By C C Pung
Justice of Peace
The Third Eye
FOUND this while trying to unclog and undust my book shelves.
A notation inside said this was purchased in Sandakan in 1974. Wow.
This 100+ page paperback has been with me 50 years! The price on the backcover says ’35p’ and Australia 1.10′.
I remember I paid less than RM4.
The bookshop (which sold many other things) was in Jalan Tiga of present day Sandakan.
It sat next to a popular Chinese restaurant which was my favourite charsiew-rice (RM3, I think) place.
I had a habit of reading over my food, and the bookshop was a convenient stop-by.
Unlike many bookshops today who bind their books on display in impossible plastic wrap, ”The Third Eye’ was, like all books in the shop at that time, was free to browse.
Thinking back, I think I picked the book under the influence of the then hippie rage of transcendental meditation, extrasensory perception, the Beatles’ visit to India, their Magical Mystery Tour album (about that era, I guess) and the occult mumbo jumbo.
I went on to read Rampa’s books until The Thirteenth Candle in the next couple years.
In between, and in those days of no Internet, I remember reading about Lobsang Rampa being alleged as a scam and fake.
I only realised much later that the book first saw print in 1956 and was a hit that went through more than 10 reprints.
The author was actually a British who wrote more than the 13 books I knew of the same genre.
His works was much scrutinised and he investigated.
His move to Canada later was attributed to the unwanted attention at home.
Though the author never visited Tibet, and The Third Eye was not endorsed officially by the Dalai Lama, the paramount leader of Tibet, a quasi official communique did give its nod of the author’s description of monastery life and rituals and geography.
Losing Rampa is supposed to be a long-dead Dalai Lama who inhabited the body of the British author.
The details in post-third Eye books can only be described given that the author never set foot in the ancient kingdom.
The Third Eye offered, among other things, an ability for me a person as what he truly is and not what he wants you to believe.
Buddhism and Hunduism have rituals that supposed can open our Third Eye. Like you see from the book cover, it is located in the middle of your forehead.
I’m cynical of many things and many people. It is not suspicion but it provokes my suspicion. If that makes sense …
If anything, reading Lobsang Rampa was a magical mystery tour of Tibet, Tibet Buddhism, the Potala Palace.
Its the sort of intangibles that fond reader like me gather. It cannot be passed on.
