by Eric Baret
This atmosphere of non-demand created a form of resonance. People who spent their life wanting to change, to become purified, woke up to a sort of respect for themselves. In the absence of demand, the process of listening to their own problems got under way. In this listening, problems spontaneously dissolved.
Jean Klein did not have the slightest demand. That is why people from all walks of life came to see him. He saw gangsters with heavy criminal records, a state secretary, pot growers, high finance bankers, exuberant artists, and petit-bourgeois people allergic to any form of creativity. To all, he gave the same teaching: “Stay where you are, do not change your environment or your way of being but become available to your emotional, intellectual and somatic functioning. The silence you are seeking does not reside anywhere out there but in your presence to what arises.” Everyone came away more available to their own uniqueness.
Such welcoming of the whole person fostered changes. It was almost imperceptible: Jean Klein did not want people to change outwardly, he did not want any psychic events around him. Any mental experience was considered a lack of vision, a compensation. For him, the experience of samadhi in any form, the experience of absorption cut off from objective life was a lack of perspective and would inevitably create larger and larger difficulties in facing everyday life. It wasn’t about moving away from the world of objects to find peace, but about getting a foretaste of that peace in which the world appears and disappears.
Around him was a vibration which swept away any fear of the objective world and imposed itself as the ever-present background of all perceptions. Little by little, this vibration became less and less perceptible as such and turned into the light that shines over every perception. At some point it became impossible to perceive the vibration as an object.
On some level he was in control of this phenomenon and transmitted this form of sensitivity. He said that his master, whom he considered to be far more powerful than himself, had to constantly watch himself lest those who approached him start living uncommon experiences. Otherwise, they would have focused on objective situations, on external changes, on the psyche.
This did not prevent him from giving, in individual and specific cases, extremely opinionated advice, from yoga to nutrition—where tomato skin and tomato seed could become dramatic enemies—to love or sex—where he might dispense much technical advice. His opinions would extend to political life, investments, music or any other subject relevant to society. But this expert advice would only take its full meaning when the student had truly grasped no-direction, the uselessness of taking ownership of any characteristics whatsoever. It did not aim at purifying before awakening. It was the manifestation in space-time, the translation into everyday life, of the feeling of what is essential. Once again, it was about allowing the resonance of an inner emotional, intellectual and physical availability in which life without intention could take form without too much resistance.
With Jean Klein, there was no becoming, no direction, only respect for what was there. This created an extraordinary relaxation around him. We felt appeased because we didn’t have to change anything. We were pointed to our most intimate listening: presence. In this presence to life, nature could change, but the need to transform, to clarify was progressively leaving us.
Everything was right. There was no longer any need to free ourselves from anything. To free oneself was seen as a form of violence and it meant that the condition wasn’t ripe. When the trauma is ripe, it leaves us and there is no need to reject it, to eliminate it. The trauma was respectable, it was needed—the proof was, it was there. Jean Klein was teaching us to live with it, to listen without expectation. In that receptivity, peacefully, little by little, trauma would come to the surface. When it found enough space within us, it emptied itself. Of course, this approach ran contrary to all the yogic schools who want to cut out trauma. But when you use willpower to let go of a crutch giving you a sense of safety, without fail your organism will look for another. The radiance of his teachings came from that respect. That was the most precious: to know that I do not need anything. That is true nonviolence.
Concerning the somatic approach, I felt, like you, that I had found something extraordinary when it became clear and easy to bathe in a tactile bath, to fully surrender the body into silence. To have the capacity, at every moment, to collapse the body into a vibration is a wonderful gift. It is, however, a lot less extraordinary than to find yourself in the presence of somebody who listens, who marvels at all the facets of your being, who doesn’t find anything wrong with you. His vision of perfection would bring you to listen to life without the smallest criticism.
Gratitude for such a gift can only be eternal.
What is the role of the teacher in the transmission of yoga?
The teacher is a space of resonance. When he meets you or when he senses your fragrance, he feels rhythms, movements, feelings. In this resonance, this vibration, he is inspired to show you attitudes that belong to the same family of vibration.
When you practice the techniques that he has transmitted to you, this technical resonance manifests differently every day, because he focuses on your felt sense rather than on any formal learning.
If a student just tries to remember the technique that was transmitted to him, he cuts himself off from this resonance and can only reproduce a mental memory. This may bring a feeling of psychological safety, but the postponement of all clarity—for looking for anything whatsoever in an activity can only bring us back to our morass.
On the contrary, the one who is free from any intention lets the atmosphere, more than the technique, resonate in him. Every time he makes himself available, he comes into a deep connection with life currents where teacher and student are forever united, where technique is but a framework to allow this discovery, as well as the direct expression of this resonance.
