from the Child to the Sage Arnaud Desjardins

Editor's Note: The following is a talk given by the eminent French teacher Arnaud Desjardins at his first ashram, Le Bost, in France, in aboui 1980. In the talk he presents a primary aspect of the teaching of his ol1.:n Master, Swami Prajnanpad. Using examples from Swamiji's work with him and from his own profound self-investigation, Arnaud presents a vivid confrontation with the realities of self-observation. Some of tf:e penetratinx lessons given by Swamiji are described in the present tense, still vitally alive after so many years; Arnaud uses these to help us look at our own situation in the contemporary world. Through these considerations, Arnaud communicates timeless principles and practical instruction which offer invaluable help and relevance to us in our work on our own path. We are grate-fal for Amaud's kind permission to reprint the translation of this talk in its entirety.

I would like to come back to Swamiji's words again: "Adults are more or less grown up, more or Jess childish, and the Sage is the per-fect state of the adult, I 00% adult:• This is an original aspect of his Teachings. l have never heard it mentioned or read about its consider-ation by any Hindu or Tibetan Spiritual Master with as much rigor and precision. Certainly,

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the idea that grown-ups continue to be childish is in no way unfamiliar to a Western psycholo-gist of today. But this affirmation, ''The Sage is the perfect adult, the completed adult," is a key that was so helpful to me that I wish to give you the transmission. If you discover for yourselves how true it is, it will be a real help to you also and will illuminate your Path. This is because it is true-totally true, even if it seem<i surprising or perhaps comes as a shock. And it is true today, even more so than in the old days. In the modem world, in spite of pro-digious technological inventions, childishn~~s in adults is greater than in "under-developed cultures," for a reason of which you are aware, but which few people take into account. The reason is that parents are an essential factor in order for the child to become an adult, and the parents are less and less capable of being truly a father or truly a mother. I have said this repeatedly, but this is not what I wish to insist upon today.

Of course, when we speak of children we speak of parents. When we are able to recog-nize, 'This adult is more or less childish," [we recognize also that] this adult had a relation-ship with his or her father and mother that was more or Jess happy and fulfilled. And I know perfectly well that as I am speaking here in

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this way, I am opening old wounds in each one of you. It is astonishing, when one has worked with one's own "lyings"1 and ont:; digs a little more deeply into the heart of one or another who has had what we call "good parents," to see that each one of you has been wounded, disappointed, feels something is missing. From one of the parents at least, but more of-ten it stems from both. Let's not throw stones at anyone! Your fathers and mothers had no help when it came to transfonnation, becom-ing selfless, being available, infinitely patient and brinuning with love.

When we speak of a child we speak of the parents. Only a few days ago I quoted Swamiji's definition of Liberation, one of those concise definitions that touched me in the right place every time: "To be free is to be free from Mommy and Daddy." I confess that on first hearing this definition I refused it! Reducing the definition of moksha, meaning Supreme Metaphysical Liberation, to a psy-chological idea such as this, made me react. Thankfullyt It forced me to battle with this particular claim of Swamiji. Today I am con-vinced of its absolute truth. As bewildering as this may seem for some of you, Supreme Lib-eration means being totally free from Mommy and Daddy-from Daddy and Mommy in this life and from buried, past lives, live;; buried in the dep!hs of the unconscious. If you are able to understand that you are more or less childish, without taking it as an insult on my part, the Path will become very clear to you. As far as I am concerned, this has been the most effective aspect of Swami Prajnanpad's Teachings. I mentioned in Les Chem.ins de la Sagesse (The Paths ofWisdom) that at the age of forty, even at forty-two, I realized I was no more than a child. I am not saying I was a grown-up acting like a child; but a child was ruling over my heart, a two-year-old as regards his mother and a child of six or eight in relation to his father. This became a11 the

more striking because after having felt lost and weak for so long, paradoxically now was a time when the conditions of my assertion in life were changing, and I had the means to

. consider myself adult in almost all the fields of activity that were of interest to me.

Do not feel criticized or humiliated if I speak this way. At the same time, see that becoming less and less childish means mov-ing toward your own wisdom or your Libera-tion, and that the perfect adult is the Sage. But listen to me carefully. It is not a case of saying, "Adults behave like children." No! It is much more concrete and precise than that: there is a child laying down the law in the heart of an adult. Take a look at what children are like: they will teach you a lot about yourselves as you are today; but, of course, it is below the dignity of man to remain a child.

A child is incapable of non-dependency because it has no material independence. For years everything comes by means of Mommy and Daddy. Materially and psychologically, a little child is totally dependent. The Goal is non-dependency, autonomy, to find one's own inner strength and inner balance. The Goal is to be capable of solitude. This is one of the first criteria: to what extent are you capable of solitude? Swamiji said to me one day: "Wis- l dom is the possibility of being more and 1nore abandoned, more and more betrayed, more and more rejected, and to feel more and more peace, more and more inner security.? Yet you_J know very well that the idea ofbeingbetrayed, rejected, criticized, denied is unbearable to you. This is a mark of childishness'. The dependency on someone or the dependency on others and the inability to be alone are all marks of childishness. If you accept this cri-terion, you will be able to assess and evaluate the level of your being. Am I capable of stay-ing alone, feeling alone? Or is it unbearable? Alone, materially, physically, and alone psy-chologically: nobody agrees with me, nobody

"LyUigs" is the term/or a techniqw: developed by Swami Prajnanpadfor the purification of the unconscious, involving a plunge into Olle's unconscious in order to consciously live out unconscious trauma.

