“ Going towards Him is the essence of ignorance, resting in Him is the essence of Knowledge. ”
Ibn' Arabi: The Illuminations of Mecca

What could be said about Shaivism, which has been one of your source for many years?

It is a formulation of Hinduism. It could be said, in a very superficial way, that the metaphysical aspect of Hinduism has been formulated in Shaivism, the more religious aspect in Vishnuism and the yogic aspect, I should say, in what is called “Shaktism”, that is the cult of the goddess. But this is on the surface level. Metaphysical elements are found in Vishnuism, religious and ritual elements in Shaivism as well as in the cult of the goddess. It could be said that a traditional man has the qualities of Shaivism — he has a forefeeling of non duality — he moves in the world as a Vishnuist — he respects all expressions of life — and in his heart he worships the goddess, by paying tribute to the essential, through the liberation of the divine energies he's made of.

You are not really interested into definitions and classification?

On a certain level it can be of some interest, but you see, it doesn't concern real life.

How did you actualise Shaivism in your life?

When you are hit by certain coloration, by a particular vision of things, love arises in you. We always love what strikes us. In love, you become identical to what you love… It reflects in expressions, in attitudes and even on the level of inner reflexes. Nothing is done voluntarily. We you fall in love with a tradition, it is that love which produces an organic transposition.

Does talking about your personal life annoys you?

It doesn't annoy me, but what happens to me personally has interest neither for me nor for my environment. What interests us here is the deepening of the Shaivist way.

Can you talk about your relation with God, with the divinity? Do you believe in faith and in a God both personal and impersonal?

The word God is a concept. When you remove the concept “God” there may remain an intimacy. But the intimacy can never be formulated. The God spoken about by Eckhart is all listening, but he doesn't have a white beard.

It is not an anthropomorphic or personal god.

The divinities of India are not conceptual inventions. They are elements existing between two states: between the waking state and the deep sleep state, or between the deep sleep sate and the dreaming state. When you consciously give yourself to these moments, all that subtle world can live in you. But the word God doesn't come. Not only worms, snails, fishes, human beings and angels are found: there are many other things and it is in the transition between states that the contact can happen. In Yoga, we explore the corporeality, the psyche; all these pure elements are, up to a certain point, embodied and linked to certain areas of the body.

So what does that mean?

It means that one doesn't have to take the plane and go to Benares in order to accomplish the pilgrimage on the cremation ground. We carry all this within ourselves. All the colours, the perfumes, the tastes, the touches and the sounds correspond to these levels of divinity. The body is made of these sounds, perfumes, tastes and perceptions. When we consciously abdicate the corporeality built of defences, fears, desires and prehension, another corporeality manifests itself, a cosmic one. At that time, one is intimately convinced of the meaning of “the world is within ourselves”. It is not a concept.

According to you, what is be the most direct way to arrive at divine perception?

Through total acceptance of the absence of the divine. Through the realisation that your whole functioning is constantly refusal and postponement. Through the realisation that one lives only in his memory, that the body always lives in attraction-repulsion, in fear, and that there is always that reference to oneself. That vision of the absence of God is the first reflection of divinity.

To a man who was complaining of being deprived of God, Ma Ananda Mayi answered: “You are now in the state in which God expresses through his absence.” It is a reflection like any other: God reflects himself first as an absence, then as a presence; then, if the one who has perceived the absence of God and then his presence has the grace that makes him totally abdicate, there remains a evidence.

It is this total obeisance that Meister Eckhart has spoken about, this total acceptation; it is that God which is beyond the creating god and his creature. It is the true God. He his formless. He doesn't belong to any religion but all religions refer to Him. It is the light that brightens the waking, dreaming and deep sleep states.

That is what makes you answer “yes”, when asked unexpectedly “are you?” You say: “I am.” That is the phenomenal reflection of that God. I is not: “I am this… I am that…” Only: “I am.” That is the heart.

When a Muslim salutes you, he touches his heart with his hand. It is the profound silence common to all traditions. There is no such thing as a Christian heart or a Hindu heart.

Is awakening common to all traditions?

All traditions have spoken of humility.

Awakening is humility: it is to stop pretending to be this or that, pretending to be the doer. To direct one's life, to realise that the current of things is there and to give oneself to that current without directing it. When you read Ib'n Ata Allâh al-Iskantari, Layman P'ang or the Ribhu Gita, there is the same silence, the same humility that presided over the expression. But there is no personal awakening. At the end of his sermons, Eckhart always say, in one way or the other: “Let us pray so that this truth may live in us.” He never pretends to possess the truth.

