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Shangri-La

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Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. In the book, "Shangri-La" is a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia—a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan. The word also evokes the imagery of exoticism of the Orient. The story of Shangri-La is based on the concept of Shambhala, a mystical city in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.


Now the question is this--- IF you came across a map to the this hidden city and told no one that you had it...would you believe that it was a real place and then travel there.Also once there,would you stay knowing you could never leave...no cell phones,no TV,no internet and almost no aging.Give me your reasons for going,staying there and/or never leaving there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangri-La

Yes, I would try my damndest to get there. It might be difficult to leave everything behind. One always wants an escape hatch, and the ability to come and go is empowering. Power loses meaning in Shangri-La. The area portrayed in the book (read when in high school so not sure I'd have the same reaction to the story today), individual histories and "all that" tend to pale in comparison to the utter peace of the valley (which weather-wise resembles SoCal). Also remember at it's heart it was a boy-meets-girl story, so there's the personal physical aspect. And wasn't there a war going on?

Well aside from the book and movie...if you could get rid of all your troubles and slowly grow old.Would you give up everything you ever knew to have true peace in your life??

Hmmm....I don't know if I could. I don't think that I personally could handle true peace in my life.

True I suppose...I don't think anyone could have true peace...but the only draw back is..if you chose to stay...you couldn't leave without losing the time you gained while there and would grow old.

I would not go. There are things I still want to do, and they are kind of not peaceful.

I wouldn't trade personal passion for the peace, DarkWolfman. In the story, individual love was not replaced by placidity. If you're (the generalized you, not the you you) willing to sacrifice passion, and the highs and lows that come with it you might as well just take Prozac.

Drugs even prescribed drugs are never the answer for ones problems...enlightenment could help one fix what is bothering them.Yes Shangri-La is a fictional place...but like alot of people on here...they live in a fantasy world daily...why can't someone believe there is a place where they can live in peace and never have a care in the world.I don't need passion to live peacefully...nor do I need to have love to feel free.

Tempting.. DarkWolf Very Tempting, my natural response is no.. but I would so enjoy the journey to such a promising destination.. Just to see
such a city would be enough for me.

As well as sometime to speak with a person from there.

How I got the map would be a deciding factor as well.

map found in an old book in a book store,tucked in a corner of back street in New York lets say.The book is on Tibet and the history of buddhists

I noticed the Binding was pealing, and a paper was in the cover.. I like that. it would have to be a First Addition, Limited Print.


I would need to account for my disappearance. People would want to know, I wouldn't want to tell them out right.. or would I?

Who would I tell?

Perhaps a friend with terminal cancer, because surely they would have a cure for cancer in S-L. I wouldn't tell them where we where going though, so the journey would be something in its self.

If we got there, and it was as stated, then I could send my companion
ahead. To offer such a thing to a person.. that is all I need.

Would like to take that journey, much like king solemns mine. an adventure of a life time. we all look for inner peace and santuary no different than the hunt for Atlantis I suppose.

To find the place, and then find that they have no vacancies.. or that they up and moved because of developement.. hehe, bad attempt at mock pessimism...

Either that the place would lie in ruins from the years of neglect. solomn place for only you. reminds me of a twilight zone the last man on eearth theory.

Burgess Meredith episode..works at the bank...there is a war...he is the only surviver and goes to the library and breaks his glasses.

Anyhow...Shnagri-La is uspposed to be the ideal place...no war...no famine..no fighting or killing...but there is always something that makes it imperfect.

There has to be for no place is totaly ideal, for one must have another. and the garden of eden was such a deception. for shangri-la may hold oalot of inner peace no wars and famine but at what price would this be.. another post question it seems.

Question 2. If a dear close friend or a relative that you love and adore were given 6 months to live and you were given the opition of living in Shangri-La forever...would you not give up your chance to live there or would you sacrifice it all and give it to the dying friend/relative??

Ectopia is another good read. They Basically seal off California West of the Rockeys up to Oregon, and 14 years later a journalist goes in to interview the "leader"."

maniy infact would say yes to that, yet others in selfishness may not even blink at that offer.

On the road to Shangra-la watch for traffic in the opposite direction.

Rejected Fortune Cookie Fortune.

I suppose everyone has their idea of uptopia and what would give them true peace and happiness.Being alone isn't difficult to me but having to deal with so much is.In theory Shangri-La is ideal for me..but I don't know if I could handle being alone for such a long time.

yes but you would not be alone for the eople that help find it with you would be there, much like the movie ruins, yet bored and reajusting to no electricity or pphones or computers.

when do we leave.