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understands me. Do I more or Jess suffer from it? It will always be more or less: more or less childish, more or less adult.

A child is very impatient. It is impos-sible for him or her to wait and postpone something until the following day. When she wants something, she must have it immedi-ately. Watch a child to whom you promise a gift on Monday: she wants it now, even if it is Sunday. 'The shops are closed." "It doesn't matter, you must tell them to open!" An adult is able to postpone, to delay. Not now; later. A childish adult cannot do this. The phone ca11 must be made immediately; the letter must be written immediately; the meeting must take place immediately. If a childish man is in love with a woman and this woman says, "Tonight I have an appointment, we shall meet up in a week," it is too much to ask of him. And he insists: "No, this is not possible, you can easily say 'no' to this family reunion:· Child-ish, still a child's behavior. Almost all of your behavi~r, as you well know, is not driven by the neCessity of the situation but by your inner necessities. Your behavior is not a response; it is a reaction. Not even an "impulse," it is a comptilsion. '"I am obli~ed to ... " Obliged to make the phone call straight away, obliged to beg so that the meeting will take place this very day-and obliged in less spectacular situ-ations. All these emotions, every single one of them, are the manifestations of the child.

Here is another one of Swamiji's state-ments: ''A child lives in emotions; an adult no longer has any emotions." These words are extraordinarily effective in helping you to progress on your own Path. I realize it is quite hard for you to understand. We went to Swamiji to hear him speak about the Vedanta, Wisdom, Brahma, Atman~ we did not go to him to hear him speak of childish-ness. But when speaking of childishness, I find myself in the heart of Swamiji's Teach-ings, in remembrance of Swamiji, in com-munion with Swamiji. Emotion==childishness; dependency==childishness; the inability to be alone==childishness; the inability to postpone until the next day==childishness.

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If you go back to these different themes, you will be able to see that "having" is child-ishness and "being" is the adult state. Because a child is so dependent, his imperative need is to have. An adult has less and less need to have and finds increasing joy, fullness and security in being. The percentage of the need to have or the freedom in relation to having, can be understood in view of the percentage of childishness or of the adult state within you. Of course, it is pedectly normal for a child to be childish. It is no longer a normal state for an adult to be childish. Look what the begin-nings of existence were like; why was your development balanced in some cases and not in others? Why was there growth in certain areas and not in others? The child comes into the world with the vasanas and the samskfiras he brings at birth that lie in the depths of chitta; this is the doctrine of past lives, the doctrine of karma. But at the same time hear-rives devoid of everything; he has to relearn it all and he depends entirely on his mother and father. This is most obvious. The child needs to have and consequently, he needs to receive. Here is another one of Swamiji's definitions: ''The child is meant to ask and to receive; the adult is meant to hear the request and to give." Once again, assess your existence according to this criterion: "I am about forty or fifty years old; to what extent do I still need people to - -listen to me. to show an interest in me and be giving toward me?"

Each time you will find "having" and "be-ing" at the heart of these questions. The child belongs to the world of having. He needs to have a Mommy and Daddy; an adult no longer needs a Mommy and Daddy, not even a Daddy in Heaven or a Mammy in Heaven; otherwise his religion remains childish. "The child is meant to ask and receive; the adult is meant to hear the request and to give." Where am I in relation to this? How do I place myself? Look. Look around and look inside yourselves. And recognize: that is the child; it is the child within me. This child is so powerful that, more and more, the modem world is built on the persistence of an unevolved, uneducated child

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within us. I assure you that this is bUe. This is not an "original" or "interesting" opinion.

The very same Westerners of today, who have devised and bui1t computers, sent men to the moon and brought them back safely to earth, these same Westerners are children. Look into a thousand details, ones you would think of and those I would miss because I live in retreat here at le Bost. Look how important small gifts have become in businesses. Busi-ness directors out of Higher Polytechnic are offered a pen-holder, and they are so pleased to have it!! I cannot say how many times I have been surprised to see how successful these publicity gadgets are when they are given out at Christmas. Can you visualize these people with a Master's degree or a Ph.D. with an important position in industry, receiv-ing their presents! Even as children they did not receive as much in their Christmas stock-ings! If this trend is spreading increasingly, it has a meaning. It is a very simple illustration of this aspect of Swamiji's Teaching; but it extends much further. I am asking you to hear me on two levels. The first is the one on which anyone concerned about man's evolution would agree: adults of today are increasingly childish.

But the other point of view is complemen-tary and just as ~ortant for you, if not more: the perfect adult is the Sage. We Westerners stop before we reach the end. We can see very well that some adult bebavior is childish, but we do not go to the depths of understanding. This is serious. You must become completely adult. The Western man of today, even the psychologist, can see only an adult that is rela-tively so, just about adult. This is not the bUe adult. Just because someone appears to be Jess dependent in a childish way or less impulsive and impatient, shows a lesser need to receive or to have in a childish way, we say: that person has become an adult. Follow this evolution, fol-low this growth up to the degree that perhaps will appear surprising to you, that maybe you will refuse, but it represents the Goal, Libera-tion, Wisdom. It is simply the continuation, the natural extension of the same process.

Everyone would a~ee ili& M adult~i:I childish when it is obvious that he is. He '

; gradually becomes adult and then it aJl ends. But if you go to the extreme of this ability to be alone, the ability of being instead of having, the ability to give in place of receiving, the ability to give up something or at least put it off until tomorrow, always further, 70% adult, 80% adult, finally 100% adult is the Sage.

