Video (13:35) : Young Jalue Dorjee acts like you'd expect most 4-year-old boys to act. But his destiny as a young lama is what makes him different.

It's morning time and a little boy with a shaved head and a face shaped like the moon chants a Tibetan prayer. His high-pitched voice echoes inside the Columbia Heights bedroom that his father has transformed into a lavish prayer room. In here, the 4-year-old forsakes his cartoons and toys to study scripture and learn to pray the Buddhist way. Big for his age, he looks bigger still perched on an ornate chair draped in crimson and saffron robes. "Only for lamas," explains his father, Dorje Tsegyal, sitting cross-legged on the floor at his son's feet. Jalue Dorjee, you see, is believed to be no ordinary boy. According to the highest authorities of the Tibetan Buddhist order, he is the reincarnation of the speech, mind and body of a lama, or spiritual guru, who died in Switzerland six years ago. Jalue is said to be the eighth appearance of the original lama, born in 1655. His discovery in 2009 is considered an honor and a blessing for his working-class parents. But it comes with a hefty price. Jalue (pronounced JAH-loo) is their only child -- their everything. This week, he turns 5, a critical marker on his predestined path. In just five more years, he will leave the familiarity of his parents' home in Minnesota to live and study in a monastery in India. Jalue is believed to be one of a very few American tulkus -- or reincarnated lamas -- and the first one born in Minnesota, which has the second-largest Tibetan population in the country. Still, the finding comes amid some controversy over the way tulkus are being identified, as some Tibetan scholars question why their number has been increasing -- to thousands worldwide. But Jalue's parents are faithful believers, and they look past any doubters to the work they must do to prepare their son for his destiny. The thought of letting Jalue go pains his mother, but she consoles herself that when the time comes, she will probably be accustomed to the idea. Of dreams and letters From the time a new life first began to stir inside her in 2006, Dechen Wangmo said she sensed there was something special about this child. He was peaceful inside her body. She carried him with ease. She never felt sick, not even in the mornings. And there were those dreams. One night, an elephant appeared with several little ones around it, she said. They merged into the small prayer room in the family home. Once inside, they vanished. Tsegyal, too, remembers having vivid, symbolic dreams at the time. In one, he said, he saw many lamas surrounded by tall sunflowers. So when a highly respected lama from India came to visit the Twin Cities Tibetan community, Tsegyal told him about the dreams. That night, the lama had magical dreams of his own, according to Tsegyal, (pronounced Say-jull). The lama told him he saw huge tigers, one in each room of the family home. Robust tigers are a good omen and a sign of strength and protection, according to Tibetan Buddhist custom. Before Jalue was born, the family asked the lama to perform a practice known as "divination," which is used by lamas in Tibetan Buddhism to advise people on important matters. Different lamas use their own divination methods, including ones using a rosary or dice to interpret events. This lama performed a divination using two arrows and prayer, Tsegyal recalled. Weeks later, a letter arrived at the Columbia Heights home. In it, the visiting lama wrote that he was sure the child was the reincarnation of a Buddhist spiritual master, Tsegyal recalled. Which spiritual master, the lama did not know. Determined to find out, Tsegyal wrote to His Holiness Trulshik Shatrul Rinpoche, the spiritual leader of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, the oldest of the four schools. Rinpoche performed another divination, also using the arrows. Soon another letter arrived at the family doorstep. "Your son is lucky to be a reincarnate of body, speech and mind of TAKSHAM NUEDEN DORJEE." Accepting fate Emotions filled Tsegyal: gratitude and fear, honor and pride. He showed the letter to Wangmo. "Let's not tell anyone right now," she said. What if people questioned Jalue's legitimacy? she worried. Besides, he was their one and only child. She could not bear the thought of sending her precious son off to a monastery far from her in just a few short years. But there could be consequences, Tsegyal gently persisted. Tibetan Buddhists believe that interfering with a person's destiny may cut their life short. "If he is a real reincarnated lama, we have to nurture him and nourish him," he said softly. "Otherwise, he will not have a long life." Wangmo saw that she must accept her son's fate. When another lama from India came to town, Tsegyal brought his newborn son for a blessing, but kept quiet about the recognition. "Your son seems to be of high birth," the lama observed.

