Gemma Polo Pujol - There Is Light And Only Light: Teachings to Illuminate Your Inner Journey

Gemma Polo is as real and rare as they come, a modern day teacher with a devotional heart akin to St Francis of Assisi. She has pursued her call with fire and great tenderness, travelling across the world and back, and has, unlike many realized it! Gemma reimagines and infuses spiritual traditions with her fresh and original voice. How lucky we are to have her!

Jess Huon, writer and dharma teacher

Gemmas book reads like her life: wild and free. Her wide-open heart is on every page, her love of depth behind each word.

Martin Aylward, dharma teacher and author of Ne te quitte pas: Le corps au coeur de la meditation

Gemmas book is a journey from inspiration to inspiration. It is a rich exploration of the spiritual path, a colourful tapestry woven from threads of her personal life journey, instructions and guidance on meditation and spiritual practice, and many beautiful insights along the way. It is full of whispers that guide our heart to use her words, showing how we can be available and listen to the deep voices within that are longing to be heard. The emphasis throughout is that we can go beyond the functional striving for self-improvement, to a place where we are carried by the currents, we surrender to a much vaster world, we are open to the call of grace, and what seems so far away is entirely obvious when we allow ourselves to drop into it. Deep surrender opens us to our magical life, but we need a helping hand to let go, and this book is that.

Stephen Fulder, spiritual teacher and author of Whats Beyond Mindfulness: Waking Up to This Precious Life

Written in a clear and easy to understand style, There is Light and only Light offers worthwhile read for all those wishing to look deeper into the experience of being human with an interest to uncover spiritual sensitivities.

Christopher Titmuss, author of The Buddha of Love and The Mindfulness Manual

Gemmas writing reflects so beautifully the wisdom, joy and inspiration that emanates from her. She embodies the teachings that have come through her, melding the deeply sacred alchemy of humanness and godliness, and reaching out to us from the center that connects it all our capacity to love.

Meredith Little, co-founder of the School of Lost Borders and The Practice of Living and Dying.

A clear and generous book. Gemma and Danielle have distilled Gemmas teachings to bring forth an accessible and moving introduction to our pioneering work with deep rest meditation. This book can save lives, and help readers attune their meditation and living towards natural freedom.

Jaya Julienne Ashmore, founder of Open Dharma and co-founder of Dharmaloca

This edition published in the UK and USA in 2020 by

Watkins, an imprint of Watkins Media Limited

Unit 11, Shepperton House

89-93 Shepperton Road

London

N1 3DF

Design and typography copyright Watkins Media Limited 2020

Text Copyright Gemma Polo Pujol 2020

Gemma Polo Pujol has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the Publishers.

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Designed and typeset by Watkins

Printed and bound in the UK by TJ International Ltd.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-786783-47-9

www.watkinspublishing.com

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With deep gratitude to life and its immeasurable generosity.

To my parents unconditional love.

To Berta Meneses, Marcel Capellades and Ajay Singh, for being lighthouses for my soul.

To Gyan and Gayatri, for being my masters into humanness.

To Sophia Style, for being by my side navigating everyday life with love.

To Jaya Ashmore, for the fruits of countless offerings together.

With special thanks to Danielle Kerris, for having taken on this project with such care, vision and talent.

To Nanda Huneman and Janey Francis, for their great and useful insights. To Tara Sandra, for transcribing my talks with such dedication. To Chris Savidge, Petter Grahl Johnstad and Maria Diener, among many other friends, for their honest feedback and encouragement.

To all the women and men who have opened their hearts on my retreats and listened to the words that now take the form of this book.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Over the years, people on retreats have asked me to put onto paper the words spoken in my Dharma talks, to help them remember the days of connection and keep the momentum of the inner journey. I was unsure; so much of the content of those talks was inspired by the deep connection with the specific people on the retreats at that specific time.

A couple of years ago, I asked Danielle Kerris, an English writer, friend and long-time participant in my retreats, to play with the idea of creating a book. Since then we have distilled more than 100 talks into the pages that you have now in your hands. The book represents the essence of my teachings and retains a flavour of my English spoken in a Spanish accent.

The word God appears a few times throughout the text but please substitute Life, Source, Love, Light or another word if you prefer, as I use all those different words to point to the same reality. After playing around with different versions we settled on the pronoun we for much of the text. This was a creative decision only, and not meant to imply that everyone will have the same experiences. The terms teaching, sharing and facilitating as you find them through the book are also intentionally interchangeable.

It is meant as a book of inspiration rather than a manual on how to meditate, or how to walk the spiritual path. It is organized under chapter headings that represent, in my experience, common steps on the spiritual path. That is not to say that the journey will be the same for everyone or that the steps will happen in the same order as in the book. Our hope is that you can open the book at any point, letting the words become a meditation, a song, a whisper. If on the way you find company, and you feel held and understood, loved as you are, shaken, then these pages will have found their completion. Inviting people again and again to wider frequencies of being is my vocation, for this place where there is light and only light is a realm that belongs to every human being and ultimately is all that is.

May these words illuminate your path.

Gemma Polo Pujol

THE CALL

On a day when the wind is perfect,

the sail just needs to open

and the love starts.

Today is such

a day.

Rumi

For as long as I can remember Ive always had this fire inside, a fire in my soul to know what life is about. I always had a feeling at school that whatever I was being taught wasnt the whole story, that there was something else underneath that no one was talking about. I desperately wanted to know what life was really about. Instead, the teachers told us that that 3 plus 3 equals 6, and Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492. I didnt hear anything that matched with what was going on inside me. My experience was of becoming nature itself, slipping into the trees and feeling the aliveness of them. I thought that was normal, and it took me a while to understand that others were not experiencing life in the same way. I felt a growing sense of solitude as I realized that other people were not living in that reality of union. I felt that it couldnt be shared or shown because that was not other peoples reality.