If you consider yourselves to be adult, you will not understand anything about yourselves, and everything about your behavior wil1 remain undiscovered. But if you have the cour-age to consider yourselves to be children of thirty, children of forty, children who are com-pany directors, highly positioned bureaucrats, surgeons, children who are lawyers, children who are airplane pilots, you are saved.

Now for one more point. This pre-emi-nence of receiving over giving, having over being, operates in different areas. The child within can express its existence in every field of activity. You can be particularly childish

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in the relationship with your husband or your wife and less childish in your relationship to others in general, in relation to public opinion or society life. You can be particularly child-ish in your profession, in your activities as a colleague amongst other colleagues, as head of a department in relation to subordinate work-ers, as a worker in relation to your directors. You can be less childish as regardfs money, in that spending for the sake of appearances is no longer essential. This means you Can be 80% childish in one type of activity and, in another area of life, you are only 30% childish. Your strengths, your weaknesses, your qualities, your faults, what you like about yourselves, what you dislike, all of this can be understood in terms of childishness in the most strict and concrete way; I am saying it clearly: childish behavior. Each one of you must have the cour-age to look at the areas in which you are the most childish and not only those in which you are just about adult. We can be utterly under illusion by considering ourselves adult just because we can boast about a certain success which an adult normally achieves. We all agree

Lee and Arnaud.

that a ten-year-old child does not fly a Boeing jet to Peking or Tokyo. Consequently a captain is able to feel assured: it is obvious that I am adult. We all agree that a child is totally inca-pable of spending nine or ten hours next to an operating table to do heart surgery or surgery on the brain. Conse.quently a surgeon can feel assured and say to himself: it is obvious that I am adult. And so on.

This is false. You can be a surgeon, do heart transplants-and be childish. Look how one of the great stars in the 1nedical world of surgery behaves toward women! This is child-ish weakness and dependency. Do not fool yourselves with your intellectual, professional, artistic or family achievements, whatever they are. You can even be Prime Minister, President of the United States, and still be a child. If the reliable source of information I have had is ac-curate, President Nixon was a child; but he was also one of the two masters governing in the

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world and he-could have started an atomic war. Now. let us leave Nixon and return to

you, each one himself or herself: in order to .. understand yourselves, accept that you have remained at a childish stage, and when you are fully adult, you will have reached total free-dom. total non-dependency, perfect supremacy of being over having; in other words, Libera-tion. Our meeting can be of interest by linking it directly to the Supreme Goal. Without this, the theme concerning childishness in adults is not in itself very interesting or new.

Look for the area in which you are the most childish. Do not blind yourselves with the other areas of activity in which you are prouder of yourselves. In this respect Swamiji told me a proverb: "No chain is stronger than its weakest link." This proverb immediately appeared obvious to me, and at the same time, I understood how wrong my reasoning had been until then. I tended to appreciate myself

by working out a sort of average, which from this point of view made no sense .. -If all the links in a chain can resist up to 500 kilograms and one link can only withstand 50 kilograms, the totality of the chain can only withstand 50 kilograms; it is really obvious. There is no need whatsoever to work out an average: this chain is able to withstand only 490 kilograms instead of 500. You can see that this type of reasoning does not hold water and that the proverb is true: "No chain is stronger than its weak.est link." The weakest link withstands 50 kilograms? That's it! The chain withstands 50 kilograms.

No human being is stronger than his greatest weakness. Your greatest weakness shows your greatest childishness. When a man's moral, social and psychological break· down is necessary to those who have interests that oppose his. his destruction lies in finding his weakest link. General de Gaulle gave the impression he was invincible to those who approached him. His admirers and his enemies

· ·are unanimous at least about this particular point. Perhaps if one had really searched, his weakest link would have been found, meaning the area in which General de Gaulle (histori-cally speaking, one of the greatest men of the 2(1h century) was still a little child, the point where his emotional growth had been stunted.

If you find a man or a woman's weak-est link, you have_ power over him or her. In general, people are too taken up by their own childishness, they have too great a lack of will-power, sense of purpose, clear-sightedness, to really be able to use this means of fighting in the struggle for life. You all know there are certain cases where special interest groups have obtained a man's downfall by using these means.

Search for the weakest link in the chain. It is the one that is liable to break. Do not fool yourselves with your strengths; be honest and measure yourselves against your great-est weakness. This very weakness is what has to be tenninated, even if it takes two years, five years, ten years. It is easier to close your eyes to try to avoid seeing it. But then you no

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longer have the chance to become free one I day. If the chain that you represent has ten 1

strong links and one weak one, and you are riot willing to take the weak link into account, you will never become wise-never, whatever efforts you n1ake in your "sadhana" or medi-tation. You will discover that this weakness expresses itself in terms of childishness. There is the point where I am still a child; look at children of two, three or five years old.

Swamiji stuck my nose into the weakest link of my chain. It was a link about which I was under total iliusion because, to my mind, on the contrary, there was a certain strength in that area It concerned the relationship to women. From the moment I had surpassed be:ing shy, surpassed the complex of being a failure from when I was twenty and had a child-ish approach to love, I had gradually gained confidence, ease, and audacity with women. Swamiji showed me that it was solely weakness and childishness, even if a kind of prestige goes with the man who has success with women or the woman who has success with men.

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No chain is more solid than the weakest of its links, no man stronger than his greatest weakness. This is the truth.

