Excerpt from The Secret of Shambhala by James Redfield, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

At 7:55 I walked out the door of the main lobby with only one satchel. The hotel had agreed to store everything else. My plan was to be back within the week--unless, of course, something strange happened once I left with Yin. In that case, I would be back immediately.

Exactly on time, Yin drove up in an old Toyota and we headed toward the airport. On the way over, he was cordial, but he continued to plead ignorance as to what was going on with Wil. I considered telling him what Natalie had said about the mysterious place in central Asia and what Wil had told me that night in my bedroom, just to see Yin's reaction. But I decided against it. Better to just watch Yin closely, I thought, and see how things felt at the airport.

At the ticket desk, I found that a seat had indeed been purchased in my name for a flight to Lhasa. I looked around and tried to feel out the situation. Everything seemed normal. Yin was smiling, obviously in a good mood. Unfortunately the ticket clerk was not. She could speak only a little English and was very demanding. When she asked for my passport, I became ever more irritated and snapped back at her. At one point she stopped and glared at me, as though she was going to refuse to issue the tickets altogether.

Yin quickly stepped in and talked to her in a calm voice in her native Nepalese. After a few minutes her demeanor began to change. She never looked at me again, but she spoke pleasantly to Yin, actually laughing at something he said. A few minutes later we had our tickets and boarding passes and were sitting at a small table in a coffee shop near our gate. There was the strong smell of cigarettes everywhere.

"You have much anger," Yin said. "And you don't use your energy very well."

I was taken aback. "What are you talking about?"

He looked at me with kindness. "I mean, you did nothing to help the woman at the counter with her mood."

I immediately knew what he was getting at. In Peru the Eighth Insight had described a method of uplifting others by focusing on their faces in a particular way.

"You know the Insights?" I asked.

Yin nodded, still looking at me. "Yes," he said. "But there is more."

"Remembering to send energy is not that easy," I added defensively.

In a very deliberate tone, Yin said, "But you must realize that you were already influencing her with your energy anyway, whether you know it or not. The important thing is how you set your . . . field of . . . of . . ." Yin was struggling to find the English word. "Field of intention," he said finally. "Your prayer-field."

I looked at him hard. Yin seemed to be describing prayer in the same way the dark-haired man had earlier.

"What are you talking about exactly?" I asked.

"Have you ever been in a room of people where the energy and mood were low, and then someone comes in who lifts everyone's energy immediately, just by entering the room? This person's energy field goes out ahead of him or her and touches everyone else."

"Yeah," I said. "I know what you mean."

His look penetrated me. "If you are going to find Shambhala, you must learn how to do this consciously."

"Shambhala? What are you talking about?"

Yin's face grew pale, exuding an expression of embarrassment. He shook his head, apparently feeling as though he had overstepped himself and let something out of the bag.

"Never mind," he said lowly. "It is not my place. Wil must explain this." The line was forming to enter the plane, and Yin turned away and moved toward the ticket steward.

I was wracking my brain, trying to place the word "Shambhala." Finally it came to me. Shambhala was the mythical community of Tibetan Buddhist lore, the one that the stories about Shangri-La had been based on.

I caught Yin's eye. "That place is a myth . . . right?"

© 1999 by James Redfield. All rights reserved. Published with permission of the publisher, Warner Books.