by Eric Baret
LET THE MOON BE FREE
CONVERSATIONS ON KASHMIRI TANTRA
ÉRIC BARET
TRANSLATED BY JEANRIC MELLER
Published by: Science and Nonduality, 2018, second edition
Cover art: Erect Shiva (Shivalingam), white marble, 5th century, Gandhara kingdom,
Shahi dynasty, Kashmir, India, private collection.
Cover layout and design: Zaya Benazzo and Melissa White
ISBN-13: 978-1727646269ISBN-10: 1727646266
www.ScienceandNonDuality.com
www.bhairava.ws
Email: [email protected]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is a collective labor of love. All those who contributed were deeply moved by Eric’s words and shared a burning desire to make them available to a wider audience.
Thank you:
Robin Winckel, for your availability, your effectiveness, your capacity to simplify awkward French expressions, and your impeccable timing.
Ellen Emmet, for the instigation of this work, and for all your input, reminding us of to stay with the essential and not be caught in words.
Annelied Mock for your enthusiasm and your resourcefulness.
Tony Kendrew, for the precision of your language, your perseverance and attention to detail.
Mary Mann, for the first translation of the initial chapter.
Kathleen Knipp, for your willingness to participate.
Zaya Benazzo, for your continual inspiration, oversight and support.
Eric Baret, for your presence.
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
Chapter One......................In the silence of intimacy
Chapter Two......................Living with emotion
Chapter Three...................Hope is an escape
Chapter Four.....................Free of all understanding
Chapter Five......................Let fear devour you
Chapter Six.........................Let the moon be free
Chapter Seven...................Tomorrow doesn't exist
Chapter Eight...................Searching is postponing
Chapter Nine.....................No one ever talked to you
Chapter Ten.......................Wake up happy, fall asleep happy
Chapter Eleven.................The situation is an excuse
Chapter Twelve.................The fast of the heart
Chapter Thirteen.............The art of dying
PREFACE
In its traditional form, Kashmir Shaivism is beginning to be known in the West. In the last thirty years, scholars have introduced numerous texts, which are remarkable for their depth. The study of these works stimulates the mind and unveils many exceptional aspects of Indian thought.
Originally, however, the purpose of this tradition was not to enrich our knowledge but, on the contrary, to free ourselves from it. The burning fire of liberation, hidden under the exotic fantasies of the spiritual tradition, was revealed to those who found their way through those initiatory twists and turns. Nowadays, very few of us will have the time or even the impulse to immerse ourselves in Kashmiri culture of the Middle Ages in order to benefit from this revelation.
My teacher Jean Klein has passed on to his students an extraordinary transposition of this art without ever betraying it. Today, the teachings must find their students wherever they may be, to help them meet the modern world with the freshness which lies at the heart of every spiritual tradition. No knowledge is necessary to receive the essence of the art, for the origin of every tradition does not reside in thought, but in silence. Not-knowing is the way (niveda-sadhana). Spiritual instruction is received straight from the emptiness (sunyavani). These few dialogues are one of numerous examples of this approach. What is transmitted is not a body of knowledge, but a listening which is, ultimately, the only doorway to the essential.
Eric Baret
I first encountered Eric in the nineties, through his early writings, before I was lucky enough to meet him in person. Right from the start, his words were sending shivers down my spine. Rigorous, clear, down-to-earth, uncompromising, sometimes on the edge of provocation, his expression shook well-entrenched prejudices; it was rocking my world. I knew that a world of illusions would not recover from this exposure to the essential. Indeed, that was the case, and my life took a turn towards the unexpected, the unconventional, leaving the beaten path to explore avenues that I would never have thought possible from the rigid environment I was used to navigating.
Years later, I felt a need to explore all the paths that I might have bypassed in my enthusiasm for the spiritual. I spent almost a decade in therapy and psychological inquiry, diving deep into my early childhood and family history. The support of Eric’s foundation was invaluable to that phase of my journey.
Finally, I came full circle when I found myself in a depressive episode, with one of Eric’s books as my faithful companion. Like a breath of fresh air, Eric’s words lifted me. Every time my mind wanted to go into a story, to find a psychological or biological explanation for the heavy clouds I was experiencing, reading Eric would bring me back to the naked reality of the moment; it kept inviting me back to the sensations in my body, no matter how uncomfortable they were. I was released from the conditioned impulse to resolve and to fix, to run away from the uncomfortable feelings. In the midst of the darkest pain, here was access to freedom, immediate, closer than my own skin, my birthright.