But that is the point...to get away from the pressues of everyday life...no phones...no TV...no net...no electric.There are different forms of being alone...the day my mother died..my house was full of family...over 50 people...yet I felt alone.Riding a bus with 25 other people...you can be alone.Shangri-La might have several people there...but you are still alone.

And isolated.but if you left a map.. Perhaps a someone you know will find it. Or the grand kid of someone you know. They show up and eventually make it, people tell of what they left behind, you learn of the grand kids relationship with your friend

isolation would be tough yet new friends or companions would be apt to happen in such a place. the movie Dinatopia comes to mind on this scheme.

Thst could explain why the map was left, I am sure that is the first question asked of travelers, "What brings you to S-L?"

I would burn the map.

As I watched the smoke rise I would smile, knowing that I had beaten temptation
( does'nt happen often )

I'm content to wait, knowing I am a work in progress, and when the time is right I'll find my real Shangri - La.

There are many idilic places in the world... still many uninhabited islands around the world. The thought of living somewhere in total "bliss" but, having to live totally alone... in my view, that could very easily become a maddening existance.

Leo

Is selling the Map in timeshares an option?

Timeshares? ;-/ So much for Shangri-La... and, the next time you arrive... looks just like any other "tourist trap".

Leo

Admit it you just started thinking about prices for solviniers.

? That may be your thinking... but, as for me... a simple Temple of Solitude like Ankor Wat.

Leo

Time shares there goes the neighborhood.
last place on earth for solitude and you bring tourist ideas!

shangri la a place for the family bring never cold never hot the right place to be and soon it would be like any other big city or resort.

shangri la is like a quest for the grail self enlighment and solutide.

If a person can't find an actual Shangri-La deep in the mountains,covered with snow...maybe they can make their own Shangri-La.Turn off all phones,TVs,computers...set up a room in their home that is peaceful and quiet.At least until they can find peace in the world.

Cadrewolf~ Thanks! Yes, solitude... self-enlightenment... not Disneyland in Shangri-La.

Leo

we should try and see what the outcome is even for a week, people actually talking with humans and not phones or computers, reading and thoughts would take over tv sports or nature would take over sitting on couch doing arm raises to drink.

sounds like the days of old when worries and family and community did mean something.

I'd be all about the adventure of going, finding it, but if I couldn't leave, I wouldn't enter. Too much in this world that I love and wouldn't want to leave behind.

but what woul stop you from leaving such a garden of eden. traps to cause a cavein on the path. or just lost the way in.

leaves bread crumbs so i won't gt lost.

On the road to Shangra La people have so much food they throw it away, look at all this bread I found..

Origins of Shangri-La


The tale of an earthly paradise is among the most enduring myths in the world. From Sumerian epic to the 'islands of the blest' in Celtic literature, it has been a recurring theme through many bodies of literature and for thousands of years. Not surprisingly, then, modern people have also been drawn to the dream of a lost paradise where the ravages of time and history have been held back, where human beings live in harmony with nature, and where the wisdom of the planet is saved for future generations. In other words, to a Shangri-La.

'Lost Horizon was a tale for its times.'
The story of Shangri-La itself is a modern one, told by the English novelist James Hilton in his novel Lost Horizon (1933). Set in the troubled years before World War Two, the book tells of a community in a lamasery (a monastery for Tibetan lamas), in the lost Tibetan valley of Shangri-La, cut off from the world and from time. All the wisdom of the human race is contained in this place, in the cultural treasures stored, and in the minds of the people who have gathered here in the face of an imminent catastrophe.

Hilton's tale struck a chord. The book enjoyed great popularity, and even the retreat of the US president at Camp David was called Shangri-La, after the paradise described in it. And when the novel was turned into a Hollywood movie by Frank Capra, it was an instant success. These days, the name is part of the language, used everywhere from Nepali airlines and Chinese hotel chains to holiday cottages in Florida and Torquay.

Lost Horizon was a tale for its times. In the increasingly pessimistic 1930s, when Western civilisation seemed bent on a path to self-destruction - and when, as Carl Jung put it, 'the smell of burning was in the air' - the story of a kind of earthly paradise had an irresistible appeal. And Tibet in the 1930s was still a land of mystery, one of the last unmapped places, a forbidden and insular country. Nowadays, of course, the choice of the location of the tale seems all the more poignant, given what happened in Tibet some years after the book was published, with the Chinese invasion of 1949, and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/cultures/shangri_la_01.shtml

Seems as though I would fit right in, since items have little to no monotary value for me. I could live without many things. As well, since I am a hermit, the aspect of not going anywhere for the rest of my life is a bit refreshing really.