Because that concept of awakening in North America, in the West, takes a somewhat more exuberant meaning…

That is commerce. These are the people who are chasing medals, the Légion d'Honneur. We know very well now that the Légion d'Honneur is not worth much.

… The Légion d'Honneur of spirituality.

Yes! So many people have the Légion d'Honneur. In our society, it is easy to buy a young and pretty woman, it is easy to earn a lot of money. This is the last item: one buys awakening. It is quite cheap.

Or it can be very expensive.

It is a merchandise like another one. Personal awakening is a lack of understanding.

Awakening is the realisation that nobody can awaken. One is in a moment of total humility. To say “I am awaken” is a fabrication. It means nothing.

Are there not physiological aspects coming along suddenly with that humility? First, is it sudden? It is another cliché about awakening here: one thinks it is something which comes all of a sudden and is also accompanied by light and other phenomena. Such a circus…

There are relative degrees of ignorance. You can very well witness a certain form of purification. Five years ago, when a man was leaving you, you were traumatised for quite a while. When the next man leaves you, you are traumatised for fifteen days, then two days. Ten years ago, when you would find yourself without money with a rent to pay, it would put you in a terrible state. One day, you find yourself penniless and with a rent to pay, you get out, you look at the sky and you are happy. It is undeniable that a form of contentment can be perceived in what is called a spiritual path. You can see to what extent, at a certain time, your body was always in reaction, always tense. You were sleeping eight hours per night and would wake up tired. You can realise that at another time you were sleeping one third of these hours and would wake up completely fresh and available. If someone tells you that you are an idiot, no part of your body is shaken by that comment. One can very well realise that. It is a purely objective observation.

Regarding the physiological effect of awakening, my master has formulated that following a total fusion, the transformation penetrates all the cells and that a physical and mental harmonisation takes place. It is only in India that it has been studied. The Christian tradition has never emphasised this manifestation; Buddhism and Islam have done it very little. Because it has no importance. The one who is free from himself is not concerned by a possible balance in his body or a transformation of his mind, because there is nobody.

The awakening is sudden, while the transformation of the body in space-time is progressive. It is not necessary to talk about it, as the quest of awakening is not the quest of these expressions. In a deep sense, it is the forefeeling of being free. It has nothing to do with an effect. One could almost say that it is too bad that these effects take place. What counts is to feel free.

It is only the mind which constantly looks for a new adventure, or the same adventure never realised, of attaining the spirit while the body is still there, of the movement from what is superficial to what is deep.

Yes. But the East doesn't separate body and mind; they are the same. In the West, body and mind have been thought of as separate. The body is the brain. The brain is thought. Body and thought are one and the same. There is no difference. There may be people who's approach seems to be superficial, but a superficial approach is only a disguise for a profound approach. Some may think they have a superficial approach, but soon or later it will become profound. Human orientation should not be judged. Every single human being follows his path according to his own laws. There are no two identical paths. So, talking about superficiality and depth is on the level of commentaries.

I think it is Maharaja who said that saints are ancient demons and demons are future saints. Only after enough time one can risk a qualification. I don't go into that at all, because there is no time, but on a certain level one could say that. So, superficial and profound mean nothing.

How can Shaivism be lived in North American life, other than for a certain spiritual exotism?

All human beings want the same thing, they have the same quest. They all want to be happy, they all want satisfaction, they all want to be needless. That is what unites all human beings. That is why you are not a cat. A cat sitting on the sofa is totally satisfied. A human being is totally unsatisfied. After a moment of satisfaction, soon or later he will look for something else. Because there is that forefeeling of freedom, he looks for it by all means: through war, through peace, through all possible eccentricities. But then a maturation comes about, you are looking in the right direction.

If Kashmerian Shaivism brings about some questioning in certain people, or helps making it clearer, it's wonderful. If one reads Meister Eckhart's sermons, it is the same. What counts is that a tradition should be formulated at the time it is felt. When you read Meister Eckhart, that transposition is automatic, because these are great texts. When you read texts that have been altered a lot, a transposition is necessary, which sometimes demands someone to do it for you, a spiritual teacher.

Do you think that a spiritual master can help the “student” to free himself?

No. But he can help the person he meets realise that he is not liberated; he can help him see better his antagonisms, his restrictions. He will help that person realise how much his life is fragmented, how much he aspires to what is beyond restriction. But there is no awakening, so there is no awaken and therefore nobody who could be helped. It is a maturation process. When a kid asks you something, you tell him a myth; four years later, when he will ask the same question, you will tell him another myth, a more substantial one. One day, you'll be able to express things more directly. A spiritual teacher is someone who will help you to sharpen your questioning, your formulation.

