Be Who You Are Read online

  All events are our teachers so long as we fully understand what they signify. To reach discrimination, suffering is not necessarily more useful than joy. One as well as the other may be a guide, in so far as we are capable of understanding them.

  What does it mean to understand the joys and pains of life?

  It is understanding how false they are. Let us recall Kipling’s sentence: “If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same.” What is meant by the “two imposters”? Triumph is what fortifies the ego, and disaster is what destroys it. Now the ego is an error. The error of separatism, of the wave which takes itself to be distinct from the ocean. Triumph is therefore necessarily a liar, it is but a lull, and sooner or later the wave will return to the ocean. In the same way disaster is a liar, for the tumbling of the wave is the end of nothing. A wave which loses itself in the ocean does not lose a drop of its water. It only loses its name and its form, that is its limits; in fact all that is negative about it. Its positive reality (water) cannot perish. Therefore what is important is neither pleasure nor pain, success nor failure, what is important is to understand that neither of them have any importance whatsoever. This understanding calls for peace, calm and serenity.

  Are there moments in the day which are more favourable than others for these exercises of attention to oneself or may they be practised at any moment?

  The most favourable moments are the early morning, two hours before sunrise (matins) and early evening at the time when the sun sets (complines). The early morning is preeminently favourable because this is the time when nature is in a state of deepest rest. Sunset is not as beneficial, but it favours the return to oneself, because both man and nature are in a phase of relaxation. When such relaxation is not impaired by a state of fatigue, it is conducive to meditation and inner contemplation. We should not forget that any moment in the day when we feel empty, unoccupied, available, be it only for a few seconds (it is not a question of time, it is a question of quality) is an occasion. In religious terms I might say that they are a call to contemplation.

  What do you think of those techniques of meditation which are so fashionable at present?

  Any technique is a conditioning, and those techniques of meditation which claim to uncondition, remain within a vicious circle. To meditate is to do something, and this cannot be denied under the pretext that this doing aims at cessation and at doing nothing.

  The man who meditates methodically is like a man who is getting ready to go on a journey. If you do not intend going on a journey, there is nothing to be done about it, you just don’t start. If you wish to be available and open to the light of the Self, there is nothing to do about that. There is no necessity to do something in order to do nothing. There is just nothing to be done. True meditation is a sequence of moments of grace, peace and letting-go.

  Nevertheless certain techniques of meditation may be useful if we thoroughly understand that they have no more than an educational value. The ordinary man is so busy, so restless, that it is quite a business for him to learn how to approach a state of doing nothing. Such techniques are no more than techniques of approach. With their help we do not achieve the state of doing nothing, but they allow us to draw near it. Realization is impossible if we do not go beyond them.

  Generally speaking, these techniques come under two headings which may be named meditation with an object, and meditation without an object.

  Meditation with an object is the easier of the two and is best suited for beginners. An object of contemplation, concrete or abstract, is agreed upon: Krishna, Jesus, Divine Goodness, the Magnificence of God. The meditator concentrates on this image or concept. He visualizes the image or defines the concept in its general outline and in its details. It may happen that at the end, his meditation merges him with the object, thus he knows a state of unity. This is but a state however, it is not realization. Nevertheless, being pre-eminently still and peaceful, the meditator may by chance accede to realization in which he falls from a qualified state of unity into a Oneness.

  This fall is not a necessary consequence of such a state (since in no case can it be the consequence of anything), but it may be said that this state of unification between the meditator and his object, is a state which favours unconditioning.

  Meditation without an object is an abrupt and direct path suited to those who have a considerable power of abstraction and discrimination. This technique always requires the presence of a qualified master. It implies elimination, reduction and involution: it is an exercise in comprehension of the ultimate nature of the object, leading the meditator to realize that the reality of the object is the subject.

  One first observes that the object has no reality except its relationship to the subject, that an object without a subject is unthinkable. Yet one should be careful not to treat the subject and the object as equivalent and corresponding poles, because reality is not transcendent but transcendental.

  It is a process of eliminating objects.

  It should be well understood that the word “object” signifies not only objects of the physical world and our body, but also any psychic reality, i.e. emotions, images, thoughts. By practising the negation of objects, of more and more of them and more and more radically, leading to the total elimination of objective reality, one comes to discover that, beyond the vanishing of the object (which has in consequence led to the vanishing of the subject) there remains the Self, a pure and objectless consciousness, pure objectless love, and infinite bliss.

  This procedure is the intellectual aspect of meditation without object. If it is to be truly effective it should be completed by its emotional component.

  In this case the object is contemplated as a desired goal. Deeper thinking shows us that desire towards an object is in fact desire, not so much of the object, but for something which the object appears to contain or to produce, that is bliss, peace, joy which is fullness and completeness. Thus one realizes that desire is not in fact directed towards the object but towards the reality underlying the object. At this point one has covered considerable ground, because one now knows that we do not in fact desire things. The reality of the object is now completely bereft of its value and desire is at a loss for a goal.

