Let the Moon Be Free- Conversations on Kashmiri Tantra

by Eric Baret

  It is the same with all teachings. There is nothing to own.

  Going to listen to Byron Katie thinking it's going to help you is a form of insult. You need to go there for the sheer joy of meeting her. You only meet yourself; in her presence, this becomes very obvious. Leave aside her somewhat syrupy American expression without any comment. What remains is the beauty of what she does: not to accept any narrative and to send you back to where you were before you pretended something else than reality.

  For the sake of the American mentality, perhaps it was necessary to turn her work into a method, but it isn't a method. It is life itself. To become aware of our pretensions and expectations, to realize that we always blame the other for what we blame ourselves. It isn't a technique, it's an obvious fact. What disturbs us in the other is ourselves; everybody can see that.

  So, do not go see her to acquire something, but as you go to the opera: for the joy of a moment of beauty. It is the most joyous moment in the world. If you go hoping for change, then when you return, nothing much will have changed.

  It is essential to play, in the deepest sense, because the game is to be without a goal. You realize that there is nothing else than beauty in life. People who have a goal and who think that life is serious cannot play, they are too busy accomplishing important things. When I realize that the essence of everything is to play, that I have nothing to succeed at, that there is nothing I can fail at, that my life is perfect, then playing has deep meaning and I realize that the rules of the game were only a fairytale. The rules are that which allows for the game.

  What's important is to play.

  Chapter 12

  The fast of the heart

  Thus, let us leave the land of the certain and the scouted. Let us go forward without hesitation and without seeing where we go.

  We must move like a ship upon the waters; she has no tracks before her nor does she leave any behind. We need not see anything before we start walking nor keep any memory from the place we visited to turn it into a path.

  Madame Guyon:

  Christian and Spiritual Discourses Concerning Inner Life

  Can you talk about fasting?

  Most often, fasting is a compensation for an inappropriate diet. Why fast? Nature offers food, the body needs food, we must eat what fits. If there is nothing to eat, we fast. If, in the past, we ingested large quantities of medication, fasting may be appropriate to eliminate certain chemical residues. It is personal; we cannot generalize. For fasting to be beneficial, it needs to extend over a long period and to be supervised by someone competent. Under regular circumstances, fasting is not necessary; it's enough to eat properly.

  What you eat isn't essential. It only affects your health. Your health does not affect your maturity. You can be in perfect health and be completely irresponsible, or your body may be very sick and find its maturity. Your freedom isn't affected by the condition of your body. The desire to create a body in good health comes from fear. That balance is unbalanced. Good health and disease are two expressions of health. Being scared of disease is already a disease.

  Physical fasting is superficial. What counts is the fast of the mind, not absorbing useless thoughts—the thoughts that we get saturated with through the media, television, newspapers, novels etc. And, even more essential, the fast of the heart—fast from affectivity, resentment, criticism, hatred or knowledge. To really remain still, detached. To not intervene in the world but to let it live inside us. That fast is the only true fast. The fast of the mind is a consequence of it. Sometimes, the fast of the body can present itself as an auspicious extension of the fast of the mind.

  To remove physical food has no value when you continue to feed on all the clichés of society: hopes, expectations and regrets—that food is far more harmful than all the cooked fat, the sugar and the animal proteins you are trying to avoid.

  The true fast is the fast of the heart. Stop begging, demanding, requesting anything whatsoever. Stop wanting to be considered, to be treated in a special way. Do not ask for anything. And, above all, stop imagining that you are being attacked or assaulted by a situation. Stop imagining that, because your environment does not love you the way you want it to, you are attacked; attacked by a look, a gesture, a word, a presence, an idea, a race, a lifestyle, a different religion…

  A true fast is to fast from this pretense of attack, until I realize that nothing can attack me, except my own pretension. If I fast from my pretension, I become unassailable. A dog can bite my leg and I won’t be attacked. The neighbor can spit on me and I won’t be soiled. My body can be raped and I will not feel molested. As long as you are soiled by spittle, assaulted by rape or attacked by a word or a look, all dietary fasts are useless.