From this point on, it was clear that I had received an invaluable gift. What else could I do but share it? How could I let this treasure stay out of reach for those who do not happen to speak French? My translation is an offering to those who can appreciate the clarity and unique flavor of Eric’s direct, clear and frank expression. He does not intellectualize, explain or analyze anything. He does not give you anything to hold on to, or any certainty to build into a possession. Besides inviting you back to your body, he points out some truths that are so obvious that we can’t even see them, so lost are we in our imaginary world of thoughts. Each time, the impact stings, and then the wave of expansion arrives, flooding the psyche with tears of joy.
Enjoy!
Jeanric Meller
Introduction
Glory be to Him who has not carved a path towards Him other than the incapacity to know Him.
Ibn Arabi: The Meccan Revelations
Born out of fear, the impulse to know and to want is at the root of our psychological suffering. Our existence is often nothing but a struggle to assert this superficial paradigm. The constant search for security is the main obstacle to uncovering a freedom which beckons us at every moment of what we call ordinary life.
To free the world from our projections is the ultimate art, expressed in all the great spiritual traditions. This listening, free of personal ownership, is the solution to our conflicts, imagined yet so real within our regimented lives.
Our carefully conditioned psyche fears emotion, yet emotion is to be found at the source of all perception. When welcomed in its totality, this energy flows free of its projected cause and becomes the song of life, silencing the individual. Misery, an echo of our original, irrevocable and natural joy, is revealed as the second-born child of a barren woman.
At the heart of the non-dual Kashmir Shaivite tradition, the alchemy of emotion puts an end to intentional thinking.
The following conversations catch us in the midst of our everyday preoccupations which, in our approach, reveal themselves as portals to what is essential. Swept away by the fire of the moment, any res
istance to a life free of conclusions, to the not knowing so dear to Jean Klein, is clearly seen as a hopeless struggle. Could the red sulfur of alchemy be anywhere else but in our very presence?
The transcript of these meetings preserves the spontaneous format of Q&A. What is said here could easily be contradicted in other circumstances or on other levels and should not be considered as The Truth, but rather as an exploration of our patterns and habits. The style of speech is specific to the audience. Out of context, some responses might appear inappropriate or seem to have little pedagogical value. It is the intimacy and the spaces of silence pervading these meetings that justify these responses and invite their functional integration. The reader should not take them literally, but transpose them. Although the intensity of these moments—in which expression is but a pretext for the transmission of a sense of listening—can only be tasted in person, a reading without expectation of objective understanding can bring us back to the same obvious realizations which are at the heart of our deepest nature.
Chapter 1
In the silence of intimacy
Security has got you lost
Koran
Indulging in security is contrary to intimacy with God. It gives a temporary feeling of well-being, but puts happiness forever out of reach, for it destroys spiritual life and ruins the man who indulges in it by making him waste his time. And when he finally reluctantly comes back to himself, empty-handed, he realizes he never received anything.
Ibn Arabi: The Book of Theophanies
O ur meetings do not happen in a context of spirituality, teaching or understanding, for all these elements belong to progressive paths. Life events are the way, a way which appears and disappears in the same moment. There is no room for accomplishment, for ownership. As long as you don’t expect an informative answer, any question is welcome.
Is it possible to know the appropriate moment to change a situation, when you think you can improve it? Or do you need to let it do its own thing, to let it happen without action? Can one work on this?
What you can do is to become aware that you cannot choose between acting and being available to the situation; it isn’t in your control. Sometimes you are able to listen to a situation—you will then be free to act or not to act; the situation will be the action. On other occasions you will only be able to witness your lack of listening, the ideological commentary that you superimpose onto the situation. You pretend to know what is better—this pretense, itself, is an action.
You cannot decide to react or to listen. Life doesn’t grant you such freedom. Witness the moments of listening as well as the moments of reaction.
The idea of a personal autonomy that would allow us to act or not act is a fairy tale.
I am touched by a word which you have used: “non-accomplishment.” Could you say that one can spend his life succeeding or failing and that it would also be a path of accomplishment? Because this non-accomplishment leaves a bitter taste and brings up a lot of questions about the meaning of one’s life.
You can spend your whole life imagining success or failure. All this is only ideology; you cannot succeed nor fail at anything. One day you will be tired of imagining. At that moment, your imaginary successes and failures, your fantasies of future successes and failures will also disappear. That is the accomplishment and there is no other. That is what we need to let take root in us. No room for regret, hope or bitter feelings—all that is a form of agitation. Stay peaceful, clear. Life is happening inside of you, you are not in life.
If there is no accomplishment, is there no evolution either?
There is no psychological evolution. The old man is not more than the child: he is another expression of life. He is not less either once he loses his strength, his intelligence, his memory and his health.
When the old man loses his touch and his memory, he becomes less aware, doesn't he?