The beginning of transformation into adulthood manifests as the taste for truth. it comes from within yourself, not from what is imposed upon you from outside. It i~ the taste for truth and the love of truth. The child does not like truth; as you all know the child has a great preference for the dream-world and imagination. "1 am Zorra, I am an Indian chief, I am a pilot and I can fly planes." Swamiji gave me the example of a child whose father was a doctor. The child would take his father's stethoscope and walk around saying, "I am going to look after my patients and earn myself some money." Children are not in search of truth; they like pretending and make-believe. An adult who does not have any personal taste for truth, for the truth whatever the price, is still a childish adult. The beginning of the passage from childhood to adulthood happens when this necessity for truth becomes stronger than pretending, stronger than being loved-----

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stronger than everything. "I want the truth." It is the promise that one day the adult will exist.

Look into yourselves with great demand and extreme lucidity, because it is not so easy. I have full knowledge of what I am saying. "Where do I stand as regards utter truth? Where am I lying to myself? Where am I tangled in my illusions?" And you will discov-er you have lost touch with the truth to such an extent (real truth, not the truth you succeed in making others believe by being a bit smarter than they are) that you cannot find it anymore. In a certain sense you are "alienated," mean-ing ''unknown to yourself." I no longer know who I am; I no longer know what I like. what I want; I have lost sight of rilyself.

AIJ of Swamiji's Teaching can be seen in this line of direction, on the condition it is not taken metaphoricalI y or allegorically. These are not parables or rhetorical devices. It is totally' realistic: the child in you lays down the law. We are only able truly to understand adults;the other human beings who surround us, in terms of childishness. And seen in terms of childishness, it all becomes clear. Deep down we do know; we more or less realize. But what I needed personally, was for some-one with Swamiji's authority to tell me.

I can look any one of you in the eye and ask, "In which area are you still only a child? With women? In your profession? In your relationship with money? In your fear of what the neighbors wil1 say? In your need to be loved? In your fear of being criticized?" Make a careful search for this childishness; look for it even in what you consider to be one of your main strengths or advantages in life. It is not because a film star is unable to 1nake the trip from Rome to Holly\vood without her teddy bear, that she is childish. It is certainly a trait of childishness, but it is probably far from being the most obvious or the most tragic. Do not be mistaken. Do not fool yourselves.

•••

I am now going to go a bit more deeply into the issue. In some ways a child's position iS

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marvelous, and many grown-ups are nostal-gic about their <;::hildhoods when they did not have to earn their living; they did not need to support the weight of their lives; there were no important responsibilities; parents took care of everything. But at the same time, the child's position is terrible--terrib]e, due to the very fact that he is dependent, incapable of look-ing after himself. If ever the parents are even remotely weak, the child's situation becomes tragic. The child lives in fear and insecurity. A child needs comforting and needs to feel secure. And the adult today is also childish inasmuch as he is unsure of himself, unsure of the outside world; he is worried, scared, with a primary fear that he tries his best to hide. The more you become adult, the more this fear in you disappears. Of course, the complete adult, the adult who is 100% adult, is liberated, totally freed from fear. And if you have a fear, be it a deep primary fear or a more specific, current fear-this and that aspect of life frightens me, whatever could happen in the future frightens me-be sure that you will find the secret of this fear inside the child in you. A child is scared and needs reassur-ing. An adult has no more fear and does not need to be reassured anymore. These various themes are linked to one another: dependency/ non-dependency, fear/security. And as I was .. saying earlier, the central axis is the difference between having and being. To become adult is to learn how to be. "To be" is to be free from having, free from the need to have-to have in all its forms. Understand fully this particular point also. For the Sage, the complete adult, this distinction between having and not hav-ing, simply does not exist anymore.

The dependency on having is always childish. But having does not mean just having material possessions. It means having suc-cess; having original ideas; having influential connections; having a long ann, as we say; intellectual having; subtle having; emotional having. The child in you is at work every-where. If you accept this point of view because you have recognized it as being just and true, the whole of existence explains itself in terms

of childishness. Where does Joseph Stalin's childishness lie; what is Adolf Hitler's child-ishness; what is Franklin Roosevelt's childish-ness; and what is Winston Churchill's childish-ness? The world is led by children.

The Middle Ages passed down to us a well-known style of painting in which only skeletons can be seen, to remind us that the world is led by beings who are all destined to die one day. These are called the "danses macabres": skeletons dressed like lords, skeletons dressed as serfs, skeletons dressed up like blacksmiths, skeletons dressed up like warriors, skeletons and more ... always skeletons. Today we could create a picture that would be less impressive, in which the same theme would be used but with children: a two-year-old child dressed in a pilot's outfit in New York's main airport; a two-year-old child dressed in a surgeon's white coat in a large state hospital; a two-year-old child with hon-ors and decorations in a position at the White House. If you are listening to me and thinking, "Oh, isn't it funny, amusing, strange," you are missing the essential element. I am defi-nitely not here today to show how original I am. Watching thoughts pass through the mind without being identified with them is a Tibetan practice; it is the essence of Zazen; it is a fonn of meditation; it is in no way particular to Swamiji. What Swarniji gave me that was truly original, is the discovery of everything I am trying to share with you today. It applied to me and it was by becoming aware of this, that I would become able to transfonn myself. I was thirty-nine when l met Swamiji, and at forty-two, I could see only one thing, or at least one thing dominated everything else: it was my childishness, in the most concrete sense of the word. Ah, that word "child"-1 was to hear it hundreds of times.

