Let the Moon Be Free- Conversations on Kashmiri Tantra Read online

  Can you feel this when looking at a mask of Bhairava, for he seems to be both smiling and baring his teeth?

  The Nepalese mask of Bhairava suggests the quality of astonishment that arises from looking at something free of any reference. The Newars have produced many beautiful examples of Bhairava’s head. Many different materials were used: wood, copper plate, bronze, stone, terracotta, and they gave rise to exceptional art. These masks often represent the strength of this inner seeing, and in certain cases, this moment of astonishment or admiration, free of any cause, is clearly expressed. This emotion has been exceptionally well captured in terracotta. The internal madness, free of conditioning has been majestically portrayed by certain inspired sculptors. Until recent times, in India, especially in Gujarat or Karnataka, fabulous heads of the Lord of Tears were created for processions.

  Bhairava also expresses terror, the terror of the ego.

  The emotion is multi-faceted. True emotion is beyond emotion, beyond its representation in time and space. That is why on the Pancamuka lingam, the five-headed linga, only four heads are shown. The head of terror: destruction of the ego, of fear; the royal head: clear seeing; the androgynous head: the unification of opposites; the ascetic head: the way of asceticism of thought and knowledge. The fifth head, Isana, which faces upwards, is not represented for it is ineffable. It is the shapeless presentiment of truth.

  However certain examples portraying the fifth head do exist. In Khajuraho, in front of the Kandariya Mahadeva temple, one of these five-headed lingams can be admired. The archeological museum there also possesses an extraordinary example which shows the fifth head towering over the other four which are not fully carved.

  It is not very clear to me whether or not you distinguish between emotion and emotional reaction. Are they both vehicles that lead to the heart, come from the heart and return there, or do you see emotional reaction and emotion as separate?

  An emotional reaction is an emotion that has not been allowed or welcomed.

  There is only emotion. There is no such thing as an egotistical reaction; it is an expression used in teaching. There has never been an ego capable of accomplishing any egotistical action. This also applies to a non-egotistical action. It presumes that another outcome is possible, that there is a doer. In the same way, reactivity is non-reactivity, for there is nothing other than the heart.

  On a certain level however, you could say that when an emotion is perceived as a concept, it becomes reactive and separate. When the emotion is welcomed, is felt, it remains a vibration of the heart, it unites and integrates its so-called cause.

  There is only one emotion.

  Expressed in different ways?

  With different focal points... This is why in the Vijnana Bhairava, the tantra of our lineage, all situations are regarded as opportunities for this understanding to take place: fear on the battlefield, the pain caused by a pointed object, contemplation of an empty space, the sensation of a vacant body, the rapid disappearance of an object, etc.

  When you experience any perception free of the whole parade of imaginary causes, it refers directly to this one emotion. The ultimate emotion is what I am feeling right now. This is the supreme emotion, the most profound. Everything else is nothing but imagination. There is no tomorrow.

  Could you say that in Vedantic terms this ultimate emotion is “I Am”?

  As expressed by Abhinavagupta, yes, although the author of the Tantraloka is not known for his appreciation of the Vedanta. For him, all the rasa, the eight fundamental emotions—terror, fear, joy, tranquility, etc.—which in merging give rise to the psyche, reflect the essential emotion, the I Am. This is at the heart of the Kashmiri approach. What is important is what is felt.

  But you must let the Kashmiri approach and the Vedanta die a natural death. They are only words.

  An emotion arises within me. Sooner or later, I am mature enough to free this emotion from its cause, to no longer claim to be sad or happy because of this or that, but to savor my sadness, my rage, my fear, my joy without labeling it, without attributing it to anything. That is enough. That is the ultimate art, tantric art, alchemy. The resonance of this emotion will bring me back to the primordial resonance. All emotions bring us back to this center.

  This is why, when an intense emotion leaves me, after hearing a raga expressing sadness, separation, or after an opera portraying human misery, I experience joy. Hearing them without identifying with them on a personal level, the sadness, the separation, the misery that I experienced at the opera refer back to the heart, to joy. If this were not the case we would not pay such a high price to go and applaud an opera.

  When you know how to look at a painting, you are moved by the shapes, the volumes, the harmony. If you do not look in this way, then all you will see is the subject matter.

  As long as you are caught up in the story, you are cut off from the emotion. As long as you attach the emotion to a cause, you cannot really experience it.

  Live with the emotion, allow its cause to die away and let it resonate with its intrinsic freedom. When there is no longer a situation nor someone experiencing it, then the vibration reigns in silence.

  Chapter 3

  Hope is an escape

  Hunter of Phoenix, no one can be. So take back your trap, for here, wind is all you’ll ever catch.

  Hafiz: Diwan

  How can you trust if there is no hope?

  How can you trust if there is hope? To have hope is to be in a story, a projection.

  Trust in yourself...

  That’s an even worse target: as long as you have hope, you sense its non-existence and you cannot trust. Every hope, every goal, every direction, every plan prevents this trust in life. Born with the fundamental intuition that he is nothing, the human being knows deep down that his projections are stories. All hope is undermined by this intuition; the only use of hope is to feed a belief in a separateness that doesn't exist. As long as I hope for anything, I experience mistrust in life.

