by Eric Baret
Is the state of a Sufi master similar to this state of joy and space of which you speak?
A Sufi master does not pretend to be a master, otherwise he is not a true Sufi. There are no masters among Sufis, only worshippers. A Sufi does not appropriate the qualifications of the one God. All qualities are His. A Sufi listens to what is beyond him.
Rumi spoke harshly of people who wore the headdress or the robe of dervishes. In the same way, Abhinavagupta refused to give initiation to those wearing the signs of Shaivism, because initiation is in the heart and has nothing to do with outer expression. Jean Klein used to give mauna diksha, initiation through silence, without any romantic flourish.
You cannot appropriate a tradition. Sufism is as direct a path as Tantra, there is no difference.
The word master is an image, a door, like the words silence, space, God... Do not stop at the image, be open to what lies behind it.
Everyone chooses their own channel, their tool. Does the Sufi choose to materialize the divine channel?
It is the channel that chooses you. You need to accept the one your life imposes. For some it's a celibate life, for others a married life, for others wealth, poverty, sainthood, peace, violence or war. We need to face what life gives us. The more you welcome what shows up, the more life unfolds with ease. Then you may find yourself in resonance with a tradition, in agreement with one of its expressions.
The tradition is beyond the one who transmits it. The one who transmits it has no special place. What's important is the transmission. That happens from heart to heart, but there is only one heart. Thus, there is no master.
The master is an invention of fear. The student wants to find a master because he is looking for a father. At some point, you no longer look for your daddy, and no master is possible. There remains a peace that excludes everything external. That is the master you want to meet.
We should not close this meeting with concepts but, perhaps, for a few moments, give ourselves to a silence devoid of thought where we really come back to what is essential between us, beyond knowledge and understanding, which are always limited and useless.
Let's remain for a moment in a silence free of knowledge, free of silence.
Chapter 2
Living with emotion
Isn't silence the only suitable answer?
Ibn Arabi: The Meccan Revelations
E
motions of fear, of rage, of love, of sadness, emotions without cause: all these emotions are cracks through which one can glimpse a molten mass pointing to the heart of things.
Lacking in clarity, we link the emotion to a situation, we think it is disturbing.
Emotion is an opening to the heart. When we refuse an emotion, we are simply postponing life.
Emotion is free of thought, of knowledge, it wavers freely, away from certainty.
Emotion reveals the mind as completely inadequate, ill-suited to reality; this intuition itself is a reflection of reality, a reflection of the heart.
If we live with our emotions, sooner or later the habit of finding a cause will fall away.
Are there any questions?
You have said that when we feel a strong emotion, it is an opportunity to become aware of its mechanism. I currently have an important problem concerning an inheritance. One of my sisters is pestering me. Every time she calls, I get very upset and angry. I try as hard as I can to see clearly that she is incapable of reacting in a different way, and to feel the sensations arising in my body: my throat and belly tightening... Yet I can’t find a solution to this conflict. What should I do?
The situation affects you because you carry the capacity to be affected. If it weren't your sister, something else would upset you. You are lucky that your sister points you towards that inner place which isn't free of judgments, of knowing, of reactions. When you hang up the phone, after you have put up with the criticisms, or after you have reacted in whichever way you do, nothing is complete. At that moment, it becomes simple. Your sister is no longer here, you no longer need to defend your point of view, to justify what you said, to criticize yourself... sit down or lie down—whichever is more comfortable—and allow the drama of the phone call to continue echoing within you. Just as you described, your jaw, and your belly are all feeling. Let it happen.
When you hold a baby in your arms and it screams and struggles, what do you do? You don’t do anything, you are present, you hear it scream, you feel its movements. You can’t do anything to stop it, and psychologically there is nothing to do. The situation doesn’t trigger any emotional state. This doesn't prevent you from taking any concrete action, from soothing the baby, from trying to find out what is really happening. You give the child the opportunity to cry his world out.
Similarly, when you lay your body on the bed, you give it the opportunity to cry out the echo of the conflict. Your jaw, your belly or another area will express themselves. Well beyond the habitual patterns of rejection, criticism, giving up or confusion, you will experience inexpressible sensations which defy any concepts. This is no time for reflection or analysis, but for letting the sensations have their way with you.
Bodily tension will increase; if you don't have a heart attack, it will eventually peak and then weaken, until it completely empties in you. Again, what your sister told you will reappear, your throat will tighten, your saliva will dry up, anxiety will overwhelm you. Surrender. You have understood the game. You are not anxious, you feel your anxiety; you are not afraid, you feel your fear; you are not angry, you feel your anger. You let the anger in your belly or your chest take charge of itself, like this infant you had in your arms. You can't do anything for its life, for its death. You are very clearly present. Very soon, it will empty out. Later the same day, you will be able to let these emotions-reactions surface again, and return to peace.
In the next conversation, your sister will say something, you will again feel shaken, your impulse to react will arise in an instant, but you will immediately observe your own violence, and hers, without judgment; this observation will serve as a resonance chamber and bring more clarity.
