Lizelle Reymond. (1899-1994)
Lizelle Reymond spent many years of her life in the Himalayas, most in Almora, studying and working with Shri. Anirvan. Four books describing her life and the teaching she received there have been published: MY LIFE WITH A BRAHMIN FAMILY, 1958. TO LIVE WITHIN, 1971, SHAKTI, 1974 and LETTERS FROM A BAUL, 1983. She travelled all over India and spent several years writing a biography of Nivedita, which was first published in 1953. Between 1935 and 1953 she translated a number of sacred Indian texts and these were published in France. Lizelle Reymond then lived in Geneva, Switzerland.
Patrick Kelly wrote -
Some contact with Ramdass, Ramana Maharshi, Vivekananda. Initiated and directed the Geneva Gurdjieff group from 1960 to 1994. Taught Taiji (Zheng Manqing Style) from 1964 in Geneva and Paris.
I first met her in the South of France in 1978, where she impressively stood out from the other Gurdjieff instructors I had met. One of her oldest students later visited Master Huang Xingxian and became my close friend. Apparently Madame Reymond received negative pressure from the Gurdjieff hierarchy partly because of the influence of her Indian teacher and partly because she chose to teach Taiji in place of the Gurdjieff movements. However she managed to continue as she was strongly supported by Madame de Salzmann (1899 - 1990) who at that stage was leader of the Gurdjieff organisation.
From 'To Live Within' by Lizelle Reymond:
"Sensations. All spiritual experiences are sensations in the body. They are simply a graded series of sensations, beginning with the solidity of a clod of earth and passing gradually, in full consciousness, through liquidness and the emmanation of heat to that of a total vibration before reaching the void. The road to be travelled is long.
Each time a step is made on the ascending ladder, a sensation of expansion in space and of complete relaxation is experienced. This sensation offers a foretaste of what the experience of pure Spirit (Chit) might be, in which all things are transcended. How far one is from that! Yet at this moment spirit and matter appear to be one. This conception comes from an ancient theory of the purification of the elements which in the Tantras is called bhutta-shuddhi.
May your present discipline become for you this subtle gradation of sensations, a means for expansion and later for infiltration into everything around you, both beings and things. Become aware of the deep and strong sensation of passing from one element to another. There is no other means. Make use for this purpose of the solitude that makes it possible to interiorize many forces. Every contraction generates heat and heat expands. True personal discipline (tapasya) is nothing but this expansion of one's being radiating warmth produced by inner concentration.
Always remember that any sensation of expansion you may experience is a radiation. Remain calm and radiate this warmth. Do not question. Ask for nothing more. Live these moments to the full. This radiation is in itself Shakti, an instant of living consciousness, that is, a direct experience that is ingrained in you. Your sensation is the proof of it, a certainty you cannot efface from your memory.
In meditation, the whole body is utilized to discover a sensation of expansion which for a long time, represents the final aim. Work on the body is a delicate attempt and has to be done according to very precise data, for each moment, voluntary or involuntary, is a search for stillness, that is to say, for a sensation of physical consciousness.
The first objective to reach is perfect solidity of the motionless body. To arrive at that all thoughts have to be brought back one after another to the body - to its form, its weight, its balance. There must be no other thought. This state is symbolized by the matter "earth," in the heart of which, notwithstanding its heaviness and opacity, a vibration exists.
The attention will gradually be turned to the image of a vessel. The body is really that vessel made of heavy matter. It contains an effervescent wine. Concentrated on itself, attention will enter into the body; go down the length of the spinal column until there is an impression of a heaviness in the centre of gravity. The whole body has then become as hard as a statue with a pure form.
At that point, all the movements inside the vessel are perceptible: effervescence, agitation, ideas, images - all of them produced by the body. The stability of the body is a state in itself. This is why so much importance is attached to food and hygiene.
The second stage begins when the body, in its well established solidity, can become the matrix of energy in movement. Externally hard, the body internally becomes the pulsation of life that fills it. An intense vibration of energy throbs in it. This state is symbolized by purification of the element water, that is to say, by the transition from a heavier to a lighter density.
Then comes the discovery that a body of radiant and very subtle sensations is contained within the body of flesh. It is only when the body of flesh has a solid form that the nerve channels (nadis) can be perceived with all the sensations of the currents of life through them. As it is said in the Vedas, "A stream flows through a rock."
The third stage is when all the currents of nervous energy flowing through the inner body become currents of light from which little by little a sensation of fire emanates. This state is symbolized by the purification of the element fire, so much so that the temperature of the body rises as in an attack of fever.
These three stages - that of solidity of the body, of sensation of the nervous currents, of the sensation of currents of light - are characteristics of meditation in depth. Up to this, point the individuality remains intact, expressed by the words, "one of the many."
The fourth stage is that in which individuality is lost. The state of sensation of fire which consumes the body is a further transition from a heavier to a more subtle density. The fire that consumes the inner body consumes at the same time all sense of form, to the degree that the sensation of non-form becomes irradiant. This state is symbolized by the purification of the element air. The habitual impulse to resort to forms disappears. There remains only the Void, which is at the same time a precise and global sensation of multiformity. All is clarity and calm.
Meditation is in fact a laboratory work and an attack against prakriti to escape from her slavery."
And concerning groups and students: "We live & are fed by the visions of 'those who see' & there will always be new 'rishis' & new disciples. In fact, the rishis vision serves only to create disciples...disciples are necessary so that what is brought by the rishi can make its way into life. The more the disciples are attached among themselves, the more mediocre they become...interested only in their rights of seniority, their 'ashram' their brotherhood, their master's thought, without themselves being engaged in the process of creation..."