Do you think it is necessary to have such a teacher, otherwise we often go astray, or we stagnate?

The problem is irrelevant. It is a little bit as if one would ask: “Is it necessary to fall in love?” You fall in love, or you don't fall in love. You meet someone or you don't. If you do, it is perfect; if you don't, it is also perfect.

Can the master help us to extinguish the noise of the world?

No. It is when the noise of the world subsides that you meet the one who will help you.

It is often said that it is him who's looking for us, that it is not us who are searching; we find ourselves.

It is a current. A current that takes you over. A great difference, a total difference, an absolute difference, exists between a master and a teacher. The master is the one we call guru.

Guru is the one who is fully established in the truth and who's presence will be reflected in the presence of the aspirant. His teaching has no meaning; he doesn't teach. His being is his only teaching. Some gurus formulate things and answer questions; some don't answer. The words of those who answer are not their real teaching.

A spiritual teacher is someone who had a profound intuition of truth and who has realised his antagonisms, but who is not consciously established in truth. There are moments when elements above his capabilities move through him, when a teaching, or a current, can be expressed; he can contribute to the path of his friend. Such a person is called an “upa guru”. He helps to clarify the fundamental question; but the only one who can rightly be called master, or guru according to Indian tradition, is the one who is seated into truth. He can never come back to a personal behaviour. In him, neither desire or fear can appear; otherwise it would mean that that person still has a personal, limited and reactive behaviour.

Meister Eckhart clearly says about Saint Paul: “When grace deserted him, he remained what he was”: a poor man.

There is no desire in a master. He has no ego that comes and goes.

But as long as there is a person, is there not an ego?

Yes. But in the case of a master, there is no person left.

These must be quite rare, is it not?

There are actually very few Meister Eckhart. But the fact that there is one is enough to demonstrate the possibility. When you meet someone who pretends nothing, teaches nothing asks nothing, you are struck. That's the important.

Do you think that in the West we are more influenced by someone like Descartes than by God?

God is what throws light on life. Descartes doesn't exist.

Still, he's the one who said “I think therefore I am.”

Yes. People have said so many things.

But Descartes has influenced the West.

He has influenced some university teachers who need to earn their living.

He influenced philosophy at least…

When your child is taken and cut into pieces in front of you, what Descartes said doesn't concern you too much. Life is not concerned by the pathologies of the French philosophers.

We live in a very dark era, which also has its bright side; but politically and socially it is dark. Do you think we have much hope of getting out of this end of century and of millennium crisis?

I hope not, because in the end what is dark is the so-called spiritual quest. What is dark is to see yoga teachers on every corners. What is dark is channelling. What is dark is modern spiritual quest, that kind of running away from the moment. On the other hand, what is auspicious is the approaching war, it is the coming cataclysms, because they deeply question the human being, they make him ask the real questions. Everything else makes him sleep. So, it should be very clear that the state of the world is its chance. If the gods want the world to benefit from these movements, it is the supreme gift. Unfortunately, there are times when a cataclysm is the only way to bring about a questioning. In their generosity, I think the gods will help us more and more in that direction. All this romanticism of yoga, of the East, of spirituality, all these spiritual techniques of progression, of purification, they belong to the dark age. They really are a waste of money and energy. One day they will completely disappear, and maybe that day we won't need cataclysms to wake up.

With these words, you could create a scandal…

The scandal is to make people believe that through some exercises they will be better and their deep questioning will be satisfied. It is to make people believe that by following this therapy, by adopting that concept, by wearing that particular colour of clothes, by hanging on their wall or to their neck the picture of a popular guru, it will bring about a profound questioning. That is charlatanry.

Real life is facing the moment. The different possibilities of conflict express themselves in the world: you face them, you look at what is touched in you, you look at what is death, destruction. In this way, you realise what you are. When your house is destroyed, when your body is broken, when your family is wiped out, you realise to what extent you are free or not from yourself. But to sit in a room to do yoga, to chew hundred times a mouthful of complete rice... of course, you feel good, but there is no questioning. It's a real calamity.

One must suffer to evolve?

No. No. One must look. One must question. You don't have to suffer when there is a cataclysm. One has to look deeply. What is the deep meaning of suffering, how does it work in yourself? What is your body? What link do you have with it? What happens when your body suffers? What happens when your body breathes? It is very important to see that. A questioning of the moment has to come about. It is life which brings it about.

