Éric Baret: Interview #5

[Guest guest]

INTERVIEWER: In the Kashmir Tradition, effort seems to be considered

not as a means to getting somewhere, as you explained, but more as a

symptom of the absence of grace. Different " ways " are described: the

way of Shiva (Shambavopaya), the way of the energy (shaktopaya), and

the way of the individual (anavopaya). There is also a fourth, which

is a non way (anupaya). The Vijñana Bhairava Tantra describes

techniques that appeal to the imagination, and to the ability to

visualize. Whoever practices these techniques is trying to enter the

gap in-between two perceptions, two thoughts, or two moments. What

is

the value of such bhavana ?

 

The exercise states are poorly understood. It is like talking about

a

sage. The Indian tradition uses symbols extensively, so they

describe

the sage as being free from cold, free from heat, like in the Yoga

Sutra. He doesn't move, he doesn't do this, he doesn't do that. It

is

symbolic. It is never something you can ever attain, it does not

pertain to an achievement. He is what he is when there is no longer

any claim to owning anything.

 

All the exercises presented, maybe because badly translated, seem to

be an attempt to attain something. According to what I have been

taught, they are in fact the opposite: they are an attempt to make

you realize that you are constantly denying the space in-between

thoughts, in-between perceptions, that you are constantly

visualizing

your body in heaviness, that you are constantly identifying yourself

with feelings. So, when they tell you to visualize the blue sky and

identify with it, it is to enable you to see that you constantly do

the opposite. When somebody says: " See how you feel on the

battlefield, when somebody runs after you; feel the fear, then the

beauty of Bhairava will occur " , it is so as to show you how much you

immediately identify yourself with your emotions. Thus, there is

openness, availability to the emotion: you realize you are not the

emotion, the emotion is in you. You are not afraid, you feel fear.

That is the essence of Bhairava's activity.

 

So, it is not so much something we need to do as a " clin d'oeil "

from

and to our ever present freedom. All these exercises can be

approached in this way.

When you come to the anupaya, the ultimate way, you see that

everything is expression. Every sensation, every feeling, every

thought which comes to us, if we acknowledge them for what they are,

manifests in this openness. If we identify ourselves with them: " I

am

afraid, I am tired, I am rich, I am poor " , they cut us off from the

essential. The Vijñana Bhairava practice brings you back to the fact

that in every situation the space is there, when we don't pretend it

is not by locating ourselves in a situation. It is more an inward

activity, an inward exercise, of seeing that we are constantly

caught

up in our imagination, constantly pretending. When we don't, what

remains is the essence.

 

Having said that, when somebody clearly realizes that he cannot

realize anything but his own projections and limitations, and he has

been clearly touched by this non experience, one can say: " turn your

head " . But it is only possible when somebody has already seen this

pretense. In that moment, it strikes, not as something to be done

but

as what is.