Éric Baret: Interview #8

[Guest guest]

INTERVIEWER: The concept of mantra has been discussed for thousands

of years and very often the practice of repeating a mantra is

introduced as meditation. What is a mantra and what value is there

in

repeating it?

 

A: I can only talk from intuition, for I have not experimented with

mantra. It is a highly sophisticated technique that requires

mastering all the gutturals, all the Sanskrit letters, through years

of study in a specialized place. If you have lived in Varanasi and

have studied the roots of Sanskrit, learned to pronounce the words

properly, words are power. The power is vibration. So the mantra is

like yoga. First you hear and feel the resonance. In yoga, you first

feel the body and the resonance. This brings you back to vibration

free of becoming. You become still. The mantra stills the mind, as

the bodywork stills the mind. The mind is no longer deluded by the

feeling of becoming realized, becoming free, doing mantra or doing

yoga. You just realize your own inept condition, you stop imagining

that stupidity can bring you knowledge. So, you fall totally silent.

The mantra can bring you to silence and when you are silent life

speaks.

 

In the Kashmir Tradition, the functional part of mantra is strongly

emphasized. As in yoga, where every position has an effect on body,

mind and feeling, every pranayama has an effect on these too, so

every mantra, every seed mantra, every letter of the mantra, has an

effect on body, mind and feeling. So, certainly by developing this

knowledge — it takes years — one can locally affect the functions of

the body, certain levels of the brain, of the feelings, certain

levels of deep resonance and particularly certain levels of the

breath. Breath is energy, energy is breath. The magic of words is

intimately linked with breath and like pranayama, mantra can be used

to enter into the world of magic. You realize that every form is a

song, a vibration and by knowingly tuning in to certain shapes,

certain rhythms of the breath, you can interact with all the

possibilities of the universe. This is what magic is. It unravels

free of cause and purpose.

 

There is nothing there, as such, and generally it is mostly a waste

of energy. For if we feel any inclination to interfere with life,

body, mind or the word, we don't yet clearly see that there is

nothing missing, that the heart is peaceful and joyful when we no

longer imagine that we need something. So the inclination to

interfere with the word, the body, the mind and the senses, and to

do

something as an act of magic, is generally a lack of clarity: it

means that the yogi feels that God has made a little mistake which

he

must correct by his magic. There is no mistake, there is nothing to

correct. People who die should die, people who are born should be

born. The yogi should keep his mouth shut. If he doesn't, in a

certain way he will pay the price.

 

 

If clarity is not there beforehand, the still mind will be an

object.

There is no more emotion, no more thinking, but you are still there,

as thought. If it is evident that what we are is not a thought —

therefore thought cannot disturb what we are — if this is understood

before the practice of mantra or yoga, then, in a way, these are

beautiful ways of sustaining this understanding. But the idea of

attaining something with mantra or with yoga comes from the modern

degenerate mind, which thinks that man can reach God. It is quite

the

opposite. The mind is halted and the word of God, the mantra, speaks

in the body, the breath of God breathes in the body if you do

pranayama, God sings in you if you are a musician, the shape of God

takes form in you if you are an architect.

 

It comes to you, it is not something you can master and put in your

pocket. When you fall silent and if you are made for it, if life has

prepared you enough for it, you can sustain the power of mantra, of

pranayama, or the power of music. If one receives it without having

been prepared enough, mantra and pranayama may, in a way, destroy

one's whole structure. But even then, it would not be a mistake,

because what happens has to happen. As for the technical part, I

have

no right to say anything, because I haven't done it. It takes thirty

years to discover yoga, and I'm sure it is the same with mantra.

Technically, the mantra is not pronounced out loud, it is inside.

Pronouncing it out loud, is a preparation, it takes years. It is

like

yoga postures that prepare you for the inner subtle body postures.