  I can see that all hopes are fantasies. As soon as I attain something, I want something else. My hopes can only express my pathology. My thoughts are limited by the contents of my memory, they brought me to the crisis I am living. So how could I still have hope?

  Everyone wants a different life. People who live alone want to meet somebody, those living in a couple wish to be single. Everyone is convinced that everything will be much better when that happens. This hope prevents you from listening to life.

  When I realize that there is nothing left in front of me, the energy that I constantly use to anticipate and to fight a hypothetical future is freed up to face the moment. I become present, available; this presence eliminates any future.

  Future is a thought, it doesn’t exist. We cannot face a situation tomorrow; we always die before facing tomorrow. I notice that the future is an idea—always a disturbing, worrisome idea.

  To be available―not even present; there is no present, only presence. In this presence, as the case may be, that which we call past or future may register as an intuition; but then it is no longer the future. It is as if you are asked what you will be doing in six months’ time. You can open your appointment book and, if you are free, you make a note in it, but it isn't the future. The request is now, you look into the book and this suggestion resonates with you now, you make a note, you close the book, and then it's over, there is no psychological future. The future is the present, now, as a mark in the book.

  It's the same when an echo of the past comes up, it is now. What happened ten years ago, I can feel in my belly, in my throat now; it isn't in the past.

  The past and the future are present. The more you develop this sensitivity, the more you notice this present space.

  To trust in oneself is impossible, to trust in the future is unthinkable. Oneself and the future are not trustworthy: you cannot trust something that does not exist.

  The felt sense knows no trust. There is nobody who trusts, there is only feeling. When I fee
l my arm move in space, where is the present, the future, trust? When I listen to a concert, taste an apple pie or feel bodily pain, where is trust? I feel and there is presence. I don't need trust. Trust is the space in which these situations, these sensations appear.

  Trusting something proves a lack of maturity. As long as you trust anything, you do not really trust. Sooner or later you will be disappointed, for you project your security into that which you trust. You imagine that a situation can bring you fullness. But neither I nor that which we call others are in a position to give that to me. Therefore, trusting anything is an illusion.

  When I no longer trust myself nor the environment, there remains a trust which is not directed towards anything but is simply an absence of the narrative. I stop criticizing my life, thinking that it should be or could be different. I stop knowing anything. What is left is availability. Any psychological reaction is absent, life’s simplicity appears. Everything that happens to me is presence. Trust is born when I give up all hope; trust without any object.

  Hope is a form of postponement: “Tomorrow I will be happy.” That is not acceptable. For all I know I could be dead before then. There is no time to be happy tomorrow. “When I do more yoga, when I am wiser, less angry, wealthier, married, divorced, when I eat less sugar, when I am in better shape, when I live elsewhere... only then will I be happy.” That is hope!

  Why wait? What more will there be tomorrow? Nothing. I will project the same misery as today. If I stop today, that will stop tomorrow as well. If I keep going today, it will keep going tomorrow. I must stop now, in this moment. I listen, I feel, and in that feeling, the mechanism of running away towards the future, towards tomorrow, is seen for what it is. So always come back to the sensitivity of the moment. Listen to the moment without tying it to the one before or the one after, without comparing it, without knowing anything, without anticipating and without remembering.

  Hope is an escape.

  And is that the same for resignation?

  Yes, both are a lack of listening. Resignation refers to the past, while hope looks towards the future. In both cases, I am not present.

  All thoughts are born from the past. Hope is the past colored over with the words of tomorrow. “Tomorrow, in ten days, in ten years, in thirty years…” Those are words, words in the present. Everything happens in the present. Agitation leads us to project ourselves forward or backward, but neither forward nor backward exists. In resignation, as in hope, I am not available, I am lost in the situation. Hope is born when I become resigned to a situation.

  What is of interest to us, here, is precisely this listening to the listening. The body is a pretext. I learn to listen to my hand, to my shoulder, to my neck, to my sadness... I am getting prepared; I become familiar with this ability to listen. Little by little, this listening of something sets itself free from what is listened to, and collapses into the listening itself. What appears is a listening to the listening. That is the key to all futures, presents, pasts—which are all concepts.

  The somatic approach, the Japanese tea ceremony, and all traditional arts are designed to stimulate this listening in us. What is the hope of the person who practices the tea ceremony? Every day, for thirty years, he has been making the same movements. What is his hope? To get rich, get married, divorced, acquire qualities, cultivate himself, read? No, he makes the few gestures of the tea ceremony. They are the center of his life. Whether he a youth, an adult, an old man, or even sick, he performs the same gestures. It is this lack of hope that gives the ceremony its beauty. It has no goal, it is an art.

  Art is to be without hope, without a future. Otherwise you have no time for art, there is always something better you could be doing. Those who have hope will be artists later, when they have time. But art is the art of living, the art of living without hope.