You become aware that there is nothing personal in life. That is why, in ancient times, artwork was not signed; no one took themselves to be the creator. Only life, or God, was the acknowledged creator, who created through hands, through the mind and through the word. No ownership.
That theme is very clear in Master Eckhart’s sermons; he never says he knows the truth, he says that the truth that comes through him comes directly from the heart of God. Since he doesn’t think of himself as special, he is the perfect tool. Coming directly from perfection, his discourse can be considered revealed. Because he has totally lost himself, God is able to speak through him.
The only purpose of yoga and all other exercises is to transpose this attitude to the somatic level. This feeling, this opening to life makes you available. In this availability, it is possible to follow a movement of inquiry, and true yoga might eventually reveal itself.
What you need is always available, right next to you. The techniques only resonate for the one who lives this intimacy with the present moment.
To be able to receive this help, the student must be free of expectation, of demand. The one who wants to be taught does not have the capacity to receive. Little by little, the demand dissolves and is replaced by a listening without any orientation, supported by the teacher. A unique relationship, impersonal but more intimate than any other, is created. The student is present, without any demand. This waiting without expectation is the space in which transmission happens. Nothing objective is transmitted, but transmission takes place, the student enters the way. These moments of intimacy, often in full silence, are the yeast of the revelation.
Is that all there is in transmission?
When you go to a museum with somebody who knows how to look, you see better. All he can do to help you see is to look without knowing. It is a very powerful inner gesture. It strikes you and, on some level, it helps you see. But that’s all.
People who met Jean Klein and felt his peace eventually became aware that, deep down, the calm that they were feeling with him was really theirs. That is what transmission is. This listening is transmission. If you listen to a co
ncert with a musician, you hear better.
To listen and to look are the deepest actions, there is nothing more powerful. When you stand next to a being who sees, his non-personal vision changes your whole world.
When you witness the awakening of somebody who imagined his whole life that he was unhappy for any number of reasons and who, in one instant, realizes that he only imagined his life, this dazzling vision doesn’t only shake up the body of that person, but yours too.
Vision is contagious. If you are next to someone who is sad, and if you do not embody availability, their sadness is contagious. If, on the other hand, you are available, you can no longer be dragged down by sadness; you feel the sadness or the agitation of your environment, but you are neither sad nor agitated. In the same way, you can feel the vision.
I don’t need anybody to feel that which is peaceful in myself; that is given to me at every moment. I need only to see how I constantly turn it down. I do not need a peaceful guru; I need only to witness my own agitation. As soon as I clearly become aware of it, without the pride to want to be without agitation, as soon as I simply become present to my life, transmission happens. It is my own stillness that calls upon itself.
Stories of transmission are often a form of romanticism. Looking for a guru instead of looking for yourself is postponement.
Regardless of any guru, I need to always be aware of my pretension, my agitation, my fear. Of course, this listening may take the form of a magical location or being. But that is only one possible form amongst so many others. There is no need to look for a teaching or a master. A worldly encounter isn’t what it’s about.
Meeting a great guru is of no use. We all know people who sat next to Jean Klein or Nisargadatta Maharaj and who remained miserable.
Listening to life will also allow listening to these meetings. In non-expectation, these meetings can blossom, life can thrive. But as long as I am looking for something, I don’t listen. I can collect extraordinary encounters, but it remains a collection.
Spiritual quest is an escape.
I often get the feeling that discovery, realization of what is initially intuited, of what is deep and essential, comes progressively, in steps, as if a veil was getting thinner and thinner. It may be an illusion. It is as if I was always searching for the direction to take the next time, as if a strong urge was pushing.
Life leads to the next step and you do not get to decide. When you let yourself be carried by the current, the current leads you around the rock; you cannot decide. The more you understand that your life is unavoidable, in its greatness as in its smallness, in joy as in sorrow, the more you listen to the unavoidable. The step gets taken, you do not take the step. No more worry, no more hesitation, you have nothing to lose and nothing to gain.
Then you discover that there is no wisdom either. Those who have spiritual experiences are respectable, but you don’t care. That which can be experienced isn’t your business. Your business is the light behind the experience. There comes a time when you almost feel repulsed by that which can be experienced.
Every experience is mental and that which is beyond mind cannot be experienced. Listening cannot become an object. The urge leaves you.
On another level, you can tell when defense mechanisms are being defeated. You notice that today you were insulted in this or that way, and that you fully understood how much this person couldn’t do otherwise, how much, from her own viewpoint, she was right. You notice that ten years ago you would have strangled her for that, five years later you would have been depressed, and today… you just listened.
In this way, yes, you can see a form of progression—a progression of your letting go of the imaginary world. You no longer feel attacked, challenged, assaulted by the event. The event has become neutral for you, whereas before it would have started a drama.
