Let the Moon Be Free- Conversations on Kashmiri Tantra

by Eric Baret

  If I hit you with my elbow and break your jaw, I am responsible. It doesn't mean that this is going to create an emotional condition. If I do not take myself for my body, whether I go to prison or not is not my problem; but my body must endure the consequences of my action. There is a responsibility of the body. But when you realize that your body and your thinking are clothes, you become non-responsible. If you run over a cow, you are responsible to reimburse the farmer, but you don't need to see a psychologist.

  So, as long as there is an ego that feels responsible for the happiness and unhappiness of others, we are responsible?

  As long as there is an ego that feels responsible, we are not responsible at all; the responsibility that we assign ourselves is imaginary. It's only when you realize that you are completely irresponsible that there is true responsibility. At that moment, you take responsibility. You accept your legal or civil responsibility with respect to society. For you, nothing is unfair anymore.

  Nothing is unfair, even if it's unfair. The feeling of injustice is the fruit of a fragmented vision. Your neighbor kills your other neighbor and you are accused; you say that it is unfair for you to get hanged because he did it. But at some point, you will see that this is no injustice. Life threads are much more complex than that.

  As long as I imagine being responsible, then I am really irresponsible. It is a form of pretense. When I see my total irresponsibility, then only do I become responsible, without bitterness, without any criticism of society. It's in the absence of all ethics that ethics are possible. As long as I want to behave ethically, I am in my imagination; it is always my ethics and it will be in conflict with the ethics of others. True ethics is without conflict. There is nothing left to defend.

  Society judges me according to its laws. An Islamic society would judge me differently. I don't get to decide which society judges me. So, I accept all the laws. All societies have their fairness. It is a functional submission. If I need to go to prison, I go to prison. If I get my hand cut off, I get my hand cut off. It is not a psychological problem. There is no doer, but the body is responsible in a functional way.

  I hear a lot of talk about awakening. What is the difference between an awakened being and myself? Is it about the perceiving of life? To what do we awaken?

  An awakened being is someone with a financial problem; he could not find work and he needs to earn a living. Now, as an awakened being, he makes enough money. But if you have a decent job and enough to eat, there is no need to become awakened.

  To be awakened or not awakened are two concepts that come from fear. There are no awakened beings, there are scared people. They are scared, they need to know, to own concepts that they misunderstand, and to transmit their “teachings.”

  Nobody can be more awakened than Meister Eckhart and, when you read the end of one of his sermons, you will find the words “Let us pray for this truth to actualize in ourselves.” He is not “awakened!” So, if Meister Eckhart is not awakened, who is? Those who dare to pretend? We need to let the poor souls—those who are retired and bored and those who have financial problems—be awakened; but it is a degenerate form of manifestation that is very telling of our times.

  In the East, there are no awakened beings, but people who have recognized their complete incapacity, their simplicity. They let their life be accomplished through them. That a few of their students misinterpret this simplicity and want to see them as “different” only testifies to their lack of understanding.

  There is awakening, but there are no awakened beings.

  But somebody like Nisargadatta Maharaj or Jean Klein, aren't they awakened? Those are people who recognized that they were nothing, didn't they?

  One evening in Santa Barbara with Jean Klein, a famous Buddhist master kept talking about awakening and everybody was listening to this wonderful teacher. Jean Klein was in his corner and several times he expressed the fact that there are no awakened beings, that they do not exist. He was saying this in a light manner, in order not to challenge this man.

  This does not mean that there cannot be, sometimes, through a man like Nisargadatta Maharaj, a flow. But this flow does not come from him. It is because Maharaj was free from himself that something beyond him could flow through him. That is life! Sacred music could go through Mozart and Bach because they were free from themselves. Creation could manifest through them because they were nothing. When you listen to certain Muslim or Hindu musicians in India, at some point the person disappears, only the song is left.

  There is an awakening: the awakening of life which deploys itself. But no one is awakened.

  Isn't fear a concept as well?

  As long as fear has a cause, it is a concept. But the fear we talk about here is without cause. That fear is not a concept but a felt sense. It is the terrible fear that wakes you up from a nightmare, when you are falling from a bridge. That fear is not a concept, but the fear that your husband might leave you, the fear of not being loved, these fears, yes, are concepts. At some point, fear regresses and finds its primordial madness again. Then, there is no concept. There is no fear either.

  That fear is fearless. As long as fear is fear, it still has an object. When it leaves its object, it also leaves its quality of fear. What is left is something pure.

  Because of that, in Kashmiri Tantra and in certain forms of Nepalese Tantra, consciousness is often represented by a form which is meant to inspire fear: Bhairava, the Terrible, the One who makes tears flow.

  Fear is a form of consciousness. It is no longer the fear of something but a manly fear. You need to feel that fear. No one is afraid. This cannot be taught, transmitted, explained; this must be lived in the aloneness of the heart.

  Do you believe that death is a concept?

