Paul Brunton - A Hermit in the Himalayas: The Classic Work of Mystical Quest

CONTENTS

About the Book

Paul Brunton was one of a very small number of his generation to travel so extensively throughout India and Tibet at a time when very few were doing so with such insight and discernment. His journalistic skills produced magnificent descriptions of the snowy peaks and high-desert landscapes of the Himalayan region but it was the lessons he learned from the holy men he met on his journeys that transformed him into one of the great interpreters of the East.

In this magnificent classic he explains that we all need oases of calm in a world of storm, no matter what era we are living in, and that to retreat from our everyday lives for a while is not weakness but strength. By taking the trouble to discover the deep silence within us we will find the benefits of being linked to an infinite power, an infinite wisdom, an infinite goodness.

A Hermit In The Himalayas is a fascinating blend of travel narrative and profound spiritual experience. As we accompany the author on his journey through the vast Himalayan ranges to Mount Kailas in Tibet, he also shows us an even more remarkable and timeless inner path which will help us cope with the ups and downs of our contemporary world.

About the Author

Born in 1898, Paul Brunton travelled extensively in the East and published thirteen books between 1935 and 1952. He is generally recognized as having introduced yoga and meditation to the West, and for presenting their philosophical background in non-technical language. He died in Switzerland (where he lived for 20 years) in 1981.

By the same author:

A Search in Secret India

The Secret Path

A Search in Secret Egypt

A Message from Arunachala

The Quest of the Overself

The Inner Reality

The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga

The Wisdom of the Overself

The Spiritual Crisis of Man

The Notebooks of Paul Brunton
(in sixteen volumes)

Essays on the Quest

Meditations for People in Charge

Meditations for People in Crisis

What is Karma?

INTRODUCTION

Much has changed in the world since Paul Brunton wrote A Hermit in the Himalayas and PB (as he is known to his followers) himself changed a good deal after writing this third and last of his travel books. At the same time, many things remain the same.

When PB began this journey, he hoped to spend some time in Tibet, but was prevented from doing so by governmental authorities. Nowadays, it is quite possible for tourists willing to ignore Chinas Human Rights record to enter Tibet but it is either dangerous or impossible for a Tibetan to do so. PBs reflections on the British Rule of India written years before Indias independence may seem like a faint footnote to a bygone era. However, todays news reminds us of the karma, challenges and fate awaiting a Western empire that supplants the culture and regime of an Eastern nation. The harsh clamour of contrasting cultures, politics and fates continues throughout the globe. Taken in this light, PBs comments and suggestions are very relevant today.

I call the second theme PBs Responses his comments on a wide, and wild, variety of topics, including divorce, sex, UFOs, astrology, tea, and my favourite, shaving! As The Notebooks of Paul Brunton show, PBs thoughts on some of these topics changed quite a bit over the years (except for tea, which he loved to the end of his days). Why, then, keep these older opinions around? Simply because the Paul Brunton of these pages is still a student of the Overself, as are we, which means we can immediately benefit from the perspective he brings to these various issues.

The third theme occupies the most space and is written beautifully. Indeed, much of it is about space and beauty: the grand solitary spaces of the Himalayas themselves, and the interior space of the indrawn mind. PBs previous travel books primarily explored the remarkable places and peoples of India and Egypt. Here he turns heart and pen towards Nature, recording the elegant simplicity of a hermetic retreat from the world. PB moves easily amongst the gentle and dramatic elements of his mountain home, at one moment absorbing the silence of a starry night, at another confronting a panther, protected only by his self-control. Yet his is no world-denying retreat. Instead we find PB establishing the parameters, purpose, and practices of retreat which will free us for a time from our secular entanglements, and return us to that world better able to meet it. This, then, is the core of the book: a pathway into the deep stillness of our higher self through sacred communion with nature herself.

Although PB himself first found his higher self on a mountaintop, it can also be found in a city park, or in ones own back yard. So take this book outside, find a place of daily retreat, and, for a moment or two, feel the cool clarity and solemn silence of those distant mountains speaking their lesson in your heart.

Timothy Smith
Co-Editor, The Notebooks of Paul Brunton

Note: the state of Tehri Garhwal is today much as it was when PB visited it. Interested in learning more? Check out these websites:

http://tehri.nic.in/
http://www.gmvnl.com/districts/tehri/
http://www.garhwaltourism.com/tehri/

FOREWORD

By
PRINCE MUSSOOREE SHUM SHERE
JUNG BAHADUR RANA
of
NEPAL

It affords me much pleasure to write these introductory words to this, the latest of my friend Paul Bruntons books. The scene is set amid the long and famous range of mountains which separates India from Central Asia. The ridges and peaks which the author describes, as he saw them in Tehri State, are but a continuation of my own beloved Nepalese Himalayas. Born as I was in these mountains, I have a strong affection for the Himalayas, and the moments spent reading about them in Bruntons original and attractive prose have been happy ones.

Only those who have been reared among the forest-clothed ranges and snow-clad heights of Himalaya will know that he has not over-praised them but done them simple justice. They must remain the most stupendous sight in all Asia, nay in all the world.

Prior to leaving the mountains the author visited me for a few days and during his stay showed me the manuscript of A Hermit in the Himalayas . It was then only that I discovered therein a few pages devoted to my own sudden visit to his retreat, when I crossed the ridges on horseback through friendship for one whom I regard as a spiritual prophet of our time. Had I known that his retentive memory was making silent and secret notes of all that I said, I might have been a little more careful in my utterances! For I did not know that he was keeping a journal in which he recorded some of the thoughts, events and conversations at odd intervals. Fortunately I can trust his discretion not to publish matters which are not the publics concern.

This new book, being but a journal, is to me more interesting than a studiously composed work, for it necessarily bears an air of intimacy and frankness which can usually be found in diaries and journals alone. It admits one into the most secret thoughts of the gifted writer. He told me that when he looked through the pages before showing them to me he found them to be horribly egotistical, and felt inclined to consign them to burial under the mountains where they were written. But I assured him that egotism is an essential part of every memoir, and that these memoirs of his life in the Himalayas cannot escape from a quality which gives added interest and attraction to literature, even though it may be repulsive in society .

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