... Mahatmas. 31 March 1936 Alexandra David-Neel Recently someone gave me a book called With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet by Madame Alexandra David-Neel. I am sending you a photograph of her. I was impressed by the hardships she endured and by her study of Tibetan mystics. But I don't know whether what she writes is authentic. This is a photograph of Madame David-Neel taken long ago when she ...
... 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... 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... 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 ...
... photograph sadhaks are seen standing in a line in front of Sri Aurobindo at the Darshan of 24th April 1950. × Alexandra David-Neel, a Buddhist friend of the Mother who met Sri Aurobindo in 1910 on her way to Tibet, wrote in L'Inde ou j'ai vécu , Paris, 1951: “...recent visitors tell me that... once or twice a year the ...
... came. But that's all right, that's what Page 34 she wanted; she found we were nodding off! Soon afterwards: Oh, if you want to be amused, I have received a letter from Alexandra David-Neel.... You know that we had been corresponding and that she was the "great protector" of Tibetan lames (one of them was her "son" and he died there, so she was feeling quite lonely). I told her... Tibetans since the invasion of Tibet. × Satprem remembers that several years earlier, Madame A. David-Neel had in a letter already advised Mother to leave Pondicherry (it was Mother herself who told this to Satprem around or a little before 1960), because, she predicted, Mother would be "assassinated ...
... 32 Two Beautiful Hours "I spent two very beautiful hours exploring India's ancient philosophical ideas with an interlocutor of exceptional intelligence," wrote Madame Alexandra David-Neel to her husband Philippe Neel in a letter dated 27 November 1911. We have already met her a few times. 1 The reader perhaps knows that she had set out from Europe in August 1911 promising... brains of these lunatics!" Poor Alexandra! This was not the last she was to hear about the 'Hindu of Pondicherry' A few days later when she went to lunch with the governor of Madras, "I was seated at the right of His Excellency, who, of course, spoke again about my visit to Pondicherry." She left Madras soon after and went to Calcutta. From there Alexandra wrote to Philippe on 14 February 1912... Philippe Neel that she would be back with him within eighteen months. In actuality it became fourteen years, for it was in May 1925 that the couple saw each other again. During those fourteen years Alexandra had covered thousands of kilometres through the Far East, a good part of Central Asia, not to speak of South Asia, and crisscrossed the Indian subcontinent. On 18 November 1911 she reached Mandapam ...
... 25 Hohlenberg And what was Mirra doing in France? To begin with, she attended all sorts of 'spiritual meetings,' and met many people. One of them was Alexandra David-Neel, who became famous for her Tibetan exploits afterwards. We shall come to her later. Mirra also wrote articles for the group 'Idea,' and she taught some of its members how to consciously ...
... came from Chandernagore along with two other special Representatives to the French Council in Pondicherry, for about a month and a half. But it was dangerous to meet Sri Aurobindo openly as Alexandra David-Neel had found out to her dismay. Letting a few days go by, Motilal went to Odeon Salai, a big open ground close to the Botanical Garden, where a game of football was in progress. Moni, Nolini, Saurin ...
... For her descriptions are lively and detailed: the sights she saw, the people she met — in a word, India as it then was, which even the Indians of today do not know. However, we know that Alexandra David-Neel met the threesome in Benares in March 1913 on her own journey through India, as she recorded their meeting in her letters to her husband. She wrote: "The event of the week was the eclipse of ...
... What was he doing then? "I am developing the necessary powers for bringing down the spiritual on the material plane," he wrote in a letter of 12 July 1911, from Raghavan house where he had met Alexandra David-Neel. How did he go about it? At Sundar Chetty's house he was already honing his skills. One of the first was to obtain the effectiveness of the Will on an object or event that had to be ...
... the Maitreya Buddha, too. Yes, but it seems we should be more cautious about him. According to Alexandra David-Neel, it's not a truly authentic text, it came afterwards, after Buddha's descendants: it isn't what Buddha himself is said to have preached. There is a controversy here. Of course, Alexandra belonged to the Buddhism of the South, which is very rigid and absolutely rejects all the fancies ...
