Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Stairway to Sirius: Shambhala Discovered?

 

This is pretty dramatic: NatGeo has a special on the discovery of what may be the legendary Shambhala, aka Shangri-La.

 

The unusual treasures have led Coburn and his team to suggest that the Mustang caves could be linked to "hidden valleys" thought to represent the Buddhist spiritual paradise known as Shambhala.

"Shambhala is also believed by many scholars to have a geographical parallel that may exist in several or many Himalayan valleys," Coburn said.

"These hidden valleys were created at times of strife and when Buddhist practice and principals were threatened," Coburn said. "The valleys contained so-called hidden treasure texts."


All of which reminds me of my old favorite Three Dog Night song, just to show how symbol-soaked the early 70s were, pop-culturally speaking. Then of course there is the Sirius connection to all of this, seeing that Alice Bailey associated Shambhala (or Shamballa, as she calls it) with Sirius:
Shamballa receives energy from various solar and extra-solar Entities or centres of emphatic and energetic life; i.e., from Venus, from the Central Spiritual Sun, from the current conditioning constellation through which our sun may be passing, from the Great Bear and other cosmic centres. 
Sirius, so important a factor in the spiritual life of the planet, brings its energies to bear direct upon the Hierarchy, and energy from Sirius does not normally enter our planetary life via Shamballa. Shamballa is the head centre, speaking symbolically, of our planetary Life, focussing will, love and intelligence in one great and fundamental Intention and holding that focussed point throughout the entire life cycle of a planet. 
This great Intention embodies current purpose and expresses itself through the medium of the Plan.
For my money, anything that comes of the Bailey/Theosophic axis is by definition apocryphal, but others may not agree with me. And it's interesting that this expedition is from 2008, the Year of Sirius.