Alexandra david neel biography for kids

The world of Buddhism is ever enriched by psychonauts willing to explore the outer limns and depths and live to tell about it. We enter and muddle about in the realm of the mind. We poke around in the corridors of thought and sensation called consciousness and its vaster twin, unconsciousness.

Some of us are also explorers of our world. We may even go so far as to visit the four corners—but just like exploring the mind, no one covers every inch. The capacity to explore, visit, travel is far outstripped by the riches of the phenomenal world. Still, I am always impressed by anyone who tries—in both cases.

Add being a woman in France at the end of the 19th century to the mix and things get really interesting. Enter French-Belgian explorer and Buddhist, Alexandra David-Néel. Born in 1868 to Republicanist parents in Napoléon III’s France, the family emigrated to Belgium in 1873 to escape the violent horrors of the backslide into monarchical brutality.

By age 15, inspired by the ascetic Catholic saints (although she was raised Huguenot), Alexandra was demonstrating an interest in spiritual practices such as mortification of the flesh. She would sit still for very long periods of time, attempting to transcend mortal concerns and commune with God beyond mere thought.

She longed to travel and her parents, although liberal, were not so free-thinking that they would allow a child (and a girl) to venture alone to lands such as England (where she wished to go because she knew, even then, that learning English would be a passport to the world) and beyond. So she ran away. She got as far as the Netherlands before returning home for lack of funds.

Alexandra finally made it to London, as well as many other European countries, by age 18, where she studied with the infamous Madame Blavatsky. That association, naturally, led her to an interest in anarchy and feminism. In 1889, she officially converted to Buddhism (which seems to have been the act of declaring herself one) and s

1868

October 24, in Saint-Mandé, a suburb of Paris, France, Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David is born. Her father, Louis David was a French freemason, liberal journalist, teacher and Republican activist. He opposed the Coup d'Etat of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in 1851 and, expelled from France, he went into exile in Belgium where he married Alexandrine Borghmans.

As a child, Alexandra became passionate about the trips mentioned in the books of Jules Verne and later she dreamed of Asia at the Guimet Museum.

1873, January 26, Louis Jules, Alexandra’s brother is born. He died six months later.

1878

At age ten she was impressed by a tale of Buddha who meeting a tigress in the jungle gave his own flesh to feed her starving cubs. The idea of such sacrifice thrilled her imagination.

1883

In her youth, she was distressed by the long, idle vacations her family took. “I cried bitter tears more than once, having the profound feeling that life was going by, that the days of my youth were going by, empty, without interest, without joy,” David-Néel wrote.

Alexandra David-Néel as a teenager, 1886At the age of 15, spending her holidays with her parents at Ostend, Belgium, she ran away and reached the port of Vlissingen in the Netherlands crossed to England. Lack of money forced her to return soon.

Alexandra starts reading her first occult material, a journal produced by the Society of the Supreme Gnosis.

1885

Alexandra again left home, this time travelling alone by train from Brussels to Switzerland. She then hiked alone over the Saint-Gotthard Pass through the Alps to the Italian lakes. Her distraught mother had to travel to retrieve her.

1886

April, David-Néel entered the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles (Royal Conservatory of Brussels), where she studied piano and singing.

At the age of 18, David-Néel had already visited England, Switzerland and Spain on her own, and she was studying in Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society.

Why this book:  After reading My Journey to Lhasa in which she describes how she became the first Western woman to visit Lhasa (and which I review here), I felt inclined to learn the rest of the story of the life of this remarkable woman.

Summary in 3 Sentences: This thoroughly researched biography of Alexandra David-Neel begins with what little is known of her childhood and early years in Europe, and fairly quickly moves to the main events of her life exploring and living in Asia. The “meat” of the book describes her many and multi-faceted experiences for 40 years in India, Tibet, China and other Asian countries, including a couple of chapters which provide some different insights into her remarkable trip to Lhasa. It concludes with the last third of her life, as her physical health deteriorated, but her cognitive skills remained intact – though as for anyone who reaches that age, life was not easy for her at the end. 

My Impressions: This is a fascinating biography of what has to be one of the most amazingly intrepid women of the 20th century.  She grew up in the Victorian era in Belgium became fascinated with Buddhism early – showing signs at a young age of rebelling against the standard paths for young girls at that time. As a teenager, she ran away from home, got involved in Madam Blavatsky’s circle of mystics and clairvoyants in London, then found her way into operatic singing and show business,  before heading to India and the East to pursue her passion for studying Eastern religion and cultures.

This biography offers what little is known of her youth before getting into the main act of  her life as a trail blazing woman student and scholar of Tibetan religion, religious practices and philosophy at the very beginning of the 20th century. Very few Westerners, and no other Western women were aggressively pursuing knowledge and experience of Tibetan practices at that time, and given her intelligence, charm, and amb

French explorer, spiritualist and writer (1868–1969)

Alexandra David-Néel (born Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David; 24 October 1868 – 8 September 1969) was a Belgian–French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist, opera singer, and writer. She is most known for her 1924 visit to Lhasa, Tibet, when it was forbidden to foreigners. David-Néel wrote over 30 books about Eastern religion, philosophy, and her travels, including Magic and Mystery in Tibet, which was published in 1929. Her teachings influenced the beat writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, the popularisers of Eastern philosophy Alan Watts and Ram Dass, and the esotericistBenjamin Creme.

Biography

Early life and background

In 1871, when David-Néel was two years old, her father Louis David, appalled by the execution of the last Communards, took her to see the Communards' Wall at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris; she never forgot this early encounter with the face of death, from which she first learned of the ferocity of humans. Two years later, the Davids emigrated to Belgium.

Since before the age of 15, she had been exercising austerities such as fasting and corporal torments drawn from biographies of ascetic saints found in the library of one of her female relatives, to which she refers in Sous des nuées d'orage, published in 1940.

At the age of 15, spending her holidays with her parents at Ostend, she ran away and reached the port of Vlissingen in the Netherlands to try and embark for England. Lack of money forced her to give up.

At the age of 18, David-Néel ha