  What is essential is the fast of the heart. The body will follow in its own way.

  Your health depends on your genes. You can't help it. You are sentenced to be weak or strong your whole life. You must accept that. You are stiff or limber, you are easily traumatized by being slapped or seeing blood, or not. In all those circumstances, there is only one thousandth of a chance of apparent freedom, of which diet is a part. Observe three-year-old children who play at recess. You can tell those who will be sickly from those who will be healthy; whether they eat pizza or brown rice won't make much difference.

  If you fall in love with an intelligent diet, why not? But it is for the joy of eating, not because it's good for your health.

  Stillness is good for your health. Hatred, resentment and fear destroy it; your whole digestive system is upset by these emotions, and even if you take the most wonderful nutritional supplements, you will not assimilate them. But if you free yourself from all that, you can eat rocks and you will metabolize what you need.

  As for a dietary fast, it can be very appropriate or very unbalancing. People who fast regularly are often unknowingly setting themselves up for poor health. Fasting is a form of physical abuse to the body; you burn your reserves.

  At the turn of the century in France, many experiments took place on those who fasted professionally. In public view, a person who fasted was locked in a cage. To make sure he couldn't eat at night, people slept beside him. Before the fast began, his forearm was cut with a knife, the healing time was recorded and he was asked to evaluate his pain on a scale of one to ten, as well as other things. Then he fasted for one month, only drinking a little water. At the end of this period, his other arm was cut open, and the healing time had dropped substantially. From what he said, the pain had decreased by 95%! These people enjoyed excellent health until they were around sixty or sixty-five. Those who reached seventy started to go downhill. After the age of seventy-three, the end of their lives was very difficult as they had exhausted their reserves.

  So, if you want to die young, fasting is a very good idea, otherwise you should avoid it. If, at some point during your life, you were stuffed with cortisone or antibiotics, you can fast to try to eliminate the toxins, but it isn't essential. What's important to us is the fast of the heart; that one has no side effects.

  With a fast of the mind or a fast of the heart, the essence of fasting is non-action. There is nothing to do. It is the supreme surrender, an offering to our deepest nature. Let Him act. I live this acknowledgment of my inability to do anything whatsoever; that is the spiritual meaning of fasting.

  You say that stillness is important. When we are disturbed by certain events that take place around us, by the neighbors or by the person we live with, what is preferable: to adapt to that which is disturbing, to change the external conditions or to move to another place?

  What's preferable is honesty; to become aware of the way we function. We all have a tolerance threshold. You can accept this and that, and then, all of a sudden you are saturated. This threshold is different from person to person. Everyone needs to discover their own boundaries. It isn't about saying, “I must accept everything”—it would become a concept—but it is about really seeing the situation.

  To humbly become aware th
at only my story can disturb me, that is the revelation. As long as I believe that anything else can disturb me, this immaturity prevents all clarity. One day, Grace incarnates, and this obvious fact frees me from all my pretending to suffer from anything other than my imagination. As long as I haven't integrated this revelation, my spiritual life has not begun. That awareness starts the process. Now, when a situation disturbs me, I know, I feel, that what disturbs me is my reaction to the situation. This is the first act of humility. I stop pretending that this or that situation can disturb me.

  My body and my psyche are just as foreign to me as those of my neighbor. Thus, whether I am disturbed by my neighbor or by my thoughts makes no difference. So, when I am distressed by my thoughts, is it better to move away or should I stay put? I do not have a choice. Sometimes my thoughts are so strong that I have to move, or to become a Buddhist. Sometimes the thoughts are less extreme and I can remain present, and feel the agitation. I do not get to choose. I tolerate the telephone ring, the noise of the jackhammer, but the screams of a child abused by his father might be more than I can bear. If I were a policeman, a surgeon or a psychologist, perhaps I would have a different capacity. I respect my limits. It's no use staying here listening to the child's screams and destroying myself. This doesn't really help the child.

