With a bemused look on their faces the monks are pointing to a picture of the Dalai Lama. They are saying to me: "We don't understand it. He gave us his blessings just eight years ago. He donated one of his ceremonial robes to a fellow abbot. Yet just four years later, he cast us out of Tibetan society."

We are standing on the rooftop of their monastery. It is a glorious afternoon in November. Behind us, the Yamuna river rolls quietly past the cows. Just a few yards in front of us, traffic roars relentlessly down one of Delhi's busiest highways. This is India, land of contrast. Once a place of "heat and dust" it now has a new weapon in its environmental armoury. Smog. And plenty of it.

My collection of religious refugees have come a long way from the clean and peaceful mountains of their homeland. The polluted city is the least of their concerns. They are grateful for it. While it may not be heaven, it is at least a haven. And Tibet itself is under Chinese occupation. Though many monks still live there, they are in constant fear of their oppressors. At best, they are harassed and intimidated. At worst, they are manipulated, bribed and bullied into a betrayal of their faith. The invaders are not fond of religious tradition. They are, though, just about willing to let Buddhists be Buddhists - provided they agree to be led by monks who only dance to China's tune.

The Dalai Lama was offered this option. He could have stayed in his homeland - and become a puppet on the end of a string from Beijing. Instead, he fled and a torrent of Tibetans fled with him. Fighting was never much of an option. The Chinese army is a mighty force. Tibetan monks are a peaceful breed. Some early skirmishes, brief and bloody, soon proved this point. Most of these took place in 1959. Chimmi, the monk I befriended last year was a toddler at the time. His mother died soon after his birth. His father was jailed for resisting the Chinese. He was smuggled out of Tibet by monks who were making their way to the comparative safety of India.

Chimmi has never been back. But he listens to the radio. He knows the situation is not getting any better. The invaders are systematically tearing down the monasteries, replacing them with shopping malls and factories. They are marching, with the hobnail boots of business, over a land which was once full of sacred secrets.

Like the Dalai Lama, Chimmi does not believe that violence is ever justified. He prefers to pray that one day, by some act of divine intervention, their people will be set free.

Divine intervention is probably what it will take. The Chinese have no intention of going home. The rest of the world has no intention of making them. China is powerful. Nobody wants to threaten it with war. China is just beginning to open itself up to global commerce. There are fortunes to be made through trade. And what has traditional Tibet to offer? No oil. No gold. No glamour. Just a bunch of monks and mountains. But these are no ordinary mountains. Nor are these ordinary monks.

Place yourself, please, in a dreamlike state. Relax. Let your mind go blank for a moment. Be willing to float in and out of this world - and a thousand others. Imagine that you can levitate if you only make your body feel light enough. Pretend that, if you wish to, you can turn back the clock. Or send it sweeping forward to the future.

Envisage the ability to see into other people's minds. Envisage, too, the power to influence their thoughts. You can do anything you want to. You can be whatever you dream of being.

You are under the influence of no drug. Your mind is perfectly sane and rational. You just happen to know about the existence of another dimension. You know how to enter and leave it at will. This all seems perfectly normal to you.

Congratulations. You have just taken your first step into a mystical, timeless realm.

You have drifted a little closer to the state that some people call enlightenment. And, just possibly, you have glimpsed the future of humanity. You may be only pretending - but on the path of self-discovery, pretence is a key part of the process.

You have entered what psychologists call the world of the shared subconscious. You have encountered what artists and writers call "the muse". It is a delicate, fragile place. Yet it is full of wealth and wonder. Tap into it and you can bring forth a flow of inspiration. Siphon off a symphony. Draw down a design. Fish out, from this wondrous river, as many inventive ideas as you care to. You will never drain it dry.

We all enter this world from time to time. Yet our visits there are only fleeting. Even the greatest creatives cannot dwell there more than moment. It is too fluid, too different, too weird. To live there all day every day, you must either go mad...or become a monk.

Through a lifetime's dedication, you can slowly learn to live on a natural high. And if you really go for it, you can become adept at the art of mind over matter. For breakfast, you can bend more spoons the Uri Geller. For supper, you can pluck an apple from thin air.

