Lilian Silburn, a Mystical Life: Letters, Documents, Testimonials: A Biography

THIS BOOK PRESENTS THE LIFE AND WORK OF LILIAN SILBURN (1908- 1993), one of the greatest French Indianists, and a specialist in Kashmir Shaivism, Tantrism and Buddhism.
A philosopher by training, and director of research at the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research), Lilian Silburn turned to Oriental philosophies very early on.
She was one of the first to make known in the West the writings of the Kashmiri mystical philosophers.
She was also a disciple of a great Indian Sufi master, Radha Mohan Lal Adhauliya–"Bhai Sahib"– with whom she will make many and long stays until his death in 1966.
Composed of a large number of personal writings never published to date, this book presents us with the testimony of an exceptional spiritual and philosophical experience.
It also evokes the atmosphere of the life she led near Paris in Le Vésinet after the death of her master ... a simple, active life, devoted to her Work.
Surrounded by friends attracted by her personality and her spiritual "efficiency," Lilian Silburn endeavored to help others discover, within the silence and the most varied forms of ordinary life, the "non-way" which had been revealed to her by her master.
Illustrated with photographs, Lilian Silburn: A Mystical Life contains various testimonies which give a fuller view of this extraordinary personality– both a great scholar and a great mystic.

Endorsements and Praise
for Lilian Silburn: A Mystical Life
The reader has in their hands an exceptional spiritual document describing the mystical experience of a contemporary woman, Lilian Silburn, who, having met and merged with a master in India, then returned to Europe to share the experience of "transmission" from heart to heart.
– Exceptional because it is a direct testimony: extracts from Lilian Silburn's diary, and correspondence between her and her guru, which sheds light on their deep relationship, and many photographs.
– Exceptional because this book tells us about the experience of deep silence, an ineffable experience, beyond words, but loaded with meaning.
–– L.M.

In contrast to the ocean of "spiritual" literature that surrounds us, we finally have the biography of an exceptional contemporary mystic: Lilian Silburn. It is written by a close friend, Jacqueline Chambron, who relied on Lilian's personal archives and the testimonies of those close to her.
Jacqueline Chambron tells us how this intrepid woman traveled alone to India after WWII to seek a Master capable of fulfilling her demanding spiritual quest. Through the Sanskrit texts that she had read as an Indianist philosopher, she knew that it was possible for some masters to transmit grace directly from heart to heart, without resorting to any technique.
This unlikely meeting of two destinies took place in Kanpur, India. The Master was neither Hindu nor Muslim ... this universal path not caring about religions. He immersed Lilian Silburn in the pure mystical experience, without asceticism or technique, as she had wished.
This rare book will fascinate seekers of the absolute. –– M.T.

In the vast heritage of different spiritual paths, there is an essential aspect that is rarely discussed, that of "transmission." The present work bears witness in an extremely vivid way to this very special experience lived by Lilian Silburn (1908-1993) with her Indian Sufi master and transmitted in turn continuously in France.
Beyond a simple testimony, this work evokes the efficiency of Grace transmitted silently from master to master within the uninterrupted lineage of her Guru. The transmission, free from any form – teachings, rituals, practices – is carried out directly from the master who fills one with Grace to melt the heart and make it suitable "to seize divine impulses on the fly." –– C.D.

About the AuthorJACQUELINE CHAMBRON, who was a professor of classical letters, met Lilian Silburn in 1965. She was one of her very close friends and assisted her among other things in materializing some of her work. It is to Jacqueline that Lilian Silburn entrusted the personal documents, diaries, correspondence, and various notes, which are the source material for this work.Jacqueline was born in 1926 at the foot of the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne, France in Aurillac, her father's country. When she was six years old, her family moved to Agen on the banks of the Garonne, her mother's country. She lived there until the age of eighteen, even during the war. This city was spared the horrors of the bombings. However, a strong friendship with an Israelite high school classmate introduced her to the barbarity of anti-Semitic persecution. At the age of fifteen she was initiated into the mysticism of Saint John of the Cross by a Discalced Carmelite monk, a discovery which will remain important, but which locked her into an ideal of renouncement little suited to the vitality of a fifteen-year-old girl. At eighteen she left home to study, which led her to discover Paris in the intellectual ferment of the post-war years. She was fortunate enough to live in community houses where communist and catholic student couples lived together. It was a rich and eventful period. After her marriage, two successive pregnancies made it difficult for her to complete her studies. Once she finally graduated, she experienced the joy of teaching, which had been her dream since childhood. Her husband, having completed his medical studies, moved the family to Toulouse where the fourth child was born. There she heard about Lilian Silburn for the first time and, thanks to an appointment teaching in a local high school, she was able to move to Le Vésinet, and afterwards lived in Lilian's wake. Motivated by Lilian, she wrote several articles published in the Hermès review: - The three advents of Christ in the soul, according to Ruysbroeck the Admirable. (Hermes n ° 1) - The three ways and the non-way in the light of Meister Eckhart. (Hermes n ° 1) - The void according to Saint John of the Cross. (Hermes n ° 2) - Nowadays, which master for which disciple? (Hermes n ° 3) - Direct transmission. (Hermes n ° 3) Since LiIian Silburn's death, Jacqueline has continued living in Le Vésinet, surrounded by a few friends. Over the years, she has organized a series of trips with some of them: first to India, where they prayed, filled with gratitude, on the graves of the masters of the lineage of Radha Mohan. Later to Iran, in the footsteps of Bistami, Kharakhani, Ruzbehan, Omar Khayyam.... And finally to Uzbekistan where they venerated the tomb of Naqshband in Bukhara. Jacqueline wrote and compiled this book, anxious to preserve the account of Lilian's experience as faithfully as possible, and also to describe the living effects of direct transmission through her.