Theos-Talk Archives (June 2005 Message tt00136)

>>> In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Vladimir wrote:

> she wrote that Alice Bailey became a disciple of
> some resident of Sikkim named Laden La

It's a sheer nonsense. AAB probably never met Laden La (or Lha as he 
sometimes spelled), yet she mentiones him in her Autobiography as a 
person distinctly different from her "Tibetan", whoever he was.

A few years ago a very dear friend and a man who had stood very 
closely with Foster and me since the inception of our work - Mr. Henry 
Carpenter - went out to India to try and reach the Masters at 
Shigatse, a small, native town in the Himalayas, just over the Tibetan 
frontier. He made this effort three times in spite of my telling him
that he could find the Master right here in New York if he took the 
proper steps and the time was ripe. He felt he would like to tell the 
Masters, much to my amusement, that I was having too tough a time and 
that They had better do something about it. As he was a personal 
friend of Lord Reading, once Viceroy of India, he was given
every facility to reach his destination but the Dalai Lama refused 
permission for him to cross the frontier. During his second trip to 
India when at Gyantse (the furthest point
he could reach near the frontier) he heard a great hubbub in the 
compound of the dak bungalow. He went to find out what it was and 
found a lama, seated on a donkey, just entering the compound. He was 
attended by four lamas and all the natives in the compound were 
surrounding them and bowing. Through his interpreter, Mr. Carpenter
made inquiries and was told that the lama was the abbot of a monastery 
across the Tibetan frontier and that he had come down especially to 
speak to Mr. Carpenter.

The abbot told him that he was interested in the work that we were 
doing and asked after me. He inquired about the Arcane School and gave 
him two large bundles of incense for me. Later, Mr. Carpenter saw 
General Laden Lha at Darjeeling. The General is a Tibetan, educated in 
Great Britain at public school and university and was in charge of the 
secret service on the Tibetan frontier. He is now dead but was a great
and good man. Mr. Carpenter told him of his experience with this lama 
and told him that he was the abbot of a certain lamasery. The General 
flatly denied the possibility of this. He said the abbot was a very 
great and holy man and that he had never been known to come down 
across the frontier or visit an Occidental. When, however, Mr. 
Carpenter returned the following year, General Laden Lha admitted that
he had made a mistake; that the abbot had been down to see him."
("Unfinished autobiography", p. 165-166)

Moreover, all sourses known to me (except Helena Roerich, of course) 
speak positively of Laden La. So writes well-known researcher 
Evans-Wentz, and so wrote local Indian newspapers, when he died.