What you are referring to is relative awareness, as in fact he wasn’t fully aware. He imagined succeeding and failing—which is lack of awareness. He imagined that he had a name, that he could decide what to do… He imagined his entire life. The fact that he now forgets this imaginary reality does not mean that he is lesser. He recovers something essential, something without memory, without ownership.
Observe how painful it is for us to see an old man who has become senile. Why is it so difficult? What scares me? My identity is threatened. I realize that I too will become like that and that I won’t be able to pretend—to pretend my success, my failures. I will have to renounce my dear life, my dear identification with me. That is what hurts.
Leave that old man alone with your projections, your fears. The old man is doing well; we are the ones who are scared. A salmon at the end of its life is not less magnificent than at its peak. Degeneration, on one level, is part of our biological process. There is as much beauty in someone who is dying as in a newborn.
If there is no accomplishment, what is the use of my consciousness?
Consciousness has no use. It is not an object designed to provide you with psychological stimulation. It is not a red car, a husband or a dog. It is not here to serve; it is your fundamental emotion, it pushes you to constantly look for yourself through all situations.
The word consciousness is poorly understood. In the East, they talk about consciousness without an object. There is no such thing as “being conscious.”
The consciousness of people who want to “die consciously” is of little significance. What gets realized at the moment of death is of a whole different order. The ability to “die consciously” depends on the functional capacity of your brain. If you get clubbed over the head, you will not “die consciously,” but you won’t miss anything.
The consciousness of something is a functional consciousness. It is like a leg to walk on. That consciousness has no substance. Consciousness with a capital C, that is something else.
If I manage to be aligned with Consciousness, can I reach Essence?
Try for just a moment not to be aligned with Consciousness…
What else could you be other than Consciousness? You are not a red zebra located outside of Consciousness, to align yourself with her. Consciousness is yourself when you stop looking for something, when you stop pretending that you have the freedom to be aligned or misaligned. In your silence, between two thoughts, two perceptions, in deep sleep and at all times—because time appears in Consciousness—your life is in perfect agreement with Consciousness.
Give up every ideological commentary on your life. Your knowledge about life prevents you from seeing how perfect it is. There is nothing to change. Your life changes, that is life. You don’t have to align yourself with anything. Otherwise you will always feel misaligned.
Wanting to be aligned is fear. Fear of what? The cause of the fear is imaginary. At some point you stop shaking. What is showing up is alignment. When I don’t call it positive or negative anymore, success or failure, what shows up is nothing but myself, my resonance: there lies true alignment. It is not the alignment of a subject toward an object, it is a total alignment, without separation. It is alignment with your body when it hurts or when it works, alignment with life with what it has to offer, with no demand to accomplish, to get anything.
It is extraordinary to listen. That transcends what you are listening to. Listening is deeply aligning with life.
To be without demand, without expectation, for a moment, is the simplest thing in the world. It connects you with every being, every world. There lies symbiosis.
If you try to align with something, whatever it is, what you align with is an ideology: if you’re a Muslim, you align with sharia or your tarika; if you’re a Buddhist, you align with the Sangha or the Dharma; if you are an atheist, you stand behind your concepts… That kind of alignment has very little value.
You need to align with what shows up in the moment. But that you cannot do. It is grace which calls you and which you turn down at every moment because you want to be aligned with the next mo
ment. Observe the mechanism.
The emotion that arises in me, that is what I need to align with. There is nothing else.
Yes to being without expectation from ourselves, but what about expectations from the outside?
You need to love them. It is normal that your dog expects his meal, that your lover, your husband, your child, your father, your boss, your employee all expect something. But you are going to realize that you are not here to fulfill the expectations of others. You are here, in the end, to inspire non-expectation in those around you. Sometimes your environment will be satisfied, sometimes it will be frustrated; you need to respect that, it needs both. Your child needs to be both spoiled and disappointed; its maturity depends on both, the yes and the no. Your friend needs the same thing, so does your camel.
You don’t need to feel guilty. You are not here to fulfill your neighbor’s expectations. There will always be a neighbor who finds you too tall, and another who finds you too short. Respect each of them. Some will like you, some will dislike you; all of them are right. Depending on their emotional state, they see you one way or the other.
At some point, you do not feed from your neighbor’s projections anymore. You respect him in his hatred as much as in his love. It is a projection; he is only talking to himself. You understand intimately why, when he sees you, he feels such hatred and wants to strangle you or he feels such love and wants to embrace you. He cannot do otherwise. It is like the dogs who want to either bite you or lick you. You are not here to teach the dog that wants to bite you that he shouldn’t, nor to explain to the one that licks you that he projects a security on you which he should find in himself. You respect the dog who sees this security in you and licks you as much as the one who is scared and wants to bite your throat. You act according to the situation, from respect.