Kat - Oh, I see! :-) Funny.

Greg - I also think it's probably Neil Young who made the claim of having some Indian blood, not Bob Dylan. I'm one of the world's most terminal Bobaholics, have read umpteen books about him, and I do not recall ever hearing of him making such a claim...correct me if I'm mistaken on this, however.

Fat B***rd - You haven't read very far into Lobsang Rampa. He never denied being in the body of a man born in Devonshire, but that's not the whole story! Have you ever heard of one spirit vacating a living human body (in order to escape what it perceives as a painful or hopeless existence) and allowing another human spirit to enter that adult body? It's a fairly well known concept in esoteric metaphysics...sometimes called the "walk-in". It was known of in the East and in Tibet. There's a fully detailed explanation of it in Rampa's books. It's also possible for a spiritual adept to leave his body behind (in which case the body dies) by a deliberate act of will. He then becomes a bodiless spirit in a spiritual existence, the level of which depends on his level of development and awareness. He can remain there for an indefinite period...or reincarnate through the normal birth process...or move into an available adult body, if the soul inhabiting it agrees to move out and let him come in. This is an agreement struck on the level of spirit, not mind...the average person making such an agreement would probably not be consciously aware of it on the level of the surface mind. Mind is a limited tool of spirit, and is mortal, while spirit is immortal.

Rampa was one of the first authors in the West to publicly talk about this ancient spiritual knowledge, and he was roundly ridiculed for it by people far more ignorant than himself, in my opinion. To say that they were "earthbound" hardly says enough, but it's a state of mind as common as grass.

I think that Rampa was probably a pretty advanced adept, though that does not mean I take everything he said as gospel. He was an advanced student, not an avatar. Neither do I reject what he said out of hand, however. It's very thought-provoking material, and he had a lot of guts to say it publicly when he did.

Boy, talk about thread drift...

- LH