Chapter Four
UNDOUBTEDLY I WOULD NOT BE telling you this story about my adventures as a young adult in Nepal, if I had not had a second, most unusual dream that night after returning to the hostel. After leaving Master Fwap and the Swedish mountain climbers, I entered the hostel and went in search of something to eat. I was famished from my snowboarding adventure and from my encounter and conversation with Master Fwap.
After soup, bread, and talk about politics with two French university students who had just arrived from India, I crawled into my sleeping bag and immediately fell into what was at first a deep and dreamless sleep.
Dreamless at first, but then I dreamt a dream that would change my life forever!
In my dream I was wandering lost in a snowstorm. I was alone. I felt that I was in the mountains, but I really couldn’t be sure, because the snowstorm I found myself in was so severe I could barely see a few feet ahead of myself.
After walking blindly through the snow for what seemed like forever, I came upon a Buddhist temple. The door was slightly ajar. A soft yellow light came from somewhere within the temple and spilled out through the partially opened door onto the snow-covered ground that lay before me.
I walked up to the door, opened it the rest of the way and walked into the temple. Once inside, I found myself standing in a very large hall with stained glass windows and a vaulted ceiling. Looking around, I saw that the hall was lit by hundreds of small, flickering candles arranged in neat rows on iron racks attached to the walls.
Directly before me, at the front of the room, stood a large white marble altar. Six giant red candles were arranged symmetrically upon its surface. A large, colorful tapestry that had a picture of the Buddha sitting in a meditative posture on it, was hanging on the wall above the altar.
At the far end of the room, facing the altar, I saw a man sitting in a cross-legged position on the floor. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be absorbed in deep meditation. I found myself walking over to him. As I approached, he turned his head, opened his eyes and looked up at me.
Upon seeing his face, I immediately sensed that I knew him, although I couldn’t quite place where or when I had met him. He beckoned to me silently, with a motion of his left hand, to come over and sit down next to him, and I did so.
We stared at each other for a long time without speaking. I saw that he was an American. He appeared to be in his late forties. He was dressed in a black business suit and had on a brightly colored tie.
“Listen to me,” he said in a deep and commanding tone. “Tomorrow you will go to the temple and visit Master Fwap. Forget about snowboarding for now—you have something much more important to do!”
I didn’t reply. I just kept staring at him, trying to figure out where I had met him before.
“You can’t possibly remember where you met me before,” he said, as if he were reading my thoughts. “So stop trying. This is the first time you have ever run into me. Don’t you know who I am?”
I shook my head.
“Well, I would think it should be obvious to you,” he said with a strong laugh. “I’m you. Not yet, of course, but in the future. The reason I’m speaking to you in this dream tonight is because you are about to make the biggest mistake in your thus-far uneventful life.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Going snowboarding tomorrow instead of seeing Master Fwap at his temple. You owe him your life, you know. You ran him down with your snowboard on that mountain today. He could have easily burned you into a very small pile of ashes with his occult power, but because he is a compassionate Buddhist master he let you off the hook. He is a very patient man, and he is also destined to be your—our—master, and to place us on our destined path.”
“How are we doing?” I asked.
“Oh, in the future? Well, it’s certainly going to be very different from what you had imagined. This place is my—our—temple. Not bad, is it? We designed it ourselves.
“Don’t worry! Our future will reveal itself to you one day at a time, and that’s fast enough. The point I want to make to you tonight is that you must not make a mistake by going snowboarding tomorrow. Go and see Master Fwap instead. Oh, and by the way, he knows a lot more about snowboarding than you ever will!”
The room turned gold, faded and dissolved, and I awoke to my second morning in Nepal.