At forty-three I had the experience of fall-ing in love which I will not deny-why?-it was a shared experience, love that seemed it was not kids' love; it involved an assertive, famous woman, very famous in fact She came to Swamiji's ashram and the first words to ~ome out of Swamiji's mouth were: "So, you

love Arnaud? Do you know that Arnaud is a -child?" The poor woman, she thought she had met an adult at long last! And she began to feel that she had made a mistake. "Do you know that Arnaud is a child?'' A child who drives Land.rovers across Asia; a child who attracts a full house in the important conference hall in Paris called the Salle Pleyel; a child who appears on television in a close-up for half an hour eleven times in the same year. "Do you know that Arnaud is a child?" She replied, "I know that, but what is important is that he knows it also." Oh yes, at forty-three, my "sad-hana" was founded on my childishness.

•••

ls it possible for me to let go of what I am holding? Yes or no? To let go when it is asked of me? Letting go when I have had enough is easy. A child who has lost interest in some-thing, lets go of it immediately. But a child who is still fond of an object will not let go of it (•'Here, give it to me! Lend me your toy!") unless she is forced or if adults' emotional blackmail is too strong. Am I able to put off something until later? A1n I impatient or impulsive? Am I afraid of being alone, scared of being abandoned, afraid of not being loved anymore, afraid of being criticized'? ls the idea of being scorned, denied or rejected painful to me? The answer to all these questions I put to myself was, "Yes, Swamiji is right: Arnaud is a child. I am a child." And as long as I re-main a child, even if I have an hour of private conversation with His Holiness the Karmapa every day for th_ree weeks, even if I live for months at a time at Ma Anandamayi's ashram, I will never beco1ne a Sage, and Christ's or Buddha's pro1nises will never happen for me.

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At the beginning I was rather bewildered because, as a Christian, Christ's words, had left a mark in me: "If you do not become a'.s little children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." The Sage has been likened to a child so much that it was hard for me to position myself between the two points of view. In fact, in the first book I wrote, Ashrams, Yogis and

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Sages-a book entirely written by a child-in the chapter about Ramdas I quote the words I had heard coming out of his mouth several times: "Be childlikef' And Ramdas often with a wink or a smile would add, "Be childlike but not childish."

Swamiji had an expression of his own: "The Sage is an enlightened child. The Sage is a child with Illumination added." These are two different approaches, and I am keen to insist on one point. When we say, ''The Sage is a child with Illumination added, childlike, the Sage is like a child," it is just a figure of speech. It is a comparison; an image. But when I say that that man is childish, it is not a figure of speech, or a comparison, or an image. It is a reality.

How is it that the Sage is a child? From a certain point of view, the child can actually be considered as representing Wisdom, because he lives rDainly in the present moment, manifest-ing direct and immediate participation with life. The mind's mechanism that distorts sponta-neity by comparing, is Jess developed in the child. When a child is having fun in the water at the seaside, he is having fun in the water. Full stOp. He is splashing about in the water; he is happy. We are talking about a little child, because Christ said, '1f you do not become like little children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." A little child has something of the Sage's simplicity and spontaneity, it is true.

We are also able to understand Christ's words: "If you do not become like little children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven," as an invitation to return to the little child in ourselves. There have been times that I have quoted these words in relation to "ly-ings": "If you do not find the little child again fully, if you do not dare to cry like an infant, if you do not dare to Jay down your adult masks, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." I do not deny and I do not repudiate this image, childlike. But it did not help me ovennuch. I was not able to see very clearly how I, consid-ering how I was, could find the innocence, the purity, the naivete of a child "with Illumina-tion added." I was not able to see in concrete

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terms what that implied and where it directly concerned me. Whereas, perceiving and admit-ting to my own childishness and struggling to become increasingly adult, was within my reach the whole time and in all circumstances. This is a first, fundamental acceptance. Of course! "Do you know that Arnaud is a child?" Hearing this said does not make me happy, but I trust Swamiji. The more I put Swamiji's Teaching into practice; the more I weigh my inability or at least my difficulty in putting it into practice; the more I assess my childish-ness, the more I admit: "Swamiji is right." I no longer fight against it; there is no more preten-sion; I no longer hang on to what could make me believe I am adult. "Yes, Swamiji."

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My birthday came along when I was at the ashram. The Indian disciple called Nandakishore, during the half hour we were talking {we were able to talk for half an hour a day, at tea time, breaking those long days of silence) asked me, "Do people offer presents for birthdays in France?' I answered, "Yes." And Nandakishore told me this: "Twenty years ago I asked Shumongal what would be the best gift he Could wis~ for his birthday, which was to be celebrated at the ashram. He re-plied, 'That for my fortieth birthday, I am truly forty."' The following day I lay down. Aftei-· a break, I had taken up "lyings" again with a different approach. I was no longer looking to purify the unconscious mind as a whole (I had done that in the previous stage), but to immedi-ately and rapidly tum to what was there inside me. I let go of all control, let myself flow, and the first thing that arose was "Swamiji, yes-terday Nandakishore told me something very interesting." Very well, this is where I begin. .. Swamiji, yesterday Nandakishore told me that Shumongal had celebrated his birthday at the ashram; he had asked Shumongal what he would like for his fortieth birthday." And at that point, no more than one minute was needed be-fore an immense, unspeakable emotion welled up in me; it was unbearable; I was forty-four and I knew I was a two-year~old child.

The recollection that I heard calmly the day before, had struck as the first thought that

came to the surface when I lay down before Swamiji. .. Shumongal replied ... " I was unable · to finish the story. I wept and wept. ''That for my fortieth birthday I am truly forty." It can no longer be this way; I can no longer be a child. I have not made any progress; I am still a child in spite of the change that has already occurred thanks to my first series of .. lyings." Fundamentally there had been some changes, but I did not want to be under any illusion about these changes. I wanted to see where the weakest link in the chain was situated. Oh, that for my fortieth birthday I may be truly two years of age and get to the bottom of this childishness to see that it ends once and for all.