What if this ability is the true heritage of ancient Tibet? What if, up in those silent snow-capped mountains, the monks have been perfecting such skills for centuries? What if, under the guise of monastic practice, they have been protecting a priceless power?

Remember, please, that though these monks are Buddhists - Buddhism reached Tibet only a mere 1,500 years ago. Prior to that, the people of this land followed a much older mystical tradition, one that may date back further than any that we know.

Could this be the only place on earth where lost ancient knowledge has been purely preserved? It's nice isn't it, to drift in such a bubble of conjecture?

But now we must burst it. Guns. Troops. Politics. Heavy-handed armies forcing their way over the mountains crushing delicate flowers underfoot.

Welcome back to the "real world"?

Sorry to shatter the dream but now you understand two things: first, what the Chinese did to Tibet when they took it over and second, why the Tibetans, for all their access to magical power, cannot just wish the Chinese away.

You try summoning mystical skill with a knife to your throat. Or with a thousand years of heady atmosphere, suddenly destroyed forever. Or with a life in exile, however bearable it may have become.

It takes a few years for the air to go out of a bubble that has existed for eternity. But if we look at how the Western world has altered since the invasion of Tibet, we may be able to see where some of that air has escaped to. Think of how we have altered our attitudes. Consider the New Age movement which has steadily increased its appeal.

If this is the "upside" of the burst Tibetan bubble, there is downside too. For as fast as the West has grown more "spiritual", the Tibetans themselves have become more political. Though Dalai Lama is rightly respected as a hero and teacher all over the world, four years ago, he did something that sent shock waves through the entire Tibetan community. Suddenly, he demoted a deity.

He wiped out a wisdom being. To the Tibetans, this was like the Pope banning prayers to St Francis. Some felt able to accept his orders. But not, of course, the Tibetan equivalent of Franciscan monks. They just couldn't believe what they were hearing. The pictures and statues of their most treasured saint were being taken out of the temples and smashed. A full-scale witch-hunt began. Tibetans who refused to renounce the deity found their names on danger lists. They could not work for the government unless they gave an undertaking, in writing, not to worship that deity any more. They were refused travel documents.

Thousands of exiled monks like Chimmi became doubly disenfranchised. To this day, the Dalai Lama has given no credible explanation for his actions. He has, as may befit the leader of a mystic tradition, given an incredible one. He has let it be known that he reached his decision through dreams, dough ball divinations - and consultation with Nechung, the official oracle of the Tibetan government. It matters not that the banned deity is one he personally worshipped for more than 20 years. Nor even that this deity, through an oracle, once provided him with escape route from Tibet. An oracle's pronouncement is an oracle's pronouncement. And if one oracle demands that another oracle be extinguished? Who can say?

Such a thing has never happened before. It is tempting to see this as the Tibetan bubble, beginning to fold in on itself as its magic merges with the outside air. The Deity in question is known as Dorje Shugen. Also called The Wish-Fulfilling Jewel. It has, Chimmi looks me in the eye and insists, the power to grant anyone, any mystical power they care to ask for.

There is a famous Tibetan prophecy called Shambala. For some it is a place, for others a state of mind. The prophecy describes a time when the Earth will be at peace and all who live upon it will become enlightened. Most Tibetans believe that Shambala is thousands of years into the future. Chimmi - or to give him back his full name, Geshe Cheme Tsering - thinks differently.

He tells me of another old Tibetan prophecy about a Shrine, in Lhasa. There are two doors to this shrine. One is always kept locked. They say that, when this door is opened, the power of the Wish-Fulfilling Jewel will rise.

That door to the West was effectively opened, some years ago, when the Chinese destroyed the shrine. So far, the power of the jewel has not found its way to you or me. But within three months, there is due to be a major cosmic conjunction of a kind that has not been seen for 1,500 years, precisely as long as Buddhism has been in Tibet. If the Dalai Lama wants the Wish-Fulfilling Jewel, Chimmi wonders if it is of interest to the rest of the world. But what, if we receive a Wish Fulfilling Jewel, would we use it for? To build a society based on love and understanding? Or get ourselves bigger houses and faster cars?

Perhaps we should ask the Oracle of the Wish-Fulfilling Jewel. Or perhaps, right at this very moment, someone is already asking...