My body and my mind
My body and my mind...
My body and my mind are in depression because
You are not with me.
How much I love you and want you in my house!
When I hear people describe me as your bride I look sideways ashamed,
because I know that far inside us we have never met.
Then what is this love of mine?
I don’t really care about food, I don’t really care about sleep,
I am restless indoors and outdoors.
The bride wants her lover as much as a thirsty man wants water.
And how will I find someone who will take a message
to the Guest from me?
How restless Kabir is all the time!
How much he wants to see the Guest!
The Moon Shines In My Body
The moon shines in my body,
but my blind eyes cannot see it:
The moon is within me,
and so is the sun.
The unstruck drum of Eternity is sounded within me;
but my deaf ears cannot hear it.
So long as man clamours for the 'I' and the 'Mine',
his works are as naught:
When all love of the 'I' and the 'Mine' is dead,
then the work of the Lord is done.
For work has no other aim than the getting of knowledge:
When that comes, then work is put away.
The flower blooms for the fruit:
when the fruit comes, the flower withers.
The musk is in the deer,
but it seeks it not within itself:
[...] Read more
Friend, Wake Up! Why Do You Go On Sleeping?
Friend, wake up! Why do you go on sleeping?
The night is over— do you want to lose the day
the same way?
Other women who managed to get up early have
already found an elephant or a jewel...
so much was lost already while you slept...
and that was so unnecessary!
The one who loves you understood, but you did not.
You forgot to make a place in your bed next to you.
Instead you spent your life playing.
In your twenties you did not grow
because you did not know who your Lord was.
Wake up! Wake up! There's no one in your bed—
He left you during the long night.
Kabir says: The only woman awake is the woman
who has heard the flute!
Where Spring, the lord of the seasons
Where Spring, the lord of the seasons, reigneth,
there the Unstruck Music sounds of itself,
There the streams of light flow in all directions;
Few are the men who can cross to that shore!
There, where millions of Krishnas stand with hands folded,
Where millions of Vishnus bow their heads,
Where millions of Brahmas are reading the Vedas,
Where millions of Shivas are lost in contemplation,
Where millions of Indras dwell in the sky,
Where the demi-gods and the munis are unnumbered,
Where millions of Saraswatis, Goddess of Music, play on the veena
There is my Lord self-revealed:
and the scent of sandal and flowers dwells in those deeps.
O friend
O friend! hope for Him whilst you live
O friend! hope for Him whilst you live,
know whilst you live, understand whilst you live:
for in life deliverance abides.
If your bonds be not broken whilst living,
what hope of deliverance in death ?
It is but an empty dream, that the soul shall have union with Him
because it has passed from the body:
If He is found now, He is found then,
If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death.
If you have union now, you shall have it hereafter.
Bathe in the truth, know the true Guru,
have faith in the true Name!
Kabir says : 'It is the spirit of the quest which helps;
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The Lord Is In Me
The Lord is in me, and the Lord is in you,
As life is hidden in every seed.
So rubble your pride, my friend,
And look for Him within you.
When I sit in the heart of His world
A million suns blaze with light,
A burning blue sea spreads across the sky,
Life's turmoil falls quiet,
All the stains of suffering wash away.
Listen to the unstruck bells and drums!
Love is here; plunge into its rapture!
Rains pour down without water;
Rivers are streams of light.
How could I ever express
How blessed I feel
To revel in such vast ecstasy
In my own body?
[...] Read more
My Swan, Let us Fly
My swan, let us fly to that land
Where your Beloved lives forever.
That land has an up-ended well
Whose mouth, narrow as a thread,
The married soul draws water from
Without a rope or pitcher.
My swan, let us fly to that land
Where your Beloved lives forever.
Clouds never cluster there,
Yet it goes on and on raining.
Don’t keep squatting outside in the yard –
Come in! Get drenched without a body!
My swan, let us fly to that land
Where your Beloved lives forever.
That land is always soaked in moonlight;
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To what shore would you cross
To what shore would you cross,
O my heart?
there is no traveller before you,
there is no road:
Where is the movement,
where is the rest,
on that shore?
There is no water; no boat, no boatman, is there;
There is not so much as a rope to tow the boat, nor a man to draw it.
No earth, no sky, no time, no thing, is there: no shore, no ford!
There, there is neither body nor mind:
and where is the place that shall still the thirst of the soul?
You shall find naught in that emptiness.
Be strong, and enter into your own body:
for there your foothold is firm.
Consider it well,
O my heart!
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What Kind Of God?
What kind of God would He be
if He did not hear the
bangles ring on
an ant’s
wrist
as they move the earth
in their sweet
dance?
And what kind of God would He be
if a leaf’s prayer was not as precious to creation
as the prayer His own son sang
from the glorious depth
of his soul –
for us.
And what kind of God would He be
if the vote of millions in this world could sway Him
to change the divine
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Lamps burn in every house
Lamps burn in every house,
O blind one! and you cannot see them.
One day your eyes shall suddenly be opened,
and you shall see: and the fetters of death will fall from you.
There is nothing to say or to hear,
there is nothing to do:
it is he who is living, yet dead, who shall never die again.
Because he lives in solitude,
therefore the Yogi says that his home is far away.
Your Lord is near: yet you are climbing the palm-tree to seek Him.
The Brahman priest goes from house to house
and initiates people into faith:
Alas! the true fountain of life is beside you,
and you have set up a stone to worship.
Kabîr says: 'I may never express how sweet my Lord is.
Yoga and the telling of beads,
[...] Read more