You can guess why I am telling you all this. So that each one of you can open to this idea and accept it without any humiliation, any upset, whether you are twenty-six or fifty. Size yourselves up with exactitude in relation to "having" and "being," in relation to "depen-

.. dency" and "non-dependency," in relation to "solitude" and "the need to be loved," etc. All this shows you where your childishness lies and where your maturity lies. And hear what I am saying with Hope.

All those who go to India to Ma Anan-damayi or to the Tibetans, they all hope, hope without knowing, to become adults, as much of an adult as possible. And what is painful, is when this childishness is not recognized; when we think we are adult aspiring to be-come a sage. I am not even saying that the Path comes to a halt. It cannot begin. Not only do you have the right to hope to become adult in the relative sense of the word-70% adult is no longer totally a child-but you have the right to be 100% adult. "One hundred per cent adult is the Sage." The adults who are the most adult that you know are only 70% and could not live totally rejected, despised and criticized; they would still be hurt. They are not completely free from the world of hav-ing; they are not totally established in being, which is the perfect adult

•••

There is one question that troubled me for ;·years. How is it that I do not progress more, and others around 1ne do not progress more? I have often mentioned that I was disconcerted when I saw the weaknesses of some of those who had known Gurdjieff in person and who had already devoted thirty years to that Teach-ing. After arriving at the ashram of Ramana Maharshi in Tiruvannamalai, I witnessed the disagreements between the European "pillars" of the ashram, or even between the Indians, who had spent twenty years or more of their lives in the company of Bhagawan Raman a Maharshi. A number of the seniors of this ash-ram were jeaJous, did not speak to each other, would get angry and worked up, and spoke with uncontrolled emotion. This disturbed me more and more. I am not the only one not pro-gressing; the others are not either. After twenty years, this question was beginning to formu-late with great intensity. I was disappointed every time. These disciples had many posi-tive qualities, of course. One does not devote one's whole life to Ramana Maharshi if one is purely and simply ambitious, wicked, mean, grasping and cowardly. But I could see clearly that something was missing-missing for me also. What more do I have than any one or another of Ramana Maharshi's great disciples, for me to hope to make more progr~ss than that person?

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I truly believe (when I say "I believe" it is a modest way of saying "I am sure") that the answer is found in this striking emphasis on childishness given by Swamiji.

We thought we were adults who had in mind to become sages: this is where our mistake lay. We did not have a clear vision of our approach. In one way it was true that we were aspiring to become "liberated sages." But it was also true that without knowing how to formulate this particular point, we were simply aspiring to become adult, meaning no longer childish.

Try using this key. Use it on the condition (I am repeating this insistently) that you do not take it as a metaphor, an allegory or an image but as a completely realistic truth. I am still a

·," \.

child and all those around me are still children. It is certain that the child is fundamentally selfish. The adult must be a lot less selfish, and the true adult is not at all selfish anymore. The Ego is effaced. Can you imagine a three-year-old child thinking, "I am not going to cry and ask for my food now because l can sense that Mommy has other things to do"? It does not make any sense. The child demands and that is all. "The child is meant to ask and to receive; the adult is meant to hear the demand and to give in return." The true adult is not at all self-ish anymore. He has reached the ego-less state, where self-centeredness itself has disappeared; Ego is effaced. For a child separation is the tragedy; the adult has transcended separation. He has understood that the other would rarely be "one with him," but he could be "one with the other." 'Tio you know that Arnaud is a child?" It was true! And it is true for you also. How ttie Path becomes clear! Clear in the sense of proiression. Where do I stand in all areas? What has been achieved? What remains to be achieved? You must review everything. A navi-gator is able to know his whereabouts---in the sky at a vertical distance from a certain point, or at sea at a certain longitude or latitude.

In what way do you work out a path? With maps, a compass or from the position of the sun in the sky. You know how far you have already gone and the distance that is left to go. The more I understand what has been achieved, the more I understand what is left for me to achieve and how I can go about it. What is my position today on the path of my own transformation? It is very simple: your transformation is the transformation from the child to the adult. What has been achieved in relation to the various criteria that distin-guish the child from the adult? Emotionally, as regards character, in relation to the mind, as regards my desires, as regards my fears, in various fields of activity. Oh, in this particular area I am less childish. What enables me to say this? I am capable of being alone; I am able to take criticism; I am capable of waiting without being impatient. I am no longer de-pendent on the outside world~ I am no longer

absolutely dependent on "having"; if having were refused me I would not suffer from it; if having were taken from me. I would remain at peace-in this particular area. Yet in another field, I am able to see that nothing has been achieved. I am a child, totally. a little child, in this field. At least I am able to see it, recognize it, assess it; I understand what could be asked of me, this evening, tomorrow. in each one of life's circumstances.

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"Hello? Yes, sir! Very well, sir! Of course, it will be done immediately!" The voice changes. A child responds in this tone of voice; there is no way it can be an office manager. And each time you get recto, you will get verso; each time there is convex, there will be concave. Alongside, "Yes, sir, straight away sir, I'll be right there, sir," you get, "I'll go in ten minutes from now; I cannot stand being summoned like that!" It is just the other side, the reaction. This is the child within me! I cannot put myself under any illusion; there is no need for me to carry on dreitrning; I do not need to mount constructions or dream up something; there is no need for me to read extraordinary books on esotericism in the Kabbala compared to esotericism in Tantra. It is very clear. Do you really believe that if you do not attempt anything in this domain, the · · visualization of a tantric deity will be of some use to you? It could do something for you only if you leave everything behind to go and live day after day in a monastery for many years, as some have gone to Darjeeling in order to live alongside Kangyur Rinpoche. If you want the highest wisdom, be it of Meister Eckhart or Kangyur Rinpoche, start practicing; take on your education yourself.

