Éric Baret: Interview #10

[Guest guest]

INTERVIEWER: Why then do so many teachers in India and in the West

advise their students to become celibate and vegetarian, and so on?

 

Hitler was a vegetarian. The result can be judged in many ways.

Maharaja ate meat twice a day and one can also judge that in many

ways. So, I don't know why people have problems with meat. As for

celibacy, I cannot understand it, because for most people it is

through man to woman relationships — or man to man, or man to dog,

whatever one's inclination — that we really discover how free or not

we are from our self image. It is very easy, if you are celibate, to

feel free from attachments and feelings. It is too easy. You must

have a wife and mistresses, or husband etc., and experience what

happens in these relationships in order to see if you are really

free

of yourself. Maybe some people do not need this. Some people in

India

decide to observe brahmacharya, and if it comes naturally, it is

beautiful. But by trying to enforce it, we miss many opportunities

to

see how much capacity we still have for fear, pretenses and

attachment.

It is very easy if you sit in a room and do yoga the whole day and

don't touch a woman or a man, to think that you are free from the

whole world. But when you are in a relationship and the woman you

love says she prefers the neighbour, then you see if it was really

love and openness to what is, or simply desire and possesivity. It

is

an extraordinary tool for inquiring into our stupidity. Some people

do not need it, it is true, but as a rule trying to decide if you

need it or not — maybe some people can do that — makes no sense.

 

I understand it technically. If one wants to do some very specific

yoga exercises, and I'm sure it must be the same for mantra, you

need

brahmacharya. It is like in the Kabbalah, it is sometimes needed, as

an act of power. It is the same as when a musician learns Indian

music, he is not allowed to listen to European music. It is a matter

of technique. He must attune his ear to such a subtle level that any

other music will reduce his ability for a time. I have a very good

friend in India who was forbidden to listen to European music for

ten

years. He became a very good South Indian flutist. So, in yoga there

are some exercises like that, there are some moments like that. If

you do martial arts, you cannot simultaneously do karate and juj-jit-

su because in certain situations you will have two reflexes instead

of one and it is one reflex too many. It only concerns people chosen

by life to accomplish the art of yoga or tantra in the highest

sense.

 

Brahmacharya means without desire, it doesn't mean not sleeping with

somebody. If the desire remains, nothing changes. You are not

practicing brahmacharya if you feel desire.

 

As for food, many people learn from sickness caused by eating

inappropriate food. Many learn a lot from cancer and from taking

drugs. I myself almost destroyed my body, with drugs, with food. I

would not for one second have missed this chance to challenge my

beliefs. I can understand a master who as an exception, in a very

specific situation, might suggest to somebody that they not eat

this,

or not do this, but as a general rule I don't see any sense in it.