  My capacity can only be revealed by my honest listening to the situation. If it is unbearable and if I can, I leave; but I leave with the maturity of knowing that I do it out of immaturity. I cannot stand this woman, this situation, and consequently I divorce; at the moment I do not have any other option. This is already humble. But if I divorce because my wife is awful, because my husband or my neighbor are like this or like that, then the same situation will come up again. If I run away because someone attacks me, then someone else or something else will attack me. There will always be somebody or something to drive me crazy.

  The first level of honesty is to notice that this madness is here. It does not come from over there, it is here. When I was three I already suffered from it. As long as we don't realize this, we cannot do much. We visit psychologists, we move, or we become Buddhists. But if I am lucky enough to receive this revelation, then listening takes place—listening to what is here, without prejudice. I listen to my body; there is nothing else to listen to.

  If tomorrow, because of the whim of a judge, I find myself in prison, what will happen when I hear screams on the other side of the wall? I will not be able to leave. This happens sooner or later, one way or another. One day, we can't run away anymore—at the latest, on our deathbed. Where will I go, on my deathbed, when I get so deeply disturbed? I can't move, call for help, speak, remember, think. Where will I go?

  Face the situation. Sooner or later I will be sentenced to listening. Getting there before death is grace. The true preparation for death is to face life in each moment, with all its modalities.

  Then, if I leave, I leave in an open state, open to my lack of maturity, without criticism. I cannot force myself to accept what I can't accept today, but I can become aware that many things which were unacceptable yesterday seem easy today. What is unbearable for me today will not be a problem tomorrow. That I must integrate.

  More and more, I listen to what seems unbearable to me. I come back to myself; it is here that I am attacked, here that I become crazy, here that I need to listen. As long as I listen over there, as long as I think it should be different, I am not listening here.

  As soon as I turn my head, there will be a new attack. There is no recipe. It is normal for a child to want to run away from a difficult situation; it is also normal for me to be a child sometimes. When there is aggression, I listen. That is yoga. I do not listen to the attack—there is no attack. I listen here. Nothing can attack me.

  Some people feel attacked if someone spits on them. When that happens, you wipe yourself off if it's possible and that's it! Why believe yourself to be attacked? It's your imagination. It doesn't mean anything. When the poor soul spits on you, he feels better afterwards; that isn't a reason to feel attacked. It is pathological.

  Aggression is an idea. Spit on your own hand, you don't feel attacked, do you? But if the neighbor does it, it's an attack? That is completely imaginary. At some point, many attacks will no longer reach you psychologically. This doesn't mean that you don't duck to try to avoid the spit. But you no longer feel attacked by this sort of thing.

  Somebody sees you and finds you disgusting, despicable. From his point of view, he is right; you are that way to him. It isn't an attack. If a lion thinks I am his lunch, I do not feel attacked. The lion is right to see me in that way. As a lion he can't help seeing me as lunch. This does not prevent me from climbing up a tree; on the contrary, feeling attacked by the lion would block my energy system and slow down my escape. When the situation is no longer felt as an attack, there is still a reaction, but it isn't against the lion.

  It is very important to understand that, little by little. Then, we must do our homework. Life provides the material. We do it honestly. It isn't about pretending to accept what is unacceptable. If something drives me crazy then that's the way it is, I respect it. If the telephone drives you crazy then don't have one. If it’s the TV, your wife cheating on you, your child doing drugs, the neighbor's car being cleaner than yours, the government of a country or the war over there, whatever it is, it doesn't matter: to each his attack.

  At least I leave the door open intellectually and I acknowledge that today I can't bear such or such a thing as it drives me crazy. But I remain open to the possibility that perhaps there is no conflict there.