  The outer world loses its attraction and desire falls back upon itself.

  Thus one reaches realization of the Self. No exact definition of this realization can be given, since it lies beyond duality and cannot be grasped by language. One can, however, endeavour to describe it by saying that the realized man is one who has reached a pure and full consciousness of “I am”. For the ordinary man, such a consciousness is always confused because it is impure, that is to say, accompanied by qualifications. “I am this or that”, “I have to deal with this or that”. In reality this “I am” is ever there, it can’t be otherwise. It accompanies each and every state. To return to the “I am” in its complete purity, there is no other way than the total elimination of everything that accompanies it: objects, states. Then that consciousness which hitherto used to turn to the innumerable companions of the “I am”, sees them all to be lifeless, finds itself, and realizes its own everlasting splendour.

  This path seems extremely rapid, if one can of course apply it.

  We cannot describe it as quick or slow, all we can say is that it is the most direct. Direct paths are not necessarily the quickest because they are the most difficult. The main obstacle to this meditation without object is that it demands of us a type of understanding to which we are not accustomed. Our desire for harmony and fulfilment constantly urges us to change ourselves. Whereas the mind can never change anything. When I say “change” I mean to leave the idea of change behind. When you have turned towards this objectlessness, these problems vanish because you know that they are purely self-created.

  Are ascetic practices not necessary to clean the house, don’t we need a discipline to keep it clean?

  One can never clean the house with those very factors whi
ch have created what you call “dirt”. The mind can never be altered by the mind.

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  True knowledge, that is to say, absolute knowledge, differs from relative knowledge by the complete vanishing of the subject-object duality. Only when the object ceases to be an object, as a result of the upsurging of the One, does one experience this knowledge. The elimination of all that is objective leads us to a silence which is neither a nothingness, nor an impression of absence, but is immediate (non-mediate) knowledge of oneself. The flavour of this silence is experienced as non-objective presence, peace, joy and bliss.

  From habit we have created a pattern by which we see ourselves as actor and thinker, and we are thus led to endless conflicts and pain. I should like to dwell on this identification with the thinker or the actor.

  At the very moment when we act, consciousness is one with the action. Nothing exists for us outside the action. At the very moment when we think, consciousness is nothing but thought and there is no duality. It is only after the action or the thought, that there arises the process of dual thinking and identification. This, the subject-object relationship, replaces the original unity of the conscious action. But since the true subject, the Self, lies beyond the consciousness of name and form, the quality of subject and agent will be associated with this element of form, that is the mind, the psychic reality which conditions action. It is this psychic reality which will be set up as the ego, as a “me”, that is to say an active, separate and formal reality. Then, we say: “I did that. I thought that, I endured that”. Whereas in fact the true subject, the Self, transcends all becoming and any formal reality. The supreme knower remains completely distinct from anything we know. Thus, in this sense it is unknowable. Unknowable, here, means that it cannot be grasped as an object. This is why the upsurge of the ultimate subject can only take place after the universe of forms and objects has completely vanished.

  The supreme knower is ever present during change, and when change ceases, it is pure presence. It is only the ego which obscures this presence. This primordial notion of the total, immovable, infinite presence, the presence of the Self to the Self, must be a constant object of meditation – it being well understood that meditation, in our meaning of the word, is not a meditation carried out at a given time, but a constant and acute awareness of this presence throughout our daily life.

  This meditation should not be considered as accumulation, but on the contrary as elimination, which does not lead to a letting-go but to a spontaneous losing of the becoming process. It is like a journey which begins with sensational events, the primeval forest, the jungle, the steppes, and finishes with a desert at the end of which we may witness an indescribable sunrise.

  Meditation should be visualized. By the word “visualized” I mean that one’s attention should be fixed on all images, be it a matter of seeing, hearing or touching, etc. One should go step by step without hurry. Here more than anywhere, one must not be impatient. Nothing is urgent, we are not aiming at a conclusion. We must thoroughly understand that things that are known cannot help us to reach an unknown end. The unknown always reveals itself spontaneously and independently of ourselves. We should therefore avoid any wish to seize, to grasp or to force anything.

  All we can do is expect without expectation. I repeat without expectation, because expectation is always directed towards an object, thereby causing a projection which hinders the revelation of the unknown. The only thing we can do is be constantly aware of this process, which brings us back from the object to the supreme subject. Thus your vision of yourself will have changed. Then, instead of trying to modify each situation in the hope of bringing about a more favourable outcome, you realize the uselessness of intervening.

