Do Not Go To The Garden Of Flowers
Do not go to the garden of flowers!
Do not go to the garden of flowers!
O Friend! go not there;
In your body is the garden of flowers.
Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus,
and there gaze on the Infinite Beauty.
Plucking Your Eyebrows
Plucking your eyebrows,
Putting on mascara,
But will that help you
To see things anew?
The one who sees
Is changed into
The one who's seen
Only if one is
Salt and the other
Water. But you, says Kabir,
Are a dead
Lump of quartz.
O Slave, liberate yourself
O Slave, liberate yourself.
Where are you, and where's your home,
find it in your lifetime, man.
If you fail to wake up now,
you'll be helpless when the end comes.
Says Kabir, listen, O wise one,
the siege of Death is hard to withstand.
His Death In Benares
His death in Benares
Won't save the assassin
From certain hell,
Any more than a dip
In the Ganges will send
Frogs—or you—to paradise.
My home, says Kabir,
Is where there's no day, no night,
And no holy book in sight
To squat on our lives.
Many Hoped
Many hoped
but no one found
Hari's heart.
Where do the senses rest?
Where do the Ram-chanters go?
Where do the bright ones go?
Corpses: all gone
to the same place.
Drunk on the juice
of Ram's bliss,
Kabir says,
I've said and I've said,
I'm tired of saying.
Chewing slowly
Chewing slowly,
Only after I’d eaten
My grandmother,
Mother,
Son-in-law,
Two brothers-in-law,
And father-in-law
(His big family included)
In that order,
And had for dessert
The town’s inhabitants,
Did I find, says Kabir,
The beloved that I’ve become
One with.
The bhakti path
The bhakti path winds in a delicate way.
On this path there is no asking and no not asking.
The ego simply disappears the moment you touch
him.
The joy of looking for him is so immense that you
just dive in,
and coast around like a fish in the water.
If anyone needs a head, the lover leaps up to offer
his.
The self forgets itself
The self forgets itself
as a frantic dog in a glass temple
barks himself to death;
as a lion, seeing a form in the well,
leaps on the image;
as a rutting elephant sticks his tusk
in a crystal boulder.
The monkey has his fistful of sweets
and won't let go. So
from house to house
he gibbers.
Kabir says, parrot-on-a-pole:
who has caught you?
Within this Earthen Vessel
WITHIN this earthen vessel are bowers and groves,
and within it is the Creator:
Within this vessel are the seven oceans
and the unnumbered stars.
The touchstone and the jewel-appraiser are within;
and within this vessel the Eternal soundeth,
and the spring wells up.
Kabîr says:
'Listen to me, my Friend!
My beloved Lord is within.'
I won’t come
I won’t come
I won’t go
I won’t live
I won’t die
I’ll keep uttering
The name
And lose myself
In it
I’m bowl
And I’m platter
I’m man
And I’m woman
I’m grapefruit
And I’m sweet lime
I’m Hindu
And I’m Muslim
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