Another of Swamiji's sayings again gives us the measure of ourselves: "The child puts blame and responsibility on the exterior; the adult answers to a mistake and person~ ally takes responsibility." I am the one whom the mistake concerns and it is up to me to be responsible. But the child justifies and calls for help. You will remember this story which I told in Les Chemins de la Sagesse: a child is running along, hits his head against the table

because he is neither looking where he is go-ing nor paying attention, and the parents say, "Oh, naughty table, you bad table, you hurt my boy; we're going to hit the table!" "You kill the child," as Swamiji would say. You irnme-diately teach the child to blame the table that was not responsible, instead of showing him and helping him see: "You hit your head! Let's look at how it happened." In this way you teach a child to be in the truth.

The day you discover that you are totally childish, that you can no longer go on kidding yourself, or look at yourself in the mirror [even if] you change your suit to have broader epaulettes, or have your name in headlines in the paper, that day an enormous emotion against your parents arises ... I am forty and I am a child! I cannot deny it any· longer: a child!" The lost child. So miserable. "What bastards! What swine! Father and mother destroyed me instead of giving me an educa-tion. Here I am at my age and I have been making an effort for twenty years!" I have been hearing these heartfelt cries daily for six years. Hatred against your mother and father manifests. Suddenly you are face to face with your childishness; you discover the immeasur-able mistake that yout parents made. Wh~t then? H you want to be adults, the least you can do is to make a decision (the unconscious mind will be taken care of later): I will not put the blame on my parents; it will not help me progress. What has-been, has been. Now it is up to me to take on my education along with help from the Guru. At this moment the adult appears for the first time. Let's go for it, both of us, meaning "me" and me: the child within and me. Let's go! Okay, I am a two-year-old child, and I have decided to become an adult, instead of complaining about my parents, instead of recriminating, instead of feeling weighed down. The past has gone! The future is opening up before me. If you go for it any old way, not only will it be slow, but it will nevet advance at ail. If you rely on what I am saying today, you wi!J advance rapidly. What you have not achieved in twenty years, will be attained in five. Perhaps those twenty years

will have prepared you and will not have been useless. Nothing is useless when it has been done with the goal of wisdom more or less clearly in sight.

I take responsibility for myself and I become adult. And of course, when yon will have become adults, you will forgive your parents. But the reverse is also true. The more you forgive your parents from the bottom of your heart, the more you become adults. This is so true thar1 make Swamiji's definition of Liberation mine: "You know what is moksha, Arnaud? To be free from Father and Mother." I had no idea whatsoever of the depth of these words when I heard them, since I found it hard even to accept them. "Do you know what is nwksha? It is to be free from Father and Moth-er." To be free in every way, on every level.

•••

This criterion concerning childishness will also enable you to understand with certain re-alism the behavior of those who, increasing in number each year, present themselves as mas-ters and start to gather admirers and disciples. The word "guru" has become sufficiently well known, even amongst those who are not par-ticularly interested in India. For all that, it does not mean that everything inclnded\in this word is clearly understood; far from it. i _

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First, it must be clearly distinguished that I "guru" is' not to be mistaken for the same thing as "sage." All sages do not have the function of guru. "Guru" demands, according to Tradition, an unchanging realization together with exten-sive knowledge used as a way to lead others toward this same permanent experience. On the other hand, a human being can be a sage, totally free, with no ego, and yet not have the capacities of a guru, apart from his radiance. It is rare that the radiance and the silence alone can guide a disciple through the trials and tribulations and the various stages of his Path. In reverse, a guru does not necessarily have all the attributes that observation and Tradi-tion recognize in a sage. Even apart from the modern day exaggeration that gives the title of

..., ' " ., . . ..

· .

• I I

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"''" .. ._,illF ___ T _____ _._,_•n---------1 guru to Hindus or Westerners who have noth-ing traditionaJ about them, there are surely dif­ferent categories of gurus. Some disciples have considered totally extraordinary beings such as Ma Anandamayi and Rarnana Maharshi to be gurus~ others consider. that Ramana Maharshi or Ma Anandamayi are much more than gurus but do not take care of the disciple in the same waY the Hindu or Tibetan masters have done for centuries.

One must not believe either that only four or fiVe geniuses per century become gurus. like Ramana Maharshi and Ma Anandamayi, to be precise. Out of six million Hindus that would mean very few among a people that we consider to have been, at least until recent years, mainly interested in spiritual life. And yet, if you use the word "guru" in its true sense, you must be sufficiently precise to rec-ogni~ when this term can be used correctly.

Etymologically, "guru" means: "he who brings light into the shadows." But we must not forget that in a Tradition like the Hindu Tradition, all technique<; and all arts are sacred arts: music, architecture, dance, grammar. They are all founded on the Vedas, especially the Rig Veda, and they are all able to lead to inner awakening or at least they lead close to it. This is why, in traditional India, the word "guru" is used for a dance instructor or a master in architecture who trains disciples, perhaps in the way it would have been used in the Middle Ages when professions were still organized into guilds-the builders' guild is at the origin of today's free-masons. Conse· quently, today in India you will heai- a young girl call her flute instructor her guru, on the condition that he teaches according to tradi· tional standards and within the religious frame of mind that pervades all the various activities, meaning certain festivals are celebrated dur· ing the year and lessons never begin without certain invocations or certain prayers.