  The word death is a concept. What we call death is a concept. What is death? It is the death of the other! You do not talk of your own death, but only of the death of the other. And that depends on your outlook; a Muslim fighter sees his death in a certain way, the American Pentecostal who bombs him sees it differently.

  All you can think or feel about death is a concept. But when you are next to somebody who dies, when you leave behind your references, your knowledge, when you let go of this childish desire to want to “support” the dying and all that nonsense, you are present; sometimes there is something which is beyond thought. Then you are only love.

  Life is also that way. If you feel into what life is, the word death becomes as insignificant as the word life. What's left is availability, space without knowledge. Death is a magical word, like the word cancer. They are scarecrows; you don't have to take yourself for a sparrow.

  At some point, you are no longer scared of scarecrows. Death: c'est la vie! Words without meaning.

  Felt sense needs the physical body to express itself. When there is no longer a physical body, there is no longer a felt sense.

  The physical body is only one part of the felt sense. There is feeling independently of the physical body. Sometimes you feel someone in another room; it is not with your physical body, and it is a felt sense. Sometimes a friend dies and you feel it; it is not with your physical body. Feeling through the body is one way, but there are other ways.

  I am listening to you as you describe this reality which is not mine, which is not ours, and I can't help wondering: why on earth would so many be off the mark? Why don't we have that perception? Why are so many of us so lost?

  You want to create a pretty story at all costs, but there is no story! There is nobody. You invent a world, and then you ask why the third son of a sterile woman can't graduate from high school! In a moment of humility, as you might have observed, there is no other, because there is no you. There is no you, thus the question of the other is resolved once and for all. You need to come back to the source: you.

  Do you think that we can only awaken through deep suffering and self-disgust?

  I think that to awaken as it is currently commercialized, indeed you need to be very disgusted with y
ourself. Without this lack of maturity, you couldn't have the childish thought of believing yourself awakened.

  Those who have self-respect cannot pretend to be awakened. Respect means humility, listening without expectation—without demanding an awakening. In self-disgust, in violence toward oneself, you can indeed find all the catalysts to one day believe yourself awakened. There are many examples in the marketplace.

  The answer you gave the lady, earlier, takes away my desire to make any effort.

  Exactly.

  But what about the consequences? I have work to do and if all this is an illusion, a fantasy, then my desire to carry out my work correctly is also an illusion, it is based on fear.

  Of course.

  I am afraid of what this might entail if I no longer make any effort to do my work correctly.

  But since you are afraid, it cannot happen: fear will prevent problems. It's only in a total absence of fear that you can be ready to completely come apart.

  Would I come apart?

  Of course, and more than that. What is there to risk?

  Losing my job?

  And so? What is the problem?

  This means losing face, this means being on the street. I don't want to look any further.

  Fundamentally what is the problem? There are 800 million people who don't get enough food. What difference does one more make?

  The idea of having to be an admirable little girl, approved of and acknowledged by the people she works with, that idea gets totally lost. If there is no longer an impulse to work in order to be approved of, all the energy constantly utilized to present yourself, to sell yourself, to justify yourself, to be loved, to ask for affection and recognition becomes available to you to do your work according to your capacity. Someone more brilliant would accomplish it in a more brilliant way, somebody more stupid in a more stupid way, that's all. If your boss likes you, he keeps you; if he dislikes you, he kicks you out and you find other opportunities for work; if there are none, you improvise.

  No matter what, we will die. Whether we die of hunger or we die wealthy makes no difference. There is nothing to be afraid of. When you leave behind all psychological needs to sell yourself, to be acknowledged in your work, then you will carry it out twice as fast and twice as well. Psychological waves caused by the desire to present yourself in a “good” light disappear. Whether you like your work or not is not your problem. Everyone does what they need to do according to their competence.

  When you give yourself fully to what you do without trying to sell yourself, your capacity for work increases, the quality of your work does too. I really wouldn't worry about this.

  But fear contributes to many human realizations, for it motivates people to perform better and to give more of themselves.

  It all depends on what you call realization.

  I would like to know your perception of your mind and mine.

  They are concepts.

  They are not linked at all?

  They are not separate at all. Mind is one. Fear causes us to imagine a separation.

  I think that this is the first thing that you should say before talking about illusion and advising us to do nothing. It would be easier to understand. But is that a concept too? We talk about awakening but what is it?

  That word is foreign to me. I leave it to brilliant people or to those who have financial issues. Here we do not talk about awakening. We leave awakening to the poor souls who need it to buy clothes. We meet among friends to share together the conviction of not needing anything.

  Awakening is separation. If there were awakened people, there would need to be non-awakened ones. This is an intolerable separation, a form of racism.

  Leave awakening to the awakened. In the non-awakening that we all share, everyone is interesting. We do not need to be awakened, we do not need anything. When I think I need to be awakened, I deny my profound beauty, my deep balance.

  Aside from mental health issues, nobody needs awakening. It's an escape. If someone wants to awaken, he can find many teachers in that market.