I do not mean that all the ways of expression I mentioned are pernicious, but I would say that more than 99 % of them are. On the other hand, one could say that it is wanted by the gods, so that the one percent should not be within easy reach for people; not that they don't deserve it, but they don't really have the possibility to welcome it. So one has to look into all that jumble if there is anything serious. In the same way, in India four or five millions of saints are on the roads: among these sadhus, 99 % are criminals, psychopaths or simple people. One percent of these sadhus have a great depth and they dress the same as the others: they are naked, with a little bit of ashes on the forehead and a trident in their hand, according to their affiliation. That one percent is hiding behind the mob so that the aspirant who really wants to know the truth is forced to use all his energy and all his discrimination to recognise the authentic sadhu.

Up to a certain extent, this wave from the East has its value, in the sense that it conceals something deeper. It is a sign of the times, a sign of decadence.

What is your position on asceticism?

There is no position. We need kings, criminals, taxi drivers and ascetics. If you are born to be a baker, it is wonderful. If you are born to be in a cave, it is wonderful. The world will benefit from your silence. But if you want to become an ascetic in order to become silent, then the constant mental agitation in your cave will pollute your whole environment. Being an ascetic is a function like any other. It is an organic function and is not superior to that of a prostitute, of a banker or a soldier. If you are celibate, if you are also a natural ascetic, you will embody this tendency at a certain point in your life. It is wonderful.

Being an ascetic is a wonderful life. An ascetic doesn't suffer. An ascetic who suffers is a fraud. It is very clear that an ascetic lives in joy. He doesn't torture his body. That way of life is not understood. An ascetic is solely into joy. If one is graced with that tendency, it is wonderful. But wanting to live in a monastery, to retire from the world in order to understand, that is a form of stupidity, it is a compensation. Go into a monastery, look at the monks, listen to their dreams and how violent they are with their sexual desires, with their whole life. Very often it is a catastrophe. But if it comes naturally, then it is wonderful. It is not a goal. It is the expression of an ultimate contentment and this can very well be expressed in a banker.

According to Shaivism, everything that is pleasure, or happiness, brings us nearer to the divine.

When the body experiences a great pleasure, everything is expansion. When there is suffering, everything is restriction. On a certain level, pleasure and joy are closer to the ultimate joy than suffering. Expansion is more conducive than contraction.

And what about sexual pleasure?

Sexual pleasure is a very profound pleasure. If one knows the art of realising that there is nobody to take pleasure, then at a certain time both partners are not there, and there is only vibration, joy. That pleasure is the closest to the divine. It can eventually tilt and become a profound spiritual seizure, in the sense that when you love, you renounce to yourself. If the partners offer themselves to each other, at a certain point both offerings cancel each other and they are totally transformed.

But if the sexual act is performed for itself, if the man has a need and buys a woman who will satisfy him, if the woman is needy of security and if she married a man because it is more practical, then the sexual intercourse that comes of it is just that: a sexual intercourse. It is not an act of love. The act of love is the supreme expression of things. The “Song of Songs” of the Judeo-Christian tradition is not devoid of meaning; so are Ibn' Arabi's love letters, so are Rûmi's numerous expressions of it and so is the considerable interest in Tantrism in India. But it is an art, not a compulsion.

And what could you say about homosexuality? Because offering also exist in homosexuality.

Offering is everywhere. Life is the offering. Offering also exists in war. If you look deeper, you see that taking another human being's life is also an offering, a liberation; it is Krishna's teaching in the Gita. Offering is everywhere. In India homosexuality is very respected. Naturally, the physiology of a man and that of a woman ar complementary . “Psychic” homosexuality is often a defence, but “physical” homosexuality, erotic homosexuality, is not necessarily a problem. The sculptures of Indian temples show monks with little boys, with horses, with gooses. These are solely erotic variations. Every person has a particular eroticism and I understand it very well. But when a homosexual sees himself as a homosexual, when he wants to be that, like the heterosexual who advertises himself as such, that is a restriction.

So you don't think it is a disease, like some people tried to imply?

Often heterosexuality is a disease, homosexuality also.

Finally, do you believe that silence is gold and words are silver?

Silence is the word. The word is silence. There is no difference. It is a way of seeing. An authentic formulation brings us to silence, and silence is found within all expressions. There is no difference.

With the kind permission of Éric Baret.

This text has been translated from chapter 10 of Le Sacre du dragon vert, Éric Baret, published in 1999 at Éditons JC Lattès, Paris, ISBN2-7096-2077-4.