34 The next
technique:
Listen while the ultimate mystical teaching is imparted. eyes
still, without winking, at once become absolutely free."
LISTEN WHILE THE ULTIMATE MYSTICAL TEACHING IS IMPARTED. This is a secret method. In this esoteric tantra, the master gives you the teaching secretly, the doctrine secretly -- or the mantra secretly. When the disciple is ready, then the mantra, or the supreme secret, will be imparted, communicated to him, privately. Just in his ear it will be whispered. This technique is concerned with that whispering. LISTEN WHILE THE ULTIMATE MYSTICAL TEACHING IS IMPARTED.
When the master has decided that now you are ready and the secret of his own experience can be communicated, when the moment has come when he can say to you that which is unsayable, then this technique has to be used. EYES STILL, WITHOUT WINKING, AT ONCE BECOME ABSOLUTELY FREE. When master, is imparting his secret to you in your ear, whispering it, let your eyes be totally still: no movement of the eyes. That means the mind should be quiet, thoughtless.
No winking -- not even a slight movement, because that will show a disturbance within. Just become an empty ear with no movement within. The consciousness is just waiting to be impregnated, just open, receptive, passive... no activity on its own part. And when this will happen, this moment when you are totally empty, not thinking anything but just waiting... not waiting for something, because then it will become thinking, not waiting for something but just waiting; when this static moment, this non-dynamic moment will happen; when everything has stopped, time is not flowing and mind is totally vacant -- it becomes no-mind. Only into a no-mind can a master impart.
And he is not going to give a very long discourse: he will give just one or two or three words. In that silence those one, two or three words will penetrate to your very core, to the very center, and they will become a seed there. In this passive awareness, in this silence, AT ONCE BECOME ABSOLUTELY FREE.
One can become free only by becoming free of the mind; there is no other freedom. Freedom from the mind is the only freedom. Mind is the bondage, the slavery, the servitude. So a disciple has to wait with his master for the right moment when he will call him and impart. He is not to ask, because asking means desire. He is not to expect, because expectation means conditions, desire, mind. He is just to wait. And when he will be ready, when his waiting will become total, the master can do anything.
Sometimes the master can do very trivial things, and the thing will happen. And ordinarily, even if a Shiva goes on talking about one hundred and twelve methods, nothing will happen because the preparation is not there. You can throw seeds on stones, but nothing will happen. The fault is not of the seeds. You can throw a seed out of season, but nothing will happen. The fault is not of the seed. The right season is needed, the right moment is needed, the right soil is needed. Only then will the seed become alive and transform.
So sometimes very trivial things work. For example, Lin Chi became enlightened while he was just sitting on his master's verandah - on the verandah of his master, and the Master came out and just laughed. He looked at Lin Chi - into his eyes - and laughed uproariously. Lin Chi started laughing, bowed down, and left. But he had been waiting there for six years: that verandah was his abode for six years.
The master would come day after day, month after month, and he would not even look at him. And Lin Chi was waiting there. Then after two years, for the first time he looked at him. Then two more years passed, and for the first time he patted him. Then Lin Chi waited and waited, and after six years, one day suddenly he came out, stared into Lin Chi's eyes, and Lin Chi must have done this technique: LISTEN WHILE THE ULTIMATE MYSTICAL TEACHING IS IMPARTED. EYES STILL, WITHOUT WINKING, AT ONCE BECOME ABSOLUTELY FREE.
The master looked and used laughter as a medium. He was a great master. Really, words were not needed, just laughter. Suddenly there was that laughter, and something happened in Lin Chi. He bowed down, laughed, left, and told everyone that now he was no more, that he was liberated, free. He was no more: that is what liberation means. You are not liberated. You are liberated from yourself.
Lin Chi used to tell how it happened. For six years he was waiting. It was a long waiting, a patient waiting. He was just waiting on the verandah, and every day the master would come. And he would wait for the right moment -- when he would become ready, then the master would do something. Just by waiting for six years, you will fall into meditation. What can you do? He might have thought for a few days about old things, but if you do not give new food every day to the mind, by and by it stops. How long can you chew again and again on the same thing?
He might have been thinking about past things, and by and by, because no new stimulus was given, thinking stopped. He was not allowed to read, he was not allowed to talk, he was not allowed to move and meet anyone. He was just allowed to fulfill the basic bodily needs and wait on the verandah.
Silently he waited, day after day -- day in, day out, day and night. Summer would come and pass away, and winter would come and pass away, and there would be rain and it would pass away: he must have forgotten time. He must have forgotten for how many days he had been there. And then one day suddenly the master appeared, and he looked deeply into his eyes. Lin Chi's eyes must have suddenly become static, non-dynamic. This was the moment; six years were wasted for this. There was no movement of the eyes, because a single movement and he may miss. Everything must have become silent -- and then suddenly, the uproarious laughter: the master began laughing madly. That laughter must have been heard deep down at the very core; it must have reached.
So when Lin Chi was asked, "What happened to you?" he said, "When my master laughed, suddenly I recognized that the whole world is just a joke. In his laughter, this was the message: The whole world is just a joke, just a drama. An seriousness disappeared. And if the whole world is just a joke, who is in bondage? And who needs to be free?" So Lin Chi said, "There was no bondage at all. I was thinking that I was bound, and that is why I was trying to be free, and then suddenly the master laughed and the bondage fell away."
Sometimes it has happened with such things; you can never conceive of how it was possible. There are many Zen stories... One Zen master became aware when the gong was beaten. Just while he was hearing the gong being beaten, the sound, something shattered in him. One Zen nun became aware, enlightened, while she was carrying two pails of water. Suddenly the bamboo broke, and the earthen pots fell down. The sound, the breaking of the pots and the water flowing out of them, and she became enlightened.
What happened? You can break many pots, but nothing will happen. A right moment had come. She was coming back. Her master had said, "This night I am going to give you the secret, so go and take a bath, and bring two pails of water for me. I will take a bath and impart to you the secret for which you have been waiting." She must have felt ecstatic -- the moment had come. She took a bath, filled the pots, and carried them back.
It was a full-moon night, and just when she was passing on the footpath from the river to the ashram, suddenly the bamboo broke. When she reached, the master was waiting, and he looked at her and he said, "Now there is no need, it has happened. Now I have nothing to convey. You have already received."
That old nun used to say, "With that bamboo breaking, something broke in me -- something broke in me also. Those pails falling down, those broken earthen pots, and I saw my body broken. I looked at the moon. Everything was silent, serene, and I became silent and serene. From that moment, I have not been, I am no more." This is what liberation, freedom means.
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