... Aurobindo Ghose. 1 Another French visitor who met Sri Aurobindo not long after his coming to Pondicherry was Madame Alexandra David-Neel, who was in India lured by the wisdom and the mysteries of the Orient. Recalling that meeting of long, long ago, Madame David-Neel is reported to have said recently: His perfect familiarity with the philosophies of India and the West wasn't what drew... Théon, and her progress was rapid. Page 395 Back in Paris, her house on Rue du Val de Grace became the centre of a group of ardent young seekers, one of them being Alexandra David (David-Neel after her marriage). They felt that the evils of ignorance, oppression and violence must be fought and overthrown, and transformed into knowledge, freedom and peace. In 1912, Mirra Richard... the Future. Page 398 The decision was taken on 1 June, but the first monthly issue was to come out only on Sri Aurobindo's forty-second birthday, 15 August 1914. Although Alexandra David-Neel received the impression that Sri Aurobindo had a "perfect familiarity with the philosophies of India and the West', he himself disclaimed any such deep intimacy. As he once wrote to Dilip Kumar ...
... Extraordinary Speed and Endurance A rare and dramatic example of extraordinary speed and endurance are the lung-gom-pa runners in Tibet. In her book Magic and Mystery in Tibet, Alexandra David-Neel says that they undergo a special kind of training that develops "uncommon nimbleness and especially enables its adepts to take extraordinarily long tramps with amazing rapidity." She adds that... maintained over all kinds of terrain Page 682 for several consecutive days and nights. According to some reports, thousands of miles are covered in this manner by the lung-gom adepts. David-Neel takes pains to point out that the feats accomplished are more a matter of mind than of muscle. She says, "It must be under stood that the lung-gom method does not aim at training the disciple by... I went right across the swamp without ever breaking through. Page 683 Only later was Govinda able to find an explanation for his experience, after reading the account we quoted from David-Neel. Govinda says that unwittingly he had followed the lung-gom rules, adding, "I clearly reached a condition in which the weight of the body is no more felt and in which the feet seem to be endowed ...
... will).... "I have to say: I WANT TO GO—not that, not your methods!" 6 The physical Mind that makes you tilt into the mortal room. And immediately I was reminded of the story Madame Alexandra David-Neel told Mother at the turn of the century: about this little river in Indochina she had crossed in meditation (she used to meditate while walking) without knowing how, and in front of which she ...
... her left eye, and on 6 March she told her listeners at the Playground: "My eye won't allow me to read today." On 8 March, she was still unable to read, but told the story of her old friend Mme Alexandra David-Neel, who, seeing a tiger in front of her in a forest, closed her eyes and went into a meditative stillness and immobility that turned away the man-eater. And the Mother concluded: Now we are ...
... destroying our conventional ideas. I may recall to you some of these mind-shaking revelations. One concerned the very physical plane. The Mother had a friend named Alexandra David-Neel. Madame David-Neel also knew Sri Aurobindo a little. She was a student of Buddhism, especially the Tibetan variety about which she has written a very fascinating book. She died recently at the age of... stream? There had been nobody to help her take a boat. Evidently she had walked upon the water! This seems incredible, but as the Mother believed it we had no right to doubt. The Mother said Madame David-Neel would not fool anybody nor would she deceive herself. So the miracle of walking upon the water can occur even in our twentieth century! We have heard of Jesus walking on the Lake of Galilee. But ...
... Dante 111,315,471,633 Dara (Aga Syed Ibrahim) 328 Das, Deshbandhu Chittaranjan 216, 448 Datta (Dorothy Hodgeson) 183, 201, 209ff, 217, 235, 239, 255, 321, 325, 328-9, 674, 691 David-Neel, Mme Alexandra 29, 633 Daulatram Sharma 230 Dayanand Saraswati 624 Deshmukh, C.D. 652 Devi Mahatmyam 278, 662 Dhar, Manoranjan 821 Dhammapada 82, 192, 506, 639ff, 668, 836 Dilip Kumar Roy 48... 816ff on 24 April 817 on 15 August 818-9 deterioration in health and the end 819-20 laid in state 820ff interment 823-4 recapitulation of her life 831-44 2. Others on the Mother Alexandra David-Neel 29 Amal Kiran 86-7, 264-5, 287, 319, 341, 549 Amrita 91-2 Page 909 André 478 Baron 662-3 Bibhas 670 Champaklal 212, 222, 420 Chidanandam 231, 765 Dilip Kumar 260 Ganapati ...
... Datta, Bhupendranath, 199, 234, 245, 305 Datta (Dorothy Hodgson), 526, 540, 548, 549, 575 Datta, Ullaskar, 219, 325, 329ff Dattagupta, Birendranath, 365 David-Neel, Alexandra, 395, 396, 399, 525 Dayanand Saraswati, 15, 16, 19, 60,452 Defence of Indian Culture, A, 404,448 de Mello, Melville, 760 Derozio, Henry, 14,25 ... consciousness, 388; clue from Vivekananda, 389; exploration of Inconscience, 391-2; synthesis of experience and knowledge, 393-4; the coming "golden age", 393; Paul Richard's tribute, 395; Alexandra David-Neel's visit, 395; Mirra Richard's visit, 395; assurance to her, 398,410; decision to launch Arya and Revue, 398-9; on name and aims of Arya, 402ff; the future, and way to harmony, 403-4; massive ...