You have to go through these different steps to set yourself free. So, it's after the conflict, when you still feel the echo of it, that you need to allow these cycles of feeling and letting go, rather than losing yourself in sleep. Understand the game. That is the most practical approach.
From an intellectual standpoint, you must see that, if your sister blames you for something and you can't stand it, on one level it means that she isn't completely wrong. At times, what she is accusing you of isn't far from what you are indeed feeling.
For instance, if someone accuses you of being dishonest and you react, it is because there is a grain of truth in what they are saying which resonates in you, for you have already felt dishonest, even if it was only in your thoughts.
This is an opportunity to look at yourself objectively.
Of course, there is no honesty vs dishonesty—these are images. There is only honesty. Even those accused of dishonesty can be honest with their feelings.
Get rid of this idea of being dishonest. Then, if someone insults you, you will understand why, in his suffering, he sees you and approaches you in this manner. He behaves in this way to maintain his self-image. You have to respect him. You can no longer hold anything against anyone. The one who attacks you is right, because you disturb his world. His aggression is his way of surviving.
There comes a point in time where you will no longer feel attacked by anyone, including those who really attack you. The more someone attacks you, the more you feel an overwhelming affection towards them. You will see their lack, their sadness, their problem.
In this open space, being hated, be it in the moment or over time, automatically brings forth a sort of affection. The stronger the hate, the stronger the affection. The person who hates you is searching for the love he denies himself. You are the one who will gradually allow him to see that the love he feels you are denying him, resides within
himself and that he does not need you in order to find it. It is a natural process, not a concept. You must recognize that it is an inevitable, on-going process constantly repeating itself, otherwise you remain stuck in your reactions.
At bedtime, you take off your dirty clothes; you brush your teeth so that they will be clean when you go to sleep; you wash your face for the same reason. It seems only natural. In the same way, before falling asleep, rid yourself of all these imaginary attacks. Otherwise, the next day, you will have a difficult day.
An attack is a gift inviting you to not fall asleep. It’s easy to believe yourself peaceful, to do yoga or to appear wise. And then suddenly someone “attacks” you, someone says they detest you. This allows you to awaken to your inner resonance. Does it trigger love? Hate? You get to see how you operate. That’s real yoga. It’s not about sitting still like a stone carving, but noticing how you react to events. You will discover that being attacked is the greatest gift life has to offer, for the more you are attacked, the more mature you will become. Life without attack is miserable—and luckily it does not exist.
Be available, don’t try to control everything, to react less, to be wiser. Feel how unhinged you get when you are challenged. Experience every emotion as an object to be contemplated, to be studied, with affection and patience.
Don’t expect anything, don’t ask for anything, everything will play itself out.
So, would you say that some emotions are expressions of life painfully seeking itself, while others are expressions of beauty or affection?
All emotions arise from this magma of joy. But emotions that cause you to lose your head, to become incoherent come from deep within you.
Why do emotions scare us so much?
When you are emotional, the ego loses all control. It needs to master the situation, to be in charge, to know. When you are in the grip of an emotion, control is impossible. By allowing the emotion to spread out, to empty out in the heart, you admit your futility, your inability to control what is happening at that moment, and you join the vibrating essence of life.
If the ego takes over, you will run like a madman from the emotion, doing everything you possibly can to forget it, calm it, understand it, analyze it, justify it, criticize it.
Does it become all the more violent and forceful when repressed? I have the impression that fear is also an expression of violence, a force we want to contain.
There comes a point when a repressed emotion will try and make itself felt, but this is very short-lived.
In the openness we are talking about here, when an emotion is felt, it is not experienced as a drama; not knowing is not experienced as uncomfortable, not understanding does not cause anxiety. In this listening we experience a total openness. The emotion is no longer emotional: it is cold-blooded emotion. A tear might form, yet it is neutral and does not hold us back or prevent us from doing whatever is necessary in that moment.
When you begin to feel the force, the beauty of emotion, you realize just how superficial all thought-based spiritual systems are. Dogma, analysis, knowledge, fantasies about energy and awakening are nothing but projections based on miserable psychic phenomena which are merely fleeting glimpses of the deeper emotion. Man’s need to classify, explain, elaborate a goal and an outcome, all this imagined, pseudo-spiritual ambition has given rise to the religions of both East and West. Most people are totally incapable of fully facing their emotions. They are too afraid of lunacy. So, they take refuge in systems, disciplines and exercises where they can find themselves, feel themselves, purify themselves. Here they can become someone, become a master, a more spiritual being. In fact, it is better this way: madmen need safeguards. At some point, the shallowness of this pseudo-knowledge becomes self-evident.
What would losing control look like?
