To Live Within

by Anirvan, Lizelle Reymond, Jacob Needleman (Introduction)

Originally published in France in 1969 and in America in 1972 and again in 1995, To Live Within is a thoughtful, beautifully written record of Lizelle Reymond’s five years spent in a hermitage in Northern India. Reymond studied with guide and mentor Shri Anirvan, a master of the ancient Samkhya tradition. As presented to Reymond, Samkhya is a source teaching previously unknown in the West and universally relevant regardless of one’s tradition or cultural background. Anirvan’s teachings of this discipline centered on the concentrated purity of silence that nourishes the Self, allowing his pupil to achieve an unfettered understanding of her life and achieve an inner awakening. In five parts, the book covers Reymond’s life in the Himalayan hermitage; lessons for a spiritual life; facing reality; rambling thoughts; and mystic poetry of the Bauls. This new edition contains two additional chapters drawn from Reymond's lifelong correspondence with Shri Anirvan after the retreat.

350 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Anirvan or Sri Anirvan (Bengali: শ্রী অনির্বান Sri Anirvan) was born on July 8, 1896 in the town of Mymensingh, then a part of British India and now in Bangladesh. His birth name was Narendrachandra Dhar. He was the son of Rajchandra Dhar, a doctor, and Sushila Devi. He was a spiritually and intellectually-inclined child, who by age 11 had memorized the Astadhyayi of Pāṇini and the Bhagavad Gita. He was named Baroda Brahmachari after going through the sacred thread ceremony. He also won a state scholarship as a teen and completed university IA and BA degrees in Dhaka and an MA from Sanskrit College in Kolkata.

At 16, he joined the Assam Bangiya Saraswata Math ashram, located in the village of Kokilamukh near Jorhat in Assam. He was a disciple of the ashram's founder, Paramahansa Srimat Swami Nigamananda Saraswati Dev, who initiated him into sannyas. Anirvan's new monastic name was Nirvanananda Saraswati. He taught at the ashram school and edited its monthly magazine Aryyadarpan.

Some time after 1930, Nirvanananda changed his name to Anirvan and ceased to wear the ochre swami's robes. He travelled widely in North India, eventually returning to Assam and establishing an ashram in Kamakhya near Guwahati. However, he continued to travel. In the 1940s, he lived in Lohaghat and Almora. Madame Lizelle Reymond documented some of this period in My Life with a Brahmin Family (1958) and To Live Within (1971). During this time, Sri Anirvan translated Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine into Bengali (as Divya Jeevan Prasanga); this book, his first, was published in two volumes between 1948-51.

In 1953, Sri Anirvan moved to Shillong in Assam. His reputation as a Vedic scholar grew; and he wrote both in Bengali (chiefly) and in English (he was also fluent in French[) on various aspects of Hindu philosophy (particularly Samkhya, the Upanishads, the Gita and Vedanta) and the parallels between Rigvedic, Puranic, Tantric and Buddhist thought. His magnum opus, Veda Mimamsa, was published in three volumes in 1961, 1965 and 1970. This work won him the Rabindra award.

Though Sri Anirvan was a saint, he studied different subjects such as Marxism, nuclear science and gardening; yet he called himself a simple baul.

Sri Anirvan made his final move, to Kolkata, in 1965. He died on May 31, 1978, after a six-year illness.

Reviews

[Sonic · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very deep and profound story of a woman's very deep and very real search, with the help of a Baul Master, Sri Anirvan. This is a supremely beautiful book! Lizelle Reymond's words are sincere and unpretentious, and they offer both inspiration and direction to anyone willing to wrestle with the question "Who am I?"

[Maura Gancitano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro meraviglioso!

[Reijo Oksanen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Samkhya and Gurdjieff
I wrote this in the seventies: To Live Within has value to those who study Yoga philosophy as well as those who study Gurdjieff. I am sure now that it has also much to say to others as well.
I did not know of Lizelle Reymond, but Mrs. Rosemary Nott in the UK knew her and suggested to me that I should go to meet her (as I practiced yoga at the time). Eventually I managed: stayed in Hotel de la Paix in Geneve over a weekend and had contact most of the time with Lizelle Reymond.
While in Geneve, Miss Reymond gave me her unpublished book to read, which I managed to do also during this weekend.

I cannot even remember what the book was called, but I wrote a poem inspired by it. The poem is called The Three Pilgrimages - I believe it reflects somehow the name or the content of the book:

The Three Pilgrimages

The Climb to the Mountain

I follow a little stream
Looking for its source
Up the mountain
Choosing my way
In the shade
On the dark side
With the moon and stars
As my guides

The way is long
I hurry towads the top
Slipping in the snow
Getting stuck
I reach the peak
And look around in wonder
At the beauty of the scene
When I suddenly see
My own reflection in the spring

Was it meant this way
That I should work and suffer
This long way
Just to find out
That what I had managed
In all these years
Was to carry my self-portrait
An image of nothing
To the top

The picture of myself
Had always been
In front of my vision
Everything I thought I was
Had nothing to do with me
I see now
That I am in everything
And everything is in me
Adift Towards the Sea

I start my descent
Along the stream
Now growing to a river
In which I drift
Towards the sea
Clinging to the reflection
Of my own nothingness
I see others climbing up
Shouting: Look
There’s one who has given up

The cool water
Washes away
The dirt I gathered
On my way up
There is no pain
There is no pleasure
There is nothing I can measure
One with the Ocean

My picture buried in the sea
There is nothing left of me
There is something
I can still see
It has nothing to do with me
I am alive now
The ego is gone
In the void
Left by the ego

I am

To Live Within 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 include 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.'

I have since discovered the writings of Sri Anirvan and now reading his book on The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Recommended.