  When there is even the slightest movement toward something, then once again I have left the resonance. I can't help it, I observe. When I notice that I have left the resonance, I am in it again. I can never own this opening. When I tell myself, “I am in resonance,” it becomes a concept, like the poor soul who thinks he is realized. I notice that I am not in resonance, I see myself in my dynamic and instantaneously, this noticing halts the dynamic. That space doesn't belong to anyone. It starts to resonate when I stop wanting to own it.

  To place oneself in the hands of God, does it mean anything?

  If it is a felt sense, if it means total surrender to Life, yes. But if the focus is on the word God, it remains an image. Like the Islamic Jihad’s militants who think that blowing up a few Israeli friends will transport them to the other world where they can meet women who resemble Ornella Muti. For many, that's what God is all about.

  If “to place oneself in the hands of God” means to humbly stop pretending to have any ability whatsoever to manage one's life, in that case, yes, it makes sense.

  Surrender is enough. I do not need God. I realize now that I am not in charge when it comes to the unfolding of my life. In in the hands there is a listening; I become available. It is not my task to plan my life, to make decisions about my health, about my age, about my intelligence, my financial resources, my love life, my culture. Nothing is in my hands. I am open to what I receive in the moment. If I want something else than that which happens to me, I show that I am not really listening. I am like those who go to church and thank God when they feel that everything is okay in their lives, but as soon as their child is sick or they are sad, they pray and ask God to put things right. Meister Eckhart is very clear about this kind of attitude. You simply cannot accept this and reject that.

  Accepting means not focusing on the situation, but on being available. Sometimes, within this deep welcoming, I sense my inner no and I accept that too. It is not about forcing myself to accept. Depending on my intellectual or cultural background, some things are unacceptable to me. I am able to witness that. To say “I accept” is a pretense, a fantasy. When I realize that something is above my tolerance level, I become available to non-acceptance, it is a part of me.

  To agree or to disagree is the same thing. I accept my own moments of being available to life, as well as my resistance to it. I no longer choose one over the other.

  The more I integrate this capacity to accept both types of moments, the more this so-called black and white will mix. My life will leave behind it its moments of immense joy or sadness for a temporary neutrality. Then, nothing will be in my hands anymore—as if anything had ever been…

  A woman lives in fear that her husband might cheat on her. She hates the idea. She cannot say, “I will force myself to accept.” I am honest with myself, I am incapable of accepting that. I realize that it is due to a lack of maturity and I accept my lack of maturity. I do not pretend that I can or that I ought to be different. Thus, what I do not accept will point to acceptance. But no one accepts! When somebody accepts, there is no acceptance. When I say, “I accept,” it is false, it is a strategy. It is because I think that it’s better for me to accept.

  To accept is to see. I do not accept anything; I look, I see. Thus, acceptance includes acceptance and non-acceptance. Just like relaxation includes relaxation and tension. Just like health includes health and disease. One day, there is no longer any struggle between the two.

  I would like to talk about doubt. Yesterday, you said that doubt was a doorway. I understand that certainty is a prison. But still, to always remain in doubt is difficult. How would you know if an action is correct when you doubt all the time?

  When you doubt, you doubt something. Rightly so, because what you expect from the situation that you doubt is always peace, and peace can never be found in any situation. When I no longer expect a situation to bring me deep satisfaction, I no longer evaluate my actions as correct or incorrect. I do not ask myself the question: “What is better for me?” That is an unthinkable question. There is nothing that can be better for me. What is better is what is happening. When I see this mechanism clearly, then doubt disappears. Dou
bt signifies postponement.

  I answered someone’s question differently yesterday, but for that person doubt was something different.

  You said that doubt was a doorway and I reacted to that idea, that's all.

  It is a doorway if you follow it to its end. As long as you doubt something, doubt doesn’t go deep enough. One day, doubt will start doubting itself. Energy comes back to its source.

  Doubt is a state of availability. True doubt does not project non-doubt. To doubt is to live outside conclusion. Well understood, this doubt is what Muslims call “the fear of God.” Doubt is not an obstacle. I doubt that any perception, any future, any past or any experience can tell me about myself. That is the doorway. There is no more dissipated energy.

  So, I only suffer if I think that I know something?

  Only if there is still a future, an expectation. To know something is to create a future. We want to know what the future is to make it less painful.

  What happens when you despair?

  In despair, there is desperation. When you are no longer affected by situations then despair becomes impossible. The word despair cannot enter. There is aloneness, not knowing, empty space.

  A desperate person still has hope.

  It is very easy to put a carrot in front of a desperate person; their despair will disappear instantly. Some people have had two, three, or even twenty or thirty bad outcomes and they are still ready to repeat the experience as soon as they get a chance. When a woman says, “I never want to meet a man again,” you can be sure that within three months she will fall in love... That is the nature of despair. It says no but it is attached to what it pushes away. It carries a seed of hope.

  Desperate people easily fall in love. On some level you need to be desperate to fall in love and to believe that somebody has the power to bring you security―when that person can die tomorrow!

  It isn't enough to be desperate.