... never had any belief in the conventional Gods of the religions, the One-God-on-high; it was the God within that she always sought. One of the members of her study group in Paris was Madame Alexandra David-Neel who became well known as a Tibetologist. In later years she used these words in speaking of the Mother of those early days: 'We spent marvellous evenings together with friends, believing ...
... explored the dynamics of purposive action. Mirra was the life and soul of the group, and It was she who imparted to them the needed cohesion and sense of direction. A friend of hers, Mme. Alexandra David-Neel, was to nostalgically recall more than sixty years later, the temper and atmosphere of those Parisian meetings: We spent marvellous evenings together with friends, believing in a great ...
... persist, while in old people desires have to a great extent been worked out. PURANI: In Tibet they have developed this occult science wonderfully well. (Purani gave some instances from Madame David-Neel's book) They call in a Lama during somebody's death to help the passage of the soul through the vital world. SRI AUROBINDO: That is the most dangerous passage. It is this world of which people ...
... attempt. You must be absolutely indifferent to their compliments and their criticisms. It is much easier to be indifferent to criticism than to compliments. When Mme. David-Neel—I have spoken to you about her, haven't I? Mme. David-Neel who is a militant Buddhist and a great Buddhistic luminary—when she came to India she went to meet some of those great sages or gurus—I shan't give you the names, but... into a higher consciousness where these terrestrial things take their true place—which is quite small, you see. But... indeed, once, very long ago, when I was still in Paris and used to see Mme. David-Neel almost every day, she, you see, was full of her own idea and told me, "You should not think of an action, it means attachment for the action; when you want to do something, it means that you are ...
... the Self. But then illogicality will come in. SATYENDRA: The Tibetan Buddhists say that Nirvana is a half-way house. SRI AUROBINDO: What is beyond? SATYENDRA: That I didn't find in Madame David-Neel's book. SRI AUROBINDO: I met a Muslim scholar in Calcutta who said that Islam also has ascending planes of experience of the Divine SATYENDRA: Maybe a Sufi. SRI AUROBINDO: Bhaskarananda of ...
... say, "Ah, no, this is not quite the time!" ( Silence ) Ah! I think it is time to stop. Last time you said that Madame David-Neel did not know how to swallow up her creation and that you taught her the "trick" of doing it. (Pavitra repeating aloud) Madame David-Neel did not know how to swallow up her creation.... Ah, yes, and so?... You want me to give you the trick? ( Laughter ) First ...
... There's a seven-storey apartment building on each side, and the street is here. "It wasn't very big. But the studio was fairly large — a beautiful room.... That's where I used to receive Madame David-Neel—we saw each other almost every evening. "There was a large library in the studio —the library took up the whole far end of the room —more than two thousand books belonging to my brother. ...
... Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind', he is 'already on his way'. 1910 At a talk by Alexandra David-Neel on Buddhism, sees the Buddha in a bluish light, standing beside Alexandra. They become friends and fellow seekers, go often to the Bois de Boulogne gardens, watch the 'grasshopper-like early aeroplanes' take off. -Apr 4 Sri ...
... disappear, and then, after a few days, they reappear! ( Mother looks for her note again ) I prefer to exhaust all material explanations before making other suppositions. But even someone like Madame David-Neel (and God knows she was positivist in the extreme) herself told me an experience of that sort. I was explaining something to her and she replied, "I am not surprised, because the same thing happened ...
... meditation is very rigorous and the monks are thrashed for breaking the discipline. SRI AUROBINDO: We might also begin that here! Purani could be deputed as one of the thrashers. PURANI: Madame David-Neel divides the Lamas into three classes the low and ordinary, who are the commonest and care only for food and comfort; the intellectual and artistic; the mystic or Yogi. SRI AUROBINDO: But that ...