There would no longer be any urge to do or not do something, no longer any pretense about one’s abilities. But the ego cannot endure moments like these. I have spent my life developing my faculties, creating a world in which I am relatively competent, pretending to be independent, capable of surviving and of getting myself out of complicated situations and suddenly, in a flash, I realize it was only a dream. All the abilities I developed through asceticism, through intellectual or emotional competence, are all a dream... When I wake up, the fortune, the castles, the stocks I own, the work I have accomplished in the dream, what remains of them? This moment is charged with deep emotion.
I dreamt my life. I invented everything. None of it exists, only my fear remains. My life is nothing but an edifice built on fear. If a competent psychiatrist—if such a person exists—were to ask me to draw a tree, he would see all the ramifications of my fear. If I showed him a photo of my wife, my children, my dog, my home, my car or my body, he would see nothing but fear. The fear that led me to buy a wife, a mistress of a particular skin color, a dog of a certain race, to have children, to work in a way that makes me rich or poor, to buy a certain type of house, painted in this particular color; the fear that determines the way I dress, stand, breathe, speak, present myself, adhere to this or that political or social ideology, the fact that I prefer this film or that form of literature to another. This is nothing but my fear showing up in all its splendor.
There is nothing to be criticized, simply noticed. I cannot be any other way; it’s an illusion to imagine that I could live without fear. I become aware that the life I have created for myself, the abilities I have sought to develop—the strength, courage, intelligence, spirituality, meditation, wisdom and other fantasies I created—all these elements are simply invented so as not to face the constant fear in which I live.
In order to escape this evidence which illustrates my total inadequacy, I have created a world where I can claim to be competent. So, I become a good husband, a good citizen, a good lover, a good father, a good Buddhist... all so that I can claim I exist. Then all of a sudden, I wake up, I realize that it's all pretense, that I am none of the above.
We all know this emotion, when we are out of our depth, overwhelmed by something. When this happens, we say, out of habit, “I’m being emotional, I’m losing control, I must try to calm down, take a tranquilizer, do some yoga...” What point is there in trying to flee from the emotion? On the contrary, in a moment of humility, of not knowing, giving up means truly knowing; it brings true security.
So, it is actually recognition?
Yes, in the deeper sense of the word. Emotion can express itself in two ways. In Benares, someone once asked the great musician Bismillah Khan what he felt after having mastered the art of the shehnai to the highest degree, and he replied: “Sometimes I feel the ecstasy the music evokes, I am close to God then and I feel the strong emotion of His presence; but at other times, I am overwhelmed by an immense sadness and I feel separate, like a beggar at God’s feet.” This emotion of humility, of noticing one’s total lack of capacity, is identical to plenitude. Presence and absence are the two reflections of it.
But they don’t have the same impact.
When I look deeply at my poverty, this vision is my wealth. It is a non-experience.
When Ibn Arabi wrote about his journey into the spiritual realms where he encountered the prophets, he specifically said that it was not a journey towards something. You cannot get close to God, for God is closer to you than your own body; however, it is a journey in the footsteps of God. At the end of his long journey, he says: “I noticed the total absence of majesty in myself.” That is to say that after having encountered the highest dignitaries of these worlds, after having experienced his essential nature, after having accomplished all that had to be accomplished, it is this vision free of any spiritual attributes that resonates profoundly in him.
Seeing one's total lack of any qualification whatsoever is the essential emotion. As long as you claim that you have a quality, this fantasy will stifle life itself.
Those who are humble, who feel a humble joy, feel close to God. How could one not want to be close to God?
When you attend a concert, you can feel a deep emotion. Don't be concerned about the concert, rather hold on to the emotion. The joy you feel did not arise because of the concert. The music is played in such a way that it gives us access to the emotion of fullness that lives within us.
Each time a desire is satisfied there is a moment free of desire, free of any urge.
If you meet someone who is at peace, you can feel peace in his presence. What’s important here is to realize that the peace you feel in his presence is your own emotion. Turn away, forget the so-called cause of the emotion and experience this openness that you touched in the so-called other. If you perceive humility in someone, it is your own humility. Stay present to it, without claiming it. There is no one to be humble. There is no cause. What you feel intensely in the other is your own experience.
Very soon, you will no longer need this so-called other. Life speaks only of you, of this emotion. So, you might occasionally listen to someone, but when you realize that what you find true in him is what is true in you, you will no longer need him. You will see that life, in all its forms, speaks this same truth. Every daily event is a reminder of this profound emotion.
Following a tradition, having a spiritual teacher is a form of escape.
It is yourself that you must follow when you feel an authentic emotion. You might be reading a text by Meister Eckhart and an emotion arises in you; close the book, the text will fall away. What's important is the tear sliding down your cheek. This is your treasure, your direction, your teaching. It is what you must follow, must listen to. As long as you are relating to the text, as long as you are thinking of Meister Eckhart, you are not open to the emotion.
At a certain point, the emotions of joy and sadness merge into a single emotion—what is known as bhava in the Indian tradition. When you see the face of someone experiencing this emotion, you cannot tell whether he is laughing or crying. You see an intense tension which is beyond joy and sadness, an active volcano.
