Shared Transformation
Reviews
And There Was Light
by Jacques Lusseyran, Parabola Books, 2nd edition, 1998. ISBN 0- 930407-40-7
This is the autobiography of one of the leaders of the French Resistance during WWII. Blinded at the age of 8,
the way Lusseyran describes his childhood makes me suspect that he had a Kundalini awakening very early in life.
Soon after he lost his eyesight, he developed his other senses (including his intuition) in ways which will resonate
for many who have been fine-tuned by Kundalini. For instance, as his hearing intensified, he learned that "sound
is not something happening outside us, but a real presence passing through us..." With an emphasis that applies
equally to those of us now hypersensitive to noise, he speaks of how necessary it is to protect blind children
"against shouting, background music and all such hideous assaults... a violent noise has the same effect as
a beam of a searchlight too close to the eyes of someone who can see. It hurts." As the author allowed his
hands to receive the vibrations of things, his sense of touch gave him yet another kind of sight: "But it
is more than seeing them, it is tuning in on them and allowing the current they hold to connect with one's own,
like electricity. To put it differently, this means an end of living in front of things and a beginning of living
with them."
Most familiar to many of us with awakened Kundalini were his experiences of inner light: "I was aware of
a radiance emanating from a place I knew nothing about, a place which might as well have been outside me as within."
This inner light was constant for him. "The amazing thing was that this was not magic for me at all, but
reality. I could no more have denied it than people with eyes can deny that they see. I was not light myself;
I knew that, but I bathed in it as an element which blindness had suddenly brought much closer." He became
able to read auras as well. "Light threw its color on things and people. My father and mother, the people
I met or ran into in the street, all had their characteristic color which I had never seen before I went blind."
His ability to read people's true nature and intentions made him a nearly infallible judge of character -- an invaluable
skill when he was called upon to decide which volunteers for the Resistance movement could be trusted. The one
time he ignored his reservations about a potential recruit proved disastrous -- the man later betrayed him and
most of his closest friends to the Nazis. This led to Lusseyran's internment in a German concentration camp.
Yet even in this unspeakable hell, the Spirit kept his body and heart alive. And There Was Light is the
story of a remarkable man who was able to affirm life and find value in circumstances which would shatter most
souls. It is a deeply spiritual and inspirational book, written with utmost honesty, humility and love.
El Collie
(for Dan)
You get through the ravages of Kundalini awakening
the same way people from time immemorial
survived all appointments with destiny
(birth, irreparable loss, old age, death).
You learn to tough it out.
You learn to accept.
You learn to surrender.
You learn to lean into the arms of grace
both unseen, from the realms above,
and extended through a human hand.
You get through tattered and torn around the edges.
You get through wondering how you've managed
to make it through this far.
You get through hanging on for dear life.
You get through shaken and shuddering
and sheared of everything
but your quivering mind and quaking heart,
and the distant echo of a memory
that this was why you came here.
Though you think there has been some colossal mistake,
inscrutably, incredibly, something in you knows
that this is precisely what you came here
so valiantly to endure:
this merciless nakedness
of heart and soul.