  Ten years ago, many situations would drive me crazy and I was ready to strangle someone or jump through the window. Today the same situations don’t disturb me; I realize that there was no problem there.

  When I found out that my wife wanted to leave me, I was ready to do anything; today it is just a memory.

  When I lost that job, that body part, that love or that acknowledgment, I lived it as if my life was over. I was destroyed by what had happened. Today I realize that nothing was missing; it was just my imagination coming in the way of clarity.

  I first need to understand this intellectually.

  Coming face-to-face with the situation, sometimes I feel a moment of madness, but it does not last. I come back to myself and I realize that yet again I imagined a whole world that does not exist. There is no situation, only my feeling. It is the same toy that made me so happy then so upset, and for a piece of plastic I was ready to kill!

  The toy can bring me neither joy nor sadness; I alone can do that. I live with this understanding and, little by little, it will leave its mental and conceptual dimension and become a felt sense.

  Availability, sensitivity of the body… Without my reaction, the telephone is only a sound. There only, in that sound, the attack is felt; there again, honestly, in the moment, I can face it or not. If you are confronted with something which is beyond your physiological capacity, you will faint, or your heart will stop and you will die. There is nothing to worry about. It is when you are feeling that your capacity for integration is at its peak. When you say yes to a blow, you can really receive blows; when you say no, the slightest blow breaks you.

  The jackhammer noise drives you crazy; you feel like killing. Then Grace arises and you can listen. You no longer listen with your ears; you feel the jackhammer in your chest, in your throat. Let yourself be stroked. The rhythm of the jackhammer balances your organs. Your capacity for integration gets multiplied. The threshold beyond which your eardrums would burst is pushed further away. Your eardrums might still burst, but much later than if you were to refuse the so-called sound attack. If you resist, the physiological accident happens faster. It's the same with the heart, you can adapt.

  But there is no rule. The rule is honesty. To face my immaturity without any comment. To understand that I alone can frighten myself. I no longer give this power to anybody else, as I have done thousands of times. In multiple situations, I pretended
that some event terrified me, until I realized that it was all a story—my fear of losing, of feeling less, of being challenged.

  What do I have to lose in life? I have nothing. To believe I have something is pure pretense. I can't have anything, hold on to anything, own anything. When, deep down, I realize that I have nothing, I am no longer afraid of losing anything. As long as I believe I own something, the whole world is attacking me; at any moment, what I have may be stolen. But what I have is nothing but misery. That is what I defend! Observe the mechanism.

  That doesn't mean we need to become passive—on the contrary. Reactivity is passive; it constantly repeats the same pattern. I imagine that something attacks me, and what happens when I feel attacked? I attack. That is passive. I can act that way my whole life, constantly, at every moment. You attack me, I attack you; you don't love me, I don't love you; you are violent, I am violent. That is the way we function.

  I must integrate this vision without any comment, since I can't be any other way. To try to not be aggressive doesn’t mean anything. I attack out of fear. But I can rid myself of fear by realizing that I have nothing and that I have nothing to lose—just my illusion. What is going to be taken from me, what is taken from me, is all worthless. All I have will disappear, if not now, then in the end, on my deathbed. To lose it before that happens makes no difference. What do I have to lose? To realize this destroys fear. Without fear, I can no longer feel attacked and there begins true action.

  To realize that I cannot be attacked allows me to take risks—because there aren’t any. I can find myself in any situation where people are going to hate me, to despise me, to attack me, but what do I care? It is their problem. The cat wants to scratch me, the snake wants to bite me—that's the way it is, that's the way they are. There is no fear. When someone observes me, he perceives the shape of my body, my smell, the way I talk, I think, with whom I live, with whom I sleep, the color of my skin, the way I eat, my political opinions; he feels attacked, driven crazy. I cannot be attacked by someone else's look. There is a deep peace. When he trains, a boxer is not attacked. Some people feel attacked when nobody even touches them. What would a boxer say?