Surfing the Himalayas: A Spiritual Adventure

Tsering told me that no such manuscript ever existed at this or any other Buddhist monastery; that it was all "thought construction." He also wrote that just as we in the West have many legends about Jesus, so too, Buddhists have put up with quite a bit of nonsense in the East about the Buddha.

Frederick Lenz - "Rama" to his cult following - has created a version of Buddhism in Surfing the Himalayas that is entirely self-serving, while revising Tibetan religion from an idiosyncratic, New Age perspective. In the book, he introduces us to a fictitious, "enlightened" monk with miraculous powers, Master Fwap. The monk is the sole living teacher from the ancient (fictitious) Rae Chorze-Fwaz Order. Fwap's lineage stems from the legendary Atlantis that sent great teachers to ancient Egypt and other places before it sank from its karmic depravity. Fwap tells us that the ancient wisdom behind true enlightenment is now contained in his mysterious Buddhist enclave outside of Katmandu, Nepal.

Although Surfing the Himalayas is published as a fictional account, Lenz nevertheless claims that the book contains his "real experiences" when he was in Nepal "some time ago." The story begins with Lenz, the author, as the narrator - a device used by James Redfield in his comparable best-seller, The Celestine Prophecy - telling us about his love for the snow and sledding as a young boy. It quickly moves to a period when Lenz was a man of college age - which places the narrative around 1970. He flies to Nepal to "surf" the Himalayas since he has already "successfully snowboarded most of the higher mountains in the United States and Canada." He checks into the Katmandu Youth Hostel where he falls asleep and has a weird dream in which he meets a magical Buddhist monk on a mountain of snow. The monk appears in the air next to Lenz, who has inadvertently careened off a cliff. The monk teaches him to levitate and saves him.

Later, after awakening, Lenz hires a yak-drawn cart driven by a farmer who takes him from Katmandu to a snow-covered Himalayan mountain "in several hours." After a few hours of climbing, Lenz states that he was "on top of a mountain twice as high as any I had snowboarded before." During his first run he crashes into an old, bald-headed monk who seems to appear out of nowhere. Thus begins his relationship with Fwap, who convinces the boy to become his student because of Lenz's achievements in past lives as a meditator and occultist. We discover that Lenz has been chosen to carry on the important work of the Rae Chorze-Fwaz Tantra Mystery School and that Fwap is its only living "enlightened" master on the planet.

From Chapter Two onward the text abounds with the wisdom of Fwap, who guides his beguiled young student into the teachings of his order. The master uses the snowboard as a tool during several sessions. In one situation Fwap himself steps on the board with the "wrong shoes" and swiftly glides down a steep slope only to levitate, board and all, back to the top. Fwap directs Lenz to accomplish this by becoming "one with the board." Such magical guru tricks amaze Lenz who then wants to learn more. But the unflappable Fwap brushes magical power aside, telling his student that it is merely a by-product of enlightenment - the true goal.

Fwap's preachings are directed by simple questions from his student. On one occasion Lenz asks how to tell if a Buddhist master is enlightened. "The first condition was that the master's aura would turn a beautiful, bright golden color when he meditated." The second characteristic was that the master "would always have a totally outrageous sense of humor, because life, when viewed through the eyes of enlightenment, was incredibly funny!"

Some of Fwap's teachings sound suspiciously like those of the don Juan character created by writer Carlos Castaneda. Fwap discourses about the second attention, luminous beings, the tonal, places of power, and seeing in terms familiar to anyone who has read Castaneda's own magical autobiographical adventures. Perhaps don Juan was merely teaching the Rae Chorze-Fwaz Tantra philosophy.

But there is more here than a mere rip-off of Castaneda. In this book Lenz has condensed significant elements of his own teachings since the early 1980s. His devoted students believe that he is an enlightened being (like Master Fwap or don Juan) who radiates golden light and has an outrageous sense of humor. Well, at least some of them do. The rest seem to believe that they are not spiritually advanced enough to see his luminous aura or appreciate his humor, but they remain loyal with hopes that someday they might.

Surfing the Himalayas was self-published in 1994 by Lenz in a small edition mostly for his students (InterGlobal Seminars, Inc.). The book gained the attention of Warner Books, which has had huge success with another initially self-published spiritual adventure, The Celestine Prophecy. Warner bought the rights to Surfing for a cool quarter million dollars and planned to publish it under its label in the fall of 1995. After the Warner-Lenz deal appeared in Publisher's Weekly (May 22, 1995), Warner received information alleging Lenz was a controversial cult leader with a sordid reputation for sexually manipulating female followers. Warner dropped the contract, but still lost $80,000 to Lenz in the deal. St. Martin's Press, an earlier bidder, picked up the contract for an undisclosed amount, but according to the New York Times (July 13, 1995), St. Martin's was unaware of any controversy surrounding Lenz.