... nothing but the politician Ghose had been at the time it was taken. ‘I had the impression that it was a very interesting man, that’s all.’ Alexandra David-Néel In the meantime Mirra came to be on friendly terms with an extraordinary woman, Alexandra David-Néel. She may have met her for the first time when Madame David-Néel was giving a talk on Buddhism at the Guimet Museum, a place that crops... All the same, both ladies came to respect each other’s qualities and soon were friends. Alexandra David-Néel was born near Paris in 1868. Her father, Louis David, was a friend of Victor Hugo and he too, just like the great writer, had been banished for his anti-government stance. As a consequence Alexandra grew up in Brussels, educated by a bigoted mother and in sanctimonious nuns’ schools. In revolt... handbag was stuffed with letters of recommendation from well-known or highly-placed people. Then Alexandra’s life took an astonishing turn, for we next find her at the Hanoi Opera, in what was then still called Indochina, where in 1895 she became the première chanteuse under the pseudonym Alexandra Myrial! In 1897 she sang in Paris, but without the success she had hoped for, two years later at the ...
... lives in ignorance, one has powers one doesn’t know about, so naturally one uses them very badly. One uses them somewhat unconsciously and very badly. I don’t know if you have ever heard of Madame David-Neel who went to Tibet and has written books on Tibet, and who was a Buddhist; and Buddhists—Buddhists of the strictest tradition—do not believe in the Divine, do not believe in his Eternity and do not ...
... prematurely tipping over into an immensity too rich for us. I remember a very revealing little story that Mirra was soon to hear from the lips of Mrs. David-Neel, which She had every reason to believe true. When she was living in Indochina (I guess), Mrs. David-Neel used to meditate with her eyes closed while walking. She would follow the trail, leaving the others at the camp, and walked straight ahead ,.... We might call it a miracle —"she walked on water,” like Christ—or we might think that her meditation was so deep and so ethereal that.,. We may think whatever we like, but the fact is that Mrs. David- Neel herself did not think of the river. So the river did not exist. And one walked on it as easily as one would walk on anything else. Of course, the moment she thought of it (and, above all, thought ...
... formula or process or else controls elemental beings of the subtler states (planes or worlds) who do the thing for him. The Tibetans indulge widely in occult processes; if you see the books of Madame David-Neel who has lived in Tibet you will get an idea of their expertness in these things. But also the Tibetan Lamas know something of the laws of occult (mental and vital) energy and how it can be made to ...
... for me, I always answer with the story of Buddha: as he was about to enter Nirvana, he suddenly realized that the earth had to be changed... and stayed on. I remember, once, it was with Madame David-Neel. It's very interesting. She came to give a lecture (I wasn't acquainted with her, that's where I met her for the first time), I think it was at the Theosophical Society (I forget). I went to the ...
... lives in ignorance, one has powers one doesn't know about, so naturally one uses them very badly. One uses them somewhat unconsciously and very badly. I don't know if you have ever heard of Madame David-Neel who went to Tibet and has written books on Tibet, and who was a Buddhist; and Buddhists—Buddhists of the strictest tradition—do not believe in the Divine, do not believe in his Eternity and do not ...
... Suggestions for further reading Arnold, Sir Edwin. The Light of Asia (Many editions). Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism. New York: Verry, 1964. David-Neel, Alexandra. Buddhism : its Doctrines and its Methods. London: B.I. Publications, 1977. Dhammapada, The. Trs. Thera Narada. London: John Murray, 1972. Saddhatissa, H. Buddhist Ethics. London: ...
... a huge house. There's a seven-story apartment building on each side, and the street is here. It wasn't very big. The studio was rather large—a beautiful room ... That's where I received Madame David-Neel—we saw each other nearly every evening. There was a considerable library in the studio; one whole end was given over to the library—more than two thousand books belonging to my brother. There ...
... You should know it is easier to be indifferent to criticism than to compliments. I shall tell you a story in this connection. I have spoken to you more than once of Madame D. N.¹ ¹ Madame Alexandra David-Neele. Page 142 She was a militant personality and a great Buddhist luminary. When she came to India she wanted to see some of the great Indian sages, Gurus, that is to say ...
... 54 Christ, 349, 379, 400 Churchill, 346 Commonwealth, 362 Confucius, 196 Czardom, 338 DANTE, 228,284,287, 388 – The Divine Comedy, 388 Darshanas, 297 David-Neele, Alexandra, 142, 173 Diti, 287 Durga, 249 Duryodhana, 206 EINSTEIN, 222, 344, 374, 376 Elizabeth, 196 England, 117, 196 Esau, 121 Europe, 297, 383 FAR EAST, THE, 54 Faust, 397 ...