At Tsegyal's request, the lama performed a third divination ritual. Like the others, he quickly concluded the child was indeed a tulku. He told Tsegyal to alert the three highest lamas, and this led to more letters confirming Jalue as a reincarnated lama. On Jan. 6, 2009, a letter arrived bearing the seal of the greatest spiritual leader of the Tibetan diaspora. The Dalai Lama officially recognized Jalue as the reincarnation of the lama known as Taksham Nueden Dorjee. In a second letter, the Dalai Lama gave Jalue a formal lama name -- Tenzin Gyurme Trinley Dorjee. The boy was now 3. His life was about to change. Enlightened parenting The first thing to go was his hair. Buddhist monks must keep their hair no more than 2 inches long, a custom stemming from a story about Buddha snapping his fingers and instantly removing all the monks' hair, mustaches and beards. At the time, Jalue's shiny black hair fell to his shoulders. His parents timed his first haircut to the Dalai Lama's visit to the Tibetan community in Madison, Wis., in May 2010. The family traveled to Madison and the Dalai Lama did the honors, cutting a lock of the boy's hair. Tsegyal keeps that strand of hair preserved inside a blue, folded paper at home. Tsegyal had one more question for the Dalai Lama: How should he raise Jalue to ensure he will become a great lama? The Dalai Lama told him to keep the boy in the United States until he reaches the age of 10 so he can go to school here and learn good English. When he turns 10, he should be sent to a monastery in India, where he can learn as much as he can before he is full-grown. Jalue's father says he realizes that he is raising a lama for the 21st century. A tech-savvy spiritual leader who can easily communicate with people in the West and East. Yet someone also fully versed in the wisdom and practices of Tibetan Buddhism and able to teach those concepts to others. On a crisp fall morning, Jalue looks the part of a boy in two worlds. He practices reading Tibetan words, sitting on his lama chair at home. He is wearing a yellow "Highland Hawks" T-shirt and red flannel pajama bottoms, his favorite colors, and the ones that lamas wear exclusively. His head bowed over his workbook, he points to each word with a highlighter and reads aloud. Tsegyal sits next to his son. "He learns very fast," the father says, watching Jalue power through the workbook and look to his father with a "what's next?" expression. He's learning the basics -- how to say the morning and afternoon prayers and how to read the scriptures. In due time, his father says, he will also learn the meaning of those scriptures. "Right now," Tsegyal explains, "it's very important to know the reading. The important words. Once he will grow up his age, he will start to understand." The boy lama There is so much more Tsegyal must teach his son before they part. How to wear the monk robes properly. How to walk and how to sit. At times, Tsegyal feels overwhelmed by his duty. Mother and father still struggle to find the right balance for shaping a holy man while parenting a 4-year-old. Once Tsegyal became stern while trying to get Jalue to recite a line in the scripture. The boy's face became serious, Tsegyal said, and he spoke in a commanding tone. "Abba, now I am small. You don't have to do that. When I am grown up, I will know it." His mother remembers the day when Jalue took issue with her discipline. "I'm the reincarnate of Taksham," he told her. "You have to talk slow and in a good manner. Otherwise, I'll be shamed." Other times, he appears no different than any other 4-year-old. At home, he sucks down his favorite beef soup and rice dish. He runs around the house in his Power Ranger mask, makes action figures soar off the kitchen table, builds a garage out of Legos for his toy cars. He giggles while watching "Mr. Bean" videos or play-wrestling with his dad. He carries his eagerness to learn to preschool. He often sits near the front of the class, and when his teacher, Kathy Anderson, asks a question, he stretches his hand as high as he can, waving frantically. Jalue stands a full head taller than his classmates. A gentle giant, he grins at a blond-haired boy named Ryan and punches him playfully on the arm. "You want to play with ME?" he asks excitedly, then leads Ryan to a tub full of Legos. At preschool he's just one of the kids, but at the local Tibetan center, Jalue is viewed with great respect and awe. He stopped at the center on Saturday to celebrate his birthday with cake, candles and singing. Jalue appeared stoic, in his monk robes, standing in front of dozens of other Tibetan-American children. They craned their necks to get a better view of the boy, introduced to them as "rinpoche," meaning "precious one." Then, they sang "Happy Birthday" to him in Tibetan. At the end, the headmaster of the Tibetan center's weekend school leaned down and touched his forehead to Jalue's -- in order to receive blessings from the little lama. A mother's dilemma Dechen Wangmo is 40 years old now, and says she won't have any more children.