Customer Reviews

The Face Before I Was Born: A Spiritual Autobiography

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Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee's autobiography is to me one of the most remarkable spiritual documents. Often spiritual masters do not talk about their experiences in public, and in the very way this book has been written, one feels almost as if the author would talk solely to each single one reader personally. So he can keep the intimacy of spiritual teaching. The author shows by his own example how life can lead to a surprising, profound and often shaking journey to one's own heart, to the depths and abyss of soul, mind, psyche. The author reveals with openess courage, honesty, humor and fearlessness gradually his own process to the reader in a subtle and impressive way. In this way reading this book itself might provide a deep spiritual and human experience. To me reading this book was thrilling and heart-touching, it has impressed me deeply and has given me inspiration and encouragment for my own life. I highly recommend this book to all spiritual seekers.

This autobiography, however well-meaning, is a vanity press publication by a young man who is intent on establishing his credability as a potential guru or Sufi master. The entire book is written from this perspective, and all the author's relaying of his spiritual experiences are honed to this end. To the uninitiated spiritual seeker, the book is very convincing and touching, if at times the author appears to be somewhat naive. It does seem that Vaughan Lee needs the reader to be convinced that he personally has an "inner cell-phone" line to a superior being, which makes him more 'special' than us lesser mortals. Again and again, by his own pen, he subtly seeks to make his story match some kind of blueprint of a trainee Sufi Master. There is no doubt that he is convinced by his own rhetoric, although to the discerning reader it would appear that he is treading on uncertain ground.

I found his personal conviction in his own 'specialness', and his obsession with 'suffering' as THE direct path to God psychologically unhealthy, personally revealing and, from a spiritual point of view, more than a little outdated in its patriarchial overtones and heirarchical approach. The sanctification of 'struggle' balanced by the occasional bout of 'bliss' until the 'lover' becomes exhausted and supposedly 'egoless' is very attractive and beguiling, but belies the truth that a realized sense of 'Oneness' with the 'Beloved' IS readily and effortlessly available to every human. Those who have comprehended and embraced this universal and ever-present state are generally people who have no need to justify themselves; to set up non-profits to fund themselves; nor to found their very own vanity publishing companies. In my experience they generally have little interest in collecting followers or becoming teachers, they live quietly and openly in the world, mostly unheeded, and are recognizeable by the very personal friendships they share with those they meet in life, by their simplicity and by the way they shine.

I found that the author did not describe his interactions with other very interesting persons. I would like to have known more about people who helped him on his path.