A type of guru to be considered is one who does not teach through a technique or art form like music, dance, architecture or whatever, but teaches--or rather guides-according to one of the different yogas. In fact there are many yo-

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gas in India, nbtjust the four most well known: the Yoga of Knowledge, the Yoga of Devotion, the Yoga of Action and the Royal Yoga or the Yoga of the Mastery of Energies. If you re­serve the title of guru to five or six celebrities, Ramana Maharshi, Ramdas. MaAnandamayi, Aurobindo, Rajneesh, Mukta.nanda. you are distorting the Tradition because there have always been a lot more gurus than that in India; but if you demean this title, you are also distorting the Tradition. The guru is supposed to lead one to a state of being, a perinanent realization in which the consciousness of separation has disappeared. There is a definite inner transformation, even though it is difficult to make it understood to those who do not have the experience. In this respect, comparisons are plentiful and known to all: how can we describe what a col or is to someone who is blind? How can we describe the taste of a fruit to someone who has never tasted it? And even, with some audacity, like Jalal al-Din Rumi, the great Sufi: how can we explain what sexual fulfillment is to a girl of twelve?

•••

Nowadays there is clearly consistent confu •. --sion whereby the tenn guru is used for certain Hindu swamis who are interested in esoteri· cistn, who have had a certain nwnber of experi-ences and have some knowledge in the field of psychology, yoga, breathing exercises, Hindu philosophy and symbolism, but who have not experienced this inner death. And this death is what makes all the difference. I am definitely not saying that nothing can be expected of a yoga instructor or a psychotherapist for whom this transformation has not taken place. I am simply saying: let us come to a clear agreement concerning the meaning of the words we use.

Someone who has the vocation to serve others and help them to live a better life, can feel called to become a priest in the Catholic church or a vicar in a Protestant church, or even a doctor, yoga instructor or psychothera-pist. So many different types of psychotherapy exist nowadays: some are more popular than

others; some are decidedly atheist; oth-ers declare themselves open to the spiritual dimen&ion. As a result there are many possibil-ities on a relative level, to help a person who is suffering to experience less inner conflict. to unravel certain knots. to rediscover hope, to use his intelligence more wisely or simply to use his common sense to understand the origin of his failures or bis suffering.

But traditionally, if we do not falsify the word "guru," it can only be used to designate the person who leads you to a radical transfor-mation of your self. The guru is the doorway to a different plane, to a different level, to a different order of Laws. Consequently, the person who has accepted this title of guru has to be a living testimony of the reality of this experience himself. Allow me to tell you a funny story. A long while ago I used to know a famous hairdresser considered to be the best men's hairdresser in France. He used to cut and style the stars' hair; the fonner Prince of Wales

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who abdicated from the throne of England be-fore the Second World War went to him. along with other celebrities. He used to s~ll an infal-lible hair lotion that prevented hair ioss, but he was as bald as the American actor Yul Brynner. When someone asked him, "Don't you ever use your own hair lotion?" he replied with a smile, "I only use lotions sold by the hairdress-ers with whom l am in direct competition, to show how ineffective they are!"You can also imagine a guru as the incarnation of everything you have to avoid. We can always avoid the question, but an Indian proverb tells the truth: "You can onJy rescue someone from the mire when your own feet are on solid ground." (We have to say that the 1nires in which yo-ti sink are more common in India due to the monsoon rains, than they are in France.)

Not only is the goal of work with the guru different from the aim in psychotherapy, but the means differ also. Externally, parallels can be made and many psychiatrists are interested

in the Tibetan, Indian or Taoist techniques. Carl Gustav Jung, one of the most renowned, offered a weU-known example. But Realiza-tion, or Awakening, is what determines the Path and the entire practice.

Either this transformation has taken place or it has not. Here lies the difference. lhls transformation is the lasting experience of our personal story, the story of our ego, being over. The last important desire has been satisfied or has faded away, and in this respect, it does mean death: the ego dies. The one who felt he was a part of time, of becoming, of chains of cause and effect, of desire-the desire for suc-cess, the fear of failure--the one who felt he was the doer of an action, carrying the weight of hls existence, the load of his responsibili-ties, that one is gone. There is no way to be a guru unless the experience of this situation is unchapging: "It is no longer I who lives." And immediately the very famous phra'ie of Saint Paul comes to mind: "It is no longer I who lives; it is Christ who lives in me." A Hindu would say: "It is no longer I who takes action; shakti takes action ·through me."

This is the cardinal difference. The psy-chotherapist is still subject to the illusion of

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separation, which implies that everything is experienced personally and we consider our-selves, tiny limited individuals that we are, to be the ones who control the causes and effects with everything that means in the way of wor-ries, dissatisfaction and fear.

Is perfect inner freedom possible? Many psychologists assert that this is an impos-sible ideal, the projection of a dream of super-power, a dream where we escape from limitation; and that to be a true man is to have accepted the human condition. This is exactly what the Hindus say, but they add something extra to this: the adult human has accepted the human condition, yes, this is so; but he has also discovered liberated Consciousness, and what is most important is that within him-self an interfering function has disappeared, which is the Ego or Ahamkar. The world of becoming, made up of the chains of causes and effects, remains; and in the world of non-becoming, there is the unchanging Being, Consciousness, Atman. But between the two worlds, this ahamkar-from which stems the sense of limitation. all the suffering, all the sense of wrong and all the "prob1ems"-no longer exists. $

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