  You have strayed from my question. I find it sad.

  Here we are not trying to teach anything. I do not have any truth to convey. You certainly know a lot more than I do. But here we share this conviction that there is nothing to know, nothing to understand. I am not trying to explain anything, otherwise I would be transmitting concepts and we have enough of them as it is.

  The heart of our meetings vibrates with the energy of not needing and more than that, of the resonance of silence. That is what is important.

  Questions and answers are not important. You shouldn't even listen to the questions, much less to the answers. When you do not listen to the answers, there remains a silence.

  None of my answers can help you. Here we do not give anything. In the conviction that we need nothing to be happy, it becomes useless to understand anything whatsoever: neither the question nor the answer. That is what unites us. We respect those who want to be awakened, of course. But that is of no concern to us.

  Isn't this dark humor about awakened beings a form of judgment, of separation?

  No, because the one who believes himself to be awakened isn't separate from non-awakening. He is a caricature of it. Even his pretension cannot separate him from reality.

  This is not a criticism, but there comes a time when you stop being a little boy looking for his daddy and you no longer need awakening. You take responsibility for yourself.

  Why “there comes a time”?

  Because maturation is the nature of things. Because, when you are on your deathbed, you will be alone and there will not be an awakened being next to you. At that moment, your own availability will be your guru.

  That is what we are pointing to here. The guru that you can visit and then leave does not interest us. The true guru is what is within you, your gathered and global availability. This is not linked to the concepts of awakening or non-awakening.

  We don't advertise our meetings. Perhaps the resonance we are talking about here does not suit you, I completely respect that.

  I am just discussing…

  I am not trying to convince anyone.

  Still, this type of meeting seems very intellectual, with concepts and images being exchanged. Do we absolutely need to go through that? Do we need to go through an intellectual process before realizing that we are nothing, that we don't need to be afraid, that we are not individuals, that there is no free will, that we don't have a responsibility, that we don't have a personal will?

  Given your question, I would say yes, for you. For a musician, for an artist, maybe not. In your question you show a certain intellectual quality, a certain reflection.

  First you need to calm down. This will only happen when you have the humility to realize that you will never be able to understand what is beyond understanding, that you cannot think the unthinkable. Then this lull will transport you beyond this type of question. But as long as the question comes, we need to respect it.

  With somebody else, the question might take a different form: the death of a friend, physical pain, financial loss, war—it doesn't matter, it's always the same question.

  I respect my life. That which, in my life, appears to me as disorder or violence, that is what I need to listen to. If what seems profound is reasoning or questioning, then I need to respect that too. I do not get to decide my sadhana, my path toward truth. Life manifests my path in the moment. All that happens to me is my path.

  At some point, there is no longer any mental questioning. The quest becomes shapes, forms; no more thought. It's a little like when you watch the sunset; when the sun melts behind the sea, behind the mountains, it takes away all your thoughts, your knowledge, your pretension. In silence, nature, creaking sounds, animals, freshness, everything lives in you! At some point, everything dies.

  What you are transmitting to us right now, is it beyond the intellect?

  I do not transmit anything. If you listen to the questions and the
answers then that is on the level of the intellect. If you really listen, then it is not. For that, you need to leave questions and answers behind. You can hear them, of course, but more like a background noise. Something else is there.

  What is there between us? What is the only possible relationship? Love. There is no other relationship than love—and it isn't a relationship.

  When I do not pretend anything, there is this affection, which is not toward an object but which is the essence of every situation. In it resides the joy of sharing: going to a boxing match, listening to an opera, taking a walk, eating, dancing together. It's not about dancing or boxing; deep down, it's about being together.

  What does being together mean? It means not being—not being personal. There is only boxing, the moon, the cool evening. The joy of being together comes from the sacrifice, the sacrifice of one's knowledge.

  To be together, we first need to not be here: that is the essence of a deep relationship between human beings. It's not a relationship from person to person. If it were, there would be no love; the person wants something.

  The joy of taking someone to the theater or to a hockey match is not about the hockey match. Watching together brings out the being's deep joy. There is no one who watches, there is no longer a relationship from person to person, only watching.

  Is that only possible when we are no longer scared?

  Without the person, fear isn't possible. Fear is an idea. You are alone in an empty house, you hear a creaking noise and anxiety comes up. But if an old friend is with you, or even a three-year-old child, the furniture makes a noise and there is no fear. Why? Can the three-year-old protect you? No! So why are you no longer afraid? Because, when you are present to the child, you are absent to yourself. You are present, very simply. In this presence with the environment, fear is no longer possible.

  At some point, you no longer need the child to not feel alone. In true aloneness, you can never be alone: you are the world.

  Human beings are often contracted in terror. They look for personal love relationships. They sell themselves: “Love me… I am worth something… Don't you want to love me a little bit?” At some point you see this functioning. “Don't you want to understand me? Don't you want to listen to me?” Just notice.