world and a person is mourning us with deep lamen-

tation, instead of getting on with their own affairs

they  hinder us,  they provide  unwanted  ‘anchors’

which retard our progress. 

    Let us go just a little beyond our first days in the

astral, let us go to the time when we have entered the

Hall of Memories, when we have decided what work

we are going to do in the astral, how we are going to

help others, how we are going to learn ourselves, let

us imagine that we are busy at our task of helping or

learning and then just imagine a hand jerking at the

back of our neck—tweak, tweak, tweak, and pull,

pull, pull—it distracts the attention, it makes learn-

ing hard, it makes helping others very difficult be-

cause we cannot add our full concentration or atten-

tion to that which we should be doing because of the

insistent tug and interference c...