Mother's Chronicles - Book Three

28

Alexandra David-Neel

"That's where" —the drawing-room on N°9 Rue du Val de Grace —"I used to receive Madame David-Neel," said Mother. "We saw each other almost every evening."

In the first place, how did they get acquainted?

Mother was telling us in what a fierce fight she was engaged against those who hold on to the idea that 'spiritual life' means abandoning the earth and going off to some faraway Nirvana. "But I," she said, "I always reply with the story of Buddha. Just as he was about to enter into Nirvana, all of a sudden he saw that the earth must be changed —and he stayed back."

Then she described her first meeting with Alexandra David-Neel. "I remember. Once it happened with Mme David-Neel. It was very interesting. She

Page 300

came to deliver a lecture —I wasn't acquainted with her, it's there that I came to know her —at the Theo-optical Society, I think.¹ I don't quite remember. I attended the lecture; and while she was speaking I saw Buddha —I saw him clearly, not above her head, but a little to the side. He was present." A slow smile spread across her face. "Well then, after the lecture, I was introduced to her. I didn't know the sort of woman she was! So I said to her, 'Oh, Madam, during your speech, I saw Buddha there.'

"She answered me back," Mother took on an angry tone of voice, "'Impossible! Buddha went into Nirvana.'

Mother lifted her eyebrows, "Well-well-well . . ." and laughed.

"But he really was there, notwithstanding what she thought."

Alexandra David-Neel was born in Paris on 24 October 1868. Her father, Louis David, had taken a very active part in the coup d'état of 1851. He was exiled

1. After sixty years, Mother was of course not quite sure. It appears that Mme David-Neel gave only one lecture at Paris' Theosophical Society, and that was in 1947.

Page 301

to Belgium along with a great friend of his, Victor Hugo.

Ever since she was a little girl of five in Paris, Alexandra David wanted to "go beyond the garden gate in search of the Unknown." She began that search around the age of twenty-three, when she made her first overseas voyage —to India and Ceylon. And again when she roamed Indo-China for three years — from 1895 to 1897.

At the turn of the century she went to Tunis. There she met Philippe Neel, whom she married in 1904. Without the generosity of her husband she would hardly have been able to indulge in her passion for travel.

On the first page of David Neel's diary, dated 1 January 1911, is a note by her: "Began the year with a meeting of philosophical meditation at the Richards'."

Again, the same year, on February 3, she notes, "In the evening, at the Richards', strange and involuntary vision of my life ..."

Much later, in her book L'Inde où j'ai vécu (The India Where I Lived), Alexandra was to evoke the memory of those early days with Mirra. "I have

Page 302

the most pleasant recollections of the evenings spent with her in the small house she resided in on Rue du Val de Grace, in Paris, and of the walks we had together in the Bois de Boulogne. Neither she nor I could at the time have imagined the role she has today."

They went picnicking in the Bois de Boulogne and were greatly entertained by the first aeroplanes trying to take off. Watching the progress with interest, they would exclaim to each other, "Oh, look! This time it has gone up at least four metres.... Oh! Look! Look ..."

As their intimacy grew, Alexandra narrated to Mirra many adventures she had had during her peregrinations. From time to time, Mother regaled us with some of those stories.

"Mme David-Neel," said Mother, "was an intense woman and capable of profound meditation. Now, one day, she started walking while in meditation. It was in the open. She walked and walked for a long time with eyes closed. When at last she opened them she found herself in a strange place and turned to go home. She walked back, this time without shutting her eyes. After some time, at a certain distance, she

Page 303

saw a stream running right across. It was a fairly wide and deep stream. How had she gone over the stream? There had been nobody to help her take a boat. Obviously she had walked upon the water! This seems incredible," said Mother, "but Mme David-Neel would not fool anybody, nor would she deceive herself."

Mother frequently suffered from bloodshot eyes. When that happened, instead of reading, she would pull out a grain from her vast granary and tell us a story. Thus, one day she told us one which she had heard. "I heard the story from Mme David-Neel," she said, "who, as maybe you know, is a well-known Buddhist, specially as she was the first woman to enter Lhasa. Her journey to Tibet was extremely perilous and thrilling, and she herself gave me an account of one of the incidents of this journey." In all probability, Mother heard it in Japan when they met again in 1917.

"She was travelling with a certain number of fellow-travellers forming a sort of caravan." She was bound for Lhasa, in Tibet. The caravan had to go through some forests. "And these forests are infested with tigers, some of whom become man-eaters . . . and

Page 304

when that happens, they are called 'Mr Tiger.'

"Late one evening, when they were in the thick of the forest — a forest they had to cross in order to set up camp in security —Mme David-Neel realized that it was the time for her meditation. Now, she used to meditate very regularly at a fixed hour, without fail. And as it was the meditation hour, she told her companions, 'Keep going; as for me, I shall sit here and do my meditation. When I have finished, I shall join you. Meanwhile, go on to the next stage and set up the camp.'

"One of the coolies told her, 'Oh, Madam! No. It's impossible, absolutely impossible.' He spoke in his own language, of course, but I must tell you that Mme David-Neel knew Tibetan like a Tibetan. 'It is quite impossible, "Mr Tiger" is there in the forest, and it is just the time for him to come out in search of his dinner. We cannot leave you and you can't stop here!' She answered that it did not at all matter to her, that the meditation was much more important to her than safety, and they could all withdraw and she would remain alone.

"Much against their will they went away, for it

Page 305

was impossible to reason with her —once she had decided on doing something, nothing could prevent her from doing it. They left and she sat down comfortably at the foot of a tree and entered into meditation. After a while she felt a somewhat unpleasant presence. She opened her eyes to see what it was . . . and three or four steps in front of her was Mr Tiger! His eyes full of covetousness. So, the good Buddhist that she was, she said, 'Good. If this is the way I shall attain Nirvana, very good. Only I must prepare to leave my body in a befitting manner, in the proper spirit.' And, not moving, not even trembling, she closed her eyes again and entered once more into meditation, a meditation which was a little deeper, intenser, detaching herself completely from the illusion of the world, ready to pass into Nirvana. Five minutes went by, ten minutes gone, half an hour passed —nothing happened. Then, as it was time for the meditation to be over, she opened her eyes ... no tiger there!

"Doubtless, seeing so immobile a body, he must have thought it was unfit for eating! For tigers, like all wild animals —except the hyena —don't attack and eat a dead body. So she found herself quite alone and

Page 306

out of danger. She went her way calmly; and, on reaching camp, told them, 'Here I am.'"

Mme David-Neel set out in August 1911 for the Far East. This time her journeys covered not only India, Ceylon, Burma, Indo-China, but also China, Japan, Mongolia and Korea. On her way to Lhasa during the journey from China to India, which she made entirely on foot, she explored vast tracts of Tibetan territory which no white traveller had crossed before her.

Philippe Neel died in 1941.

Alexandra passed away in her home, Samten Zong, in Digne, France, on 8 September 1969, at the age of a hundred and one.

Even in the early sixties she and Mother kept in touch with each other through letters.

However, what interests us most is that upon landing in India Alexandra went almost immediately to Pondicherry to meet Sri Aurobindo on the recommendation of her friends the Richards. Even decades later, she was to recall that "beautiful memory."

Page 307