You can notice this type of change. Before, when you heard about a wise man, you had to go see him. Today, you are told about a wise man and you peacefully keep fishing. You no longer have the urge to go and listen to anyone. You have understood that all you have to listen to is yourself. There is nothing else.
When I hear about a spiritual teacher, I can feel a form of joy—it is wonderful that people stop complaining—but there is no longer the slightest urge to go meet something or someone. What for? Who can give me my silence? Who can give me my vision? Nothing. Nobody.
This change that I witness in myself isn’t the result of a new insight, it is an absence of the imaginary. You expect less and less. You are more and more present, with no agenda. But it is not a progression of accumulation. There was a time when you imagined that every woman that you met was perhaps the woman of your life. Today, a woman passes and she is a woman who passes; there is no more imagination. You do not add anything to the event. The event is what it is.
When you set it free, the event is magical because there is nothing that isn’t extraordinary. And there is nothing magical, because everything is magical. The rich essence of all things is found in the simplest, so-called trivial situations, objects, gestures. But because it is schmaltzy, repetitive, complex or vulgar, my imagination prevents me from seeing its beauty. I always repeat the same patterns. I always project on women the same references, the same expectations, the same needs. On cars or on spiritual masters, I always project the same childish demand: to find myself.
Imagination is miserable. When it fades, you discover that the slightest thing is ultimate, that it is wonderful. Everything is like a flower that opens up and radiates its fragrance. Imagination dries up the flower, takes away the smell.
Beauty blossoms when the impetus toward beauty stops, when any expectation, hope for beauty drops away.
The seeker is that which is sought.
How to distinguish between what is true and what comes from imagination?
They are the same thing. On a functional level, everything comes from our imagination, but at a deeper level, everything is true; the mask you are wearing isn’t given to you by chance. When you imitate someone else’s signature, the way you sign still gives away your personality. The mask reveals what is behind the mask. Therefore, imagination isn’t haphazard. There is no imagination. Everything is true. For pedagogical reasons, as if talking to children, we speak about personal or impersonal, spontaneous or intentional, imaginary or real.
What could there be other than the essential? There is nothing imaginary. As energy, everything is life. As a story, everything is imaginary, of course. We do not have to separate milk from water like the famous swan of the Upanishads. We do not separate anything here. We listen.
It doesn’t matter if the conflict is imaginary or not; it is felt. I am available, I am humble towards this feeling. I don’t have the arrogance to want to free myself from it. I do not want anything. There is respect. In this listening, the story of what is felt goes through certain stages, the images that reveal this feeling get fleshed out. At some point, I stop pretending that I am sad because I separated from a man or because I lost my leg; I leave the stories behind. I realize that sadness is here, in my body; nobody can create it in me if it isn’t already there. Thus, the stories fade away… But it is still the same sadness. Nothing is illusory.
But can’t sadness be imaginary too?
This starts to become philosophy.
I feel the sadness, it is my object of contemplation. I humbly face sadness without the arrogance to want to free myself from it. Listened to and loved, sadness is the doorway. No intervention, or you will remain in a compensation.
Techniques used to become free from a conflict bring up another conflict, because I am the conflict. I can flush out all the conflicts from my body and from my psyche but as long as I stay here, as soon as I open my eyes and see the world, a new conflict appears. Attraction, repulsion, I want, I don’t want, I’m scared, I need, etc. To want to get rid of conflict is a lack of vision. We cannot delete anything. I need the conflict that I have. Why run away from it and create a new one when I alread
y have one? All is very well as it is. It’s fine to be lazy. I keep my conflicts and there is no need to invent new ones. I listen to them. In that space, that which existed prior to the conflict may reveal itself.
Krishna Menon compared yogis who want to get rid of conflicts to people who want to cover the world with leather. He used to say: “I wear a pair of shoes.” There is no need to correct everything. If you bring a tray back to balance, all the objects on it come back to balance together. There is no need to worry about local corrections. If need be, we can create a temporary lull, but always within this global vision.
God didn’t make any mistakes that I have to fix. I need all the conflicts. I claim the scars that I wear. No one has a right to take them away from me. They will leave when they are ready. This respect allows a deep transformation. Wanting to fix the problem with my parents, my wife, my body, my past, etc.—that has no end!
In progressive paths, you can remove the conflicts. It’s easy, and it can momentarily bring a huge opening to the person. You get to own new qualities, you free yourself from what is uncomfortable, but this is a form of postponement.
The direct path, without transformation, appears to be longer. It will seem, twenty years later, that the person has changed very little, but it’s only an appearance. At the time of death, the real change is revealed. If we have the capacity to live that space, at that time, integration will happen. A correction takes place—and I don’t have to know whether it’s illusory or deep—but what I feel becomes the object of my contemplation, my most precious treasure. The conflict that I feel is my gift, I discover it and I listen to it. I don’t need to set myself free from it. Listening to it is being free.