“Shambhala itself is the Holy Place, where the earthly world links with the higher states of consciousness. In the East they know that there exists two Shambhalas—an earthly one and an invisible one.”— Nicholas Roerich, The Heart of AsiaThe GuruNikolai Konstantinovich Roerich (or Rerikh) was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1874. He attributed his love of the Orient to a painting of Kanchen Junga, the sacred Himalayan peak, which hung in the living room of Istara, the summer estate where he spent his youth and which his father had purchased from Count Semyon Vorostov, a diplomat who had traveled through India and named his estate after the Sanskrit word for “Lord” or “Divine Spirit.”Roerich showed an aptitude for art and enrolled in both Saint Petersburg University and the Imperial Academy of Arts. Although not well known today, in his time he was one of the most famous Russian artists in the world. In Saint Petersburg he met Helena Ivanova, who was also heavily into Theosophy, and they wed. Together they would forge their own particular version of Theosophy which they called Agni Yoga, and the search for Shambhala would be the central focus of the Roerichs throughout their life.…
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Raiders of the Lost Novel – Part 4