Haimavati
by Lizelle Reymond
We left in December. There was already hoarfrost on the ground and the mountains glistened with fresh snow. A small truck followed us with the books; the rest mattered little.
Shri Anirvan left immediately for Delhi, where his disciples awaited him. Ahead of him were three months of wandering from town to town as far as Bengal and Assam.
My own task was to open the house in Almora and prepare myself for the life that would come to fill it. When we parted, Shri Anirvan had said, "It is good that you are going to the new house by yourself and will live there quietly, in retreat. Certainly you can absorb new ideas and make them your own, but later you will have to create freely your own way of expressing them. That is the work of the active power Shakti. And it can only be done in silence. I can help you find your own power, suggest a way, a means, for you to approach it, but nothing more. I never impose anything; I love freedom too much, and so do you! I am not expecting anything in particular and have no preconceived or stereotyped idea about you. I shall only be glad if you open your petals, and you, yourself, find yourself."
I arrived at Almora the next day, late in the afternoon, and was happy to find Bepin Joshi at the entrance to the town. He was there to warn me that the road up the hill was blocked by a landslide. The bales of books had been unloaded by the roadside. I was somewhat alarmed when I saw a horde of Nepalese coolies rushing at me and asking to be hired as porters. Bepin finally chose about fifteen men, as well as some torchbearers for the trips through the forest. What a procession! Bent double under the heavy bales of books hanging in leather straps, the men kept shouting at each other—a violent rhythm that punctuated the march.
I was exhausted by their efforts, ashamed because of their sweat, their fatigue, their tatters, their gaunt legs—all this so that our "knowledge" should shortly be arranged on the shelves that the carpenter had just finished. And I was imagining in advance the uproar there would be when the men scrambled for their shares of the few rupees that I was going to give them.
That first night I made acquaintance with the forest, the wind rustling in the pines, the yapping of the jackals together with the furious barking of the dogs, and then, early in the morning, the notes of a skillfully played pipe, repeated over and over like a prayer.
Shri Anirvan had suggested that this house on a hill in the forest be called "Haimavati." In the Kena Upanishad Haimavati is the immaterial whiteness, the daughter of the sky who incarnates the principle of expansion on the terrestrial plane. As snow she falls lightly, piles up, is transformed into ice so that torrents may flow from its energy. In silence, she is a blessing from the sky to the earth.
The hill stretches to the rock of Kasardevi, a natural hollow, like a matrix of the world, where human sacrifices were undoubtedly offered up in the old days. A vast landscape extends to the horizon—valleys and mountain ranges, on the summits of which dwell goddesses in tiny white temples. Almora, however full of light, nevertheless remains a land of dissolutions (pralaya), its beauty lying in the bareness of its mountainsides and the play of light on stone.
Below the house the road winds from terrace to terrace down to the bank of the River Koshi where the dead are burned. The green of rice or wheat alternates, according to the season, with the russet shade of the earth.
From a distance Shri Anirvan followed what I was doing. I kept him informed. A month after my arrival he wrote me:
"I am so glad to learn that the toil and moil of putting the house in order is over, and that you have settled down again to your personal work in a quiet rhythm. I know you will not mind if my letter is short since I have nothing to say. Only one thing is important; become an adult! You are responsible for the first atmosphere of Haimavati. May this house resound with the call of the Vedic Sages: 'Live, and move about in the atmosphere of the Vast.' Let all our friends come soon, may they hasten to visit Haimavati. For her alone, the force which is the child of the Void! Let no one come for you or for me! Let everybody throw off all poses, all trammels, and stand nude in the silence ready to bathe in its light until the soul is drenched by it. Discover yourself, identify yourself with the profound dumb power of the earth which silently fashions the dark clay into a spray of sun-kissed blossoms. You have this power in you, but you do not yet know it.
"It is the power of the dark night holding its breath in order to give birth to the new dawn."
A few days later he wrote again:
"I could not bear Haimavati to become a rendezvous. It must be a deep pool of life wherein one must plunge to live in death. And the work. This work is not a pretext to be taken lightly. It is a deep inner work in the rhythm of the heart of life. It is creation. For the moment, you can do but one thing—create in yourself respect for your own work, for your own effort, in silence, and with the discipline you are approaching."
I was impatient, and at the same time I had an unacknowledged fear of what was going to take place. I came and went in the empty whitewashed rooms of the house, which were waiting for life to fill them. Rope beds had been made on the spot as well as stools and a low table for the refectory.
Speaking of his pupils, Shri Anirvan wrote:
"A great period of interiorization has taken hold of them. I have planted a seed in their hearts and done my part of the work. I have only to wait, but without desire, without expectation. I may see a mighty oak grow or the seed may rot. . . . My days are so full that I cannot snatch even half an hour to write letters. So I give up! The people who come to see me are so kind, so quiet, and so free. They are cultivating their soil. I give them all my time. About your own work, do not force yourself. There is no hurry about anything. Remember the Baul's song:
O stubborn one, by your cruel impatience,
by your merciless insistence,
by the fire do you really wish
to force tight buds to open, flowers to bloom
and fill the air with their perfume?
"So let Haimavati grow and let these things find their own place while calmly observing their movement. To be a tangent that touches the circle of energy at one point only without twining oneself round it—that is the whole secret of life!"
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