... in the organ mode of Sri Aurobindo's English." 21 There is no doubt that while it endures, it also attains what it attempts. Not long after his coming to Pondicherry in 1910 Mme Alexandra David-Neel, who acquainted herself deeply with Tibetan occultism, met Sri Aurobindo in 1912. About her meeting with him she reports: "His perfect familiarity with the philosophies of India and the West ...
... you should act. That is all. It is however a condition that may prove dangerous sometimes. For instead of willing with a sovereign will to action you simply look and let things happen. ¹Madame Alexandra David Neele the eminent Tibetologist. Page 173 ...
... SriAurobindo. The Life Divine. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, vol. 18. Pondicherry, 1972. Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism. New York: Verry, 1964. David-Neel, Alexandra. Buddhism: Its Doctrines and Its Methods. London: B.I. Publications, 1977. Mukherjee, Radha Kumud. Ancient Indian Education. London: Macmillan, 1951. Niirada, Thera. trans. The Dhammapada ...
... father Baha Ullah as the head of Bahaism. Inayat Khan, the prophet of Sufism in the West, gave a talk in her house. She also visited occult séances and addressed various circles. And there was Alexandra David-Néel, the modern prophetess of Buddhism and fearless explorer, who would be the first non-Tibetan woman to enter Lhasa in disguise. For a time they met every day and went for walks in the Bois ...
... garden with ivy on the walls, its drawing room lined with books and even a big grand piano, the Luxembourg Gardens next door and the hum of the Latin Quarter. Almost every evening, She received Madame David-Neel there, just back from her first journey to the Far East and soon to become “the first woman to enter Lhasa," dis- i guised as a mendicant monk. Mother heard of Bahaism ; and Taoism, watched and listened ...
... and capabilities. She divorced Morisset and married Paul Richard, formerly a Protestant pastor. In those years Mirra was fairly active in all kinds of occult and spiritual circles. She befriended Alexandra David-Néel, journalist, fervent Buddhist and explorer-to-be, who would become the first Western woman to enter Lhasa, the forbidden Tibetan capital, in disguise. Mirra Richard also discovered the ...
... and the will have a far greater power than in the material physical. 21 In other words, it is our world minus the laws of the mental cage. You cross the river without thinking of it, as Madame David-Neel had inadvertently done when she forgot the existence of the river and the mental laws that govern rivers and gravity. A world in which we forget the mental laws. An earth without the laws of ...
... Part One: Aurobindo Ghose and Mirra Alfassa Beyond Man Chapter Six: The Arya At the end of 1911 Alexandra David-Néel was travelling in India. She seized the opportunity to take the train to Pondicherry and visit Aurobindo Ghose ‘of whom friends of mine have had such a good opinion’. These friends obviously were Mirra and Paul Richard. About her visit she ...
... reviewed in detail, philosophies of every colour, exercises and disciplines of every spirituality—in other words, the higher echelons of the mind. Almost every evening, she received at her home Madame David-Neel, who had just returned from her first journey to the Far East. Mother heard of Bahaism, Taoism, studied the discipline of meditation, Buddhist dhyana, Buddhist renunciation. But she was searching ...
... readings in the Veda; there were the younger men, Nolini, Bejoy, Moni, Va Ra, Saurin, Amrita, who were in attendance whenever necessary; there were occasional visitors. Paul Richard, Madame Alexandera David-Neel, K.V. Rangaswami Aiyengar, Motilal Roy, Khasirao Jadhav; and there was the all-important visit of Mirra Richard on 29 March 1914. When the Arya was launched, thought-power and revealing light were ...
... Sri Aurobindo we had somehow managed a chair and a table and a camp cot. We lived a real camp life.’ 59 Another visitor from France Aurobindo received towards the end of November 1911 was Alexandra David-Néel, who had started on the long journey which would ultimately take her to Lhasa. She wrote to ‘Mouchy,’ her husband: ‘In the evening I had a conversation with a Hindu about whom I have never... lustre in his eyes, that he leaves one with the impression of having contemplated the genius of India such as one dreams it to be after reading the noblest pages of Hindu philosophy.’ 60 But Alexandra’s visit had not gone unnoticed and the British policemen on duty had signalled it to their headquarters. ‘When I arrived in Madras the head of the C.I.D. [Central Intelligence Department] was waiting ...
... with a strange smile recounted to me what she had already told Pavitra in the presence of Sujata, at the end of 1950, just after Sri Aurobindo’s departure: she had received a letter from Mrs Alexandra David-Neel, an “old friend” of hers she had known well in Paris, who in her letter had predicted that Mother would be “murdered by her own disciples.” That letter must still exist in the Ashram archives ...
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