DarkWolfman

great insight post thank you

but we must see that even today lost tribes are still being discovered, that holds no ties to modern civilzation. shangri-la a utopia of dreams , a quest for a better life.

its not a place its a region now.

the total himalayan part from nepal, tibet and India upto sikkim and total bhutan himalayan range is the land of shangri-la. that unconquered queen after the loss of that kingdom in the war of kingdoms, that kingdom is lost and become a tale only. the most beautiful feminine even helen would shy on shangril-la' Beauty and bravery, lived unconquered and now alive as given name for beauty of the himalayan nature - shangril-la.

there is the door of heaven too in her region in hte waterfall of river of Tzang-po. the most forceful waterfall on the earth.

No, I wouldn't g to a place I could never leave just for the sake of immortality and the like. I don't have an escapist personality and beileve that many people who feel they need to quest for the fantastical brass rings (holy graille, Shangri-La... Jimmy Hoffa?) are simply looking to fill a void with a mission that distracts them from reality.

how long is immortality, for eventually all things wither and pass. like the green mile eventually you would wish to pass for you have outlived all you loved... hell to say the least.

I would believe that is a real place. I'd try my hardest to get there too. If I had to take a canoe to get there I'd do it, and conquer my fear of canoes. I think i could stay for a time. Heck i'd be young and i'd enjoy it. I'd get really bored though... >.< my reason for going is that i'd be discovering something no else has. my reason for staying there is i'd be in a land that no one has discovered. I could explore and have fun. If i could leave i would, but if i really liked it there, i wouldnt want to leave. Even though i'd have no technology, i could find something to do. I'd probably get bored, but i could find something to do.

There's a reason new people arrive and maps are found in obscure places. Others have left: did they make it back or did they get hooked into "real" life?

Also, Wolfman, in the story not everyone was a monk. There were villagers who married and had children. They were not immortal. They had to do things to survive. Food did not magically appear on the table. There were farmers, teachers, contruction workers.

What they found that make their life pleasant and relatively stress free was interest and joy in the mundane. They had perfected a habit of encouraging their fellow man instead of dissing them, competitiveness, but not hard work seemed to be minimized.

See there's a place I want to be.

As I remember the story, Shagri-la was set in a valley in which there was longevity due to where it was. I don't remember the details now. There were others there and the occasional person who got lost and was found who was living there. I wouldn't personally miss the cell phones, computers, etc because I didn't grow up with them. When I was a kid people were still listening to the radio. Then when around 5 or so we got one of the first TV sets. There were no dishwashers, clothes dryers, microwaves or any of that. I am use to all of that now but I really don't think I personally would miss them and would like to spend my last days in a peaceful place of this sort with or without immortality. If you were committed to being there I doubt you would want to leave. It looked as if there was the opportunity for love and enlightenment.

Never said anything about monks and Im not using the book or the movie as a basis for what goes on in Shangri-La.The book is the writers vision for what Shangri-La was..Im asking IF someone found a map to Shangri-La...would they want to go and/or stay.

its not a place of immortality or mortality...

her kingdom is lost now and wiped from the map by escape of its citizens after the fall. that kingdom was most peaceful to its citizen. whole himalaya is the place to extend the life. coz atmosphere there lead to yoga and meditation to take a seat in any monastery.

the place of immortality already lost and destroyed by the human, thus no ambrosia no such celestial atmosphere. it all already breaked with the layer of ozon...

himalaya there mountain trident too in himalayan mountain range the centre of the world's best yogis which do not come in public.

The place Shangri-La never existed...it was a place of myth and legend.

i know its there but i dont want to go there as id find it boring.

Its not the myth. Its truth of himalaya the hard truth that her land now cursed. geographical map changes frequently there by change of river's path, land slide, even lake wiped from the map some time. the trritory changing frequently here, so densed forest deepst most valleys high most moust mountains, 200 meter down rainfall and 200 up there fog or sunlight this all occur in this beautiful land yet cursed after the lost of kingdom of shangrila in cruel most blood shade by enemies on her kingdom.

yet it worth to leave the world and reside there in peace and yoga and love of nature. replica of heaven here, roaring everest here and along with it worlds top 10 mountains here first 6 in a row.