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To Live Within: A Woman's Spiritual Pilgrimage in a Himalayan Hermitage

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Lizelle Reymond spent five years in a hermitage in northern India. "To Live within" can be described as a system of ideas that have the energy to penetrate through self-deceptions of intellect and through what we take to be "ordinary" life (the illusion...maya...a matrix...a dream) to realize the Real -- a matter of Perception; of Consciousness.

Reymond writes of struggles, insights, lessons from life -- about the mystical and methods. Just think of the title -- "To live within" -- the title conveys what is contained in this book.

In a world that seems filled with self-help and new age materials of quick-fixes and easy-answers -- this is the Real Deal. This is not a book written to prey on the searching spirits of people who want to be given answers. ... This book is about going on the journey -- "To live within" There are a few books that I find I have to inhabit for quite awhile and return to again and again... this is one of them.

Madame Reymond writes: "Seated around Shri Anirvan one day or another were Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Moslems -- believers and unbelievers -each one carried by his own discipline, his own effort, his own ideal; each one receiving the food he was in need of. We were learning, day after day, how to live within..."

AND as one of many examples that I value in this book --

"About your personal discipline, you are following the right course. What you get through intuition can never fail you. The whole attitude can be summed up in a short sentence: 'I know it, I feel it, I am it.' Let the powers work deep within you. The pain that results is that of a new birth. If inclination for inner work lessens, do not worry. Creation starts in darkness. Out of nothing, Shakti comes. Let yourself flow with the stream; do not struggle. Not that you will reach the shore; your destination is to become the ocean itself."

To Live Within has value for those who study Yoga philosophy as well as those who study Gurdjieff.
It is a story of the writer's long time relationship with her teacher Sri Anirvan and her efforts to follow his teachings.
Sri Anirvan's own studies included the Vedas and his teaching has elements of these ancient texts going back three thousand years.
The concept of 'Sahaja' is defined as Yoga in life. Sri Anirvan: 'To accept Prakriti in its totality is pure Sahaja'... And what has Gurdjieff created for you in the West? Surely a field of prakriti corresponding to your own possibilities.'