Source on Alexandra David-Néel

“1889 also marks the first of Alexandra’s so-called neurasthenic crises... Alexandra... attempted to emancipate herself from what she deemed unworthy passions and habits. She claimed to have seen the banality of most human pleasures... To her diary... she confided that she could not believe in romantic love, which would only lead to infidelity, betrayal, and a broken heart.”

“Of her several shorter efforts, “Women in Tibet” (Asia 1934) was an unmitigated triumph... female readers from countries as far apart as America and China were writing to her craving more information. The piece analyzed the means by which Tibetan women mastered a harsh environment and gained sway over their men. The women had achieved a de facto equality despite law and scripture unfavorable to them, this by virtue of innate independence and physical stamina. Tibetan women were clever and brave and therefore valued by their husbands.”

“At the age of 16 she was already running away from home for jaunts across Europe, and she traveled to India at 21... It was not until middle age that she married... in 1910 he (her husband) offered her a “long voyage”—he meant something like a year—to “get it out of her system.” She was gone for fourteen years, traveling and living in India, Sikkim, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Japan, making forays into the forbidden kingdom of Tibet.”

“It was when she moved to Sikkim that she met three people who were to influence her life profoundly... This was the beginning of the most important and fulfilling period of David-Néel’s life. She actually underwent a physical transformation, the “neurasthenic,” somewhat unhealthy woman suddenly growing well and looking years younger....Her state of health improved enormously above a certain altitude —but it also seems significant that David-Néel, who until then had been isolated from other Buddhists, was suddenly living in a place where she received support for her practice.”

“When the Dalai Lama asked her how she could have become a Buddhist without a teacher, she said, When I adopted the principles of Buddhism, I knew not a single Buddhist, and was perhaps the only Buddhist in Paris. During their first conversation, the Gomchen of Lachen remarked, You have seen the ultimate and supreme light. It isn’t in a year or two of meditation that one arrives at the concepts you express.”

“To the Tibetans, it seemed perfectly logical for Alexandra David-Néel to have traveled to Lhasa: she was returning to the site of a previous incarnation.”