  When some half-filled glasses of water stand on a sloping tray, one may try to stand them level by using props. But it is much easier to simply straighten the tray. Otherwise it will be a long, complicated and uncertain business only to arrive at a precarious state of balance. Our mistake is that we want to straighten the objects one by one, which is an unending process, instead of straightening the tray, i.e., the basis. As soon as that is put right, everything falls into its right place.

  Question

  Don’t you think it is a good thing to hear the same things over and over again, in spite of the drawbacks of repetition, because one may thus grasp them more thoroughly?

  Answer

  I quite agree. It is also important, if you observe a reaction and see that it entails a certain insufficiency, to be able to express it. Once put clearly into words, you sometimes find that it is no longer necessary to put the question. A question which is well thought out and put into words sometimes yields its own answer. When you are alone with yourself, do not question with impatience, do not fabricate questions in order to get answers in accordance with your outlook. Allow the answer to arise of itself.

  When one speaks of realization one thinks of a state of unity. It seems to me that there are several ways of being in a state of unity. In our everyday life, when one is absorbed in his work, or in an object, one is immersed and lost in it. When Archimedes was working on geometry, it could be said that Archimedes was geometry. On the other hand, if one embarks upon the practice of meditation on the theme of the discrimination between the seer and the seen, one experiences a different unity, unity of the pure subject, stripped of any object. Could you define the relationship between these two forms of unity?

  The apparent duality of the seer and the seen, or the subject and the object, is a sort of crutch. When one has applied this method for a certain time, the seer ceases to be the seer because the seen has become a simple prolongation of his being. There is therefore strictly speaking no more seen since the seen is recognized as the very nature of the seer.

  At the beginning, we are more or less absorbed in what we do, we are lost in the object. In order to free ourselves from the object and reach the unitive knowledge of the subject, the method of discrimination between the seer and the seen may be considered as a sort of crutch. This gradually leads us to the understanding that we are neither perception nor thought, but He who knows. Then we arrive at a non-involvement. The climax of this non-involvement is an experience of the unity in the subject, but the unity which is thus reached is not ultimate.

  Of these two experiences of unity we have described, that of absorption in the object and that of absorption in the subject, neither is supreme, since the first leads to the vanishing of the subject and the second to the vanishing of the object. Contrary to the other two, the unity which is that of realization does not eliminate, it totalizes and unifies. It is a consciousness of the unity of the subject-object. These three experiences of unity are the three stages which the Zen masters refer to: “Before you enter into the study of the Path, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers; in due course mountains are no longer mountains, nor are the rivers, rivers; but when Illumination shines forth, mountains are mountains again and rivers are rivers.”

  Does the discernment you have reached allow you to stand aloof from injustice or any other kind of pain and not be affected by them? Does this not prevent you from taking part in active charity, but allow you to isolate yourself in an ivory tower?

  What is called evil or injustice is fundamentally nothing more than an error, or more exactly an ignorance. One is blind to the fact that all things are fundamentally one. Every event, rightly viewed, that is to say seen in its true relationship with the totality, is right and just. In a global and authentic perspective, in a true one, evil and injustice do not exist. This point is most important. As long as it has not been accepted, no true understanding is possible. One stands above and aloof from evil, exactly in so far as one develops a capacity for global vision. Global, that is to say non-egotistic, non-selfish, non-partial, non-fragmentary.

  However, it is important not to mistake this aloofness with regard to evil which is a transcending and a liberation, with selfishness and common indifference. The detached man’s behavi
our may somewhat resemble that of someone who is basely indifferent, whereas true detachment has no point in common with indifference. The detached man is detached from himself and from objects. In consequence, he knows no reaction of fear, hatred or desire. The sufferings and troubles of others do not affect him any more than his own, and he sees himself to be in unity with all beings. He constantly widens and transforms fragmentary points of view into global ones.

  The usual methods used against evil, which consist in neutralizing an urge with its opposite, are repugnant to and do not concern the detached ma; he sees their vanity, their uselessness. In consequence he sometimes appears to be selfish and indifferent. He is in fact, despite appearances, the only active man; but a global vision cannot be forced or handed out like a piece of cake, it can only be communicated to a man who is ripe for it.

  What is likely to lead someone who has never heard about it to this discernment or this aloofness of which you speak? Indeed this path appears most extraordinary and many people spend the whole of their lives without ever hearing of it and without perceiving any hint of such a search.

  The first thing that should be understood is that the ordinary man, he who neither knows nor has any idea of this path, is in a situation which is entirely false. The egotistic outlook being an entirely mistaken one, those men who have not lost the illusion of their separateness, live and die in error. The specific character of error and illusion is that, sooner or later, they come up against opposition and contradiction. These oppositions and contradictions are the landmarks which urge us towards the path. Each pain, each failure urges us to think, to turn our observation on ourselves and to see that the fundamental error of our lives is the build-up of an ego which believes itself to be distinct and separate. It is therefore neither by chance nor by accident that we are led to spiritual research.