Translated by Rabindranath Tagore<\/p>\r\n
Introduction by Evelyn Underhill<\/p>\r\n
New York, The Macmillan Company<\/p>\r\n
1915<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The poet Kab\u00eer, a selection from whose songs is here for the first time offered to English readers, is one of the most interesting personalities in the history of Indian mysticism. Born in or near Benares, of Mohammedan parents, and probably about the year 1440, he became in early life a disciple of the celebrated Hindu ascetic R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda. R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda had brought to Northern India the religious revival which R\u00e2m\u00e2nuja, the great twelfth-century reformer of Br\u00e2hmanism, had initiated in the South. This revival was in part a reaction against the increasing formalism of the orthodox cult, in part an assertion of the demands of the heart as against the intense intellectualism of the Ved\u00e2nta philosophy, the exaggerated monism which that philosophy proclaimed. It took in R\u00e2m\u00e2nuja's preaching the form of an ardent personal devotion to the God Vishnu, as representing the personal aspect of the Divine Nature: that mystical \"religion of love\" which everywhere makes its appearance at a certain level of spiritual culture, and which creeds and philosophies are powerless to kill.<\/p>\r\n
Though such a devotion is indigenous in Hinduism, and finds expression in many passages of the Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2, there was in its medi\u00e6val revival a large element of syncretism. R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda, through whom its spirit is said to have reached Kab\u00eer, appears to have been a man of wide religious culture, and full of missionary enthusiasm. Living at the moment in which the impassioned poetry and deep philosophy of the great Persian mystics, Att\u00e2r, S\u00e2d\u00ee, Jal\u00e2lu'dd\u00een R\u00fbm\u00ee, and H\u00e2fiz, were exercising a powerful influence on the religious thought of India, he dreamed of reconciling this intense and personal Mohammedan mysticism with the traditional theology of Br\u00e2hmanism. Some have regarded both these great religious leaders as influenced also by Christian thought and life: but as this is a point upon which competent authorities hold widely divergent views, its discussion is not attempted here. We may safely assert, however, that in their teachings, two\u2014perhaps three\u2014apparently antagonistic streams of intense spiritual culture met, as Jewish and Hellenistic thought met in the early Christian Church: and it is one of the outstanding characteristics of Kab\u00eer's genius that he was able in his poems to fuse them into one.<\/p>\r\n
A great religious reformer, the founder of a sect to which nearly a million northern Hindus still belong, it is yet supremely as a mystical poet that Kab\u00eer lives for us. His fate has been that of many revealers of Reality. A hater of religious exclusivism, and seeking above all things to initiate men into the liberty of the children of God, his followers have honoured his memory by re-erecting in a new place the barriers which he laboured to cast down. But his wonderful songs survive, the spontaneous expressions of his vision and his love; and it is by these, not by the didactic teachings associated with his name, that he makes his immortal appeal to the heart. In these poems a wide range of mystical emotion is brought into play: from the loftiest abstractions, the most otherworldly passion for the Infinite, to the most intimate and personal realization of God, expressed in homely metaphors and religious symbols drawn indifferently from Hindu and Mohammedan belief. It is impossible to say of their author that he was Br\u00e2hman or S\u00fbf\u00ee, Ved\u00e2ntist or Vaishnavite. He is, as he says himself, \"at once the child of Allah and of R\u00e2m.\" That Supreme Spirit Whom he knew and adored, and to Whose joyous friendship he sought to induct the souls of other men, transcended whilst He included all metaphysical categories, all credal definitions; yet each contributed something to the description of that Infinite and Simple Totality Who revealed Himself, according to their measure, to the faithful lovers of all creeds.<\/p>\r\n
Kab\u00eer's story is surrounded by contradictory legends, on none of which reliance can be placed. Some of these emanate from a Hindu, some from a Mohammedan source, and claim him by turns as a S\u00fbf\u00ee and a Br\u00e2hman saint. His name, however, is practically a conclusive proof of Moslem ancestry: and the most probable tale is that which represents him as the actual or adopted child of a Mohammedan weaver of Benares, the city in which the chief events of his life took place.<\/p>\r\n
In fifteenth-century Benares the syncretistic tendencies of Bhakti religion had reached full development. S\u00fbf\u00ees and Br\u00e2hmans appear to have met in disputation: the most spiritual members of both creeds frequenting the teachings of R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda, whose reputation was then at its height. The boy Kab\u00eer, in whom the religious passion was innate, saw in R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda his destined teacher; but knew how slight were the chances that a Hindu guru would accept a Mohammedan as disciple. He therefore hid upon the steps of the river Ganges, where R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda was accustomed to bathe; with the result that the master, coming down to the water, trod upon his body unexpectedly, and exclaimed in his astonishment, \"Ram! Ram!\"\u2014the name of the incarnation under which he worshipped God. Kab\u00eer then declared that he had received the mantra of initiation from R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda's lips, and was by it admitted to discipleship. In spite of the protests of orthodox Br\u00e2hmans and Mohammedans, both equally annoyed by this contempt of theological landmarks, he persisted in his claim; thus exhibiting in action that very principle of religious synthesis which R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda had sought to establish in thought. R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda appears to have accepted him, and though Mohammedan legends speak of the famous S\u00fbf\u00ee P\u00eer, Takk\u00ee of Jhans\u00ee, as Kab\u00eer's master in later life, the Hindu saint is the only human teacher to whom in his songs he acknowledges indebtedness.<\/p>\r\n
The little that we know of Kab\u00eer's life contradicts many current ideas concerning the Oriental mystic. Of the stages of discipline through which he passed, the manner in which his spiritual genius developed, we are completely ignorant. He seems to have remained for years the disciple of R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda, joining in the theological and philosophical arguments which his master held with all the great Mullahs and Br\u00e2hmans of his day; and to this source we may perhaps trace his acquaintance with the terms of Hindu and S\u00fbf\u00ee philosophy. He may or may not have submitted to the traditional education of the Hindu or the S\u00fbf\u00ee contemplative: it is clear, at any rate, that he never adopted the life of the professional ascetic, or retired from the world in order to devote himself to bodily mortifications and the exclusive pursuit of the contemplative life. Side by side with his interior life of adoration, its artistic expression in music and words\u2014for he was a skilled musician as well as a poet\u2014he lived the sane and diligent life of the Oriental craftsman. All the legends agree on this point: that Kab\u00eer was a weaver, a simple and unlettered man, who earned his living at the loom. Like Paul the tentmaker, Boehme the cobbler, Bunyan the tinker, Tersteegen the ribbon-maker, he knew how to combine vision and industry; the work of his hands helped rather than hindered the impassioned meditation of his heart. Hating mere bodily austerities, he was no ascetic, but a married man, the father of a family\u2014a circumstance which Hindu legends of the monastic type vainly attempt to conceal or explain\u2014and it was from out of the heart of the common life that he sang his rapturous lyrics of divine love. Here his works corroborate the traditional story of his life. Again and again he extols the life of home, the value and reality of diurnal existence, with its opportunities for love and renunciation; pouring contempt\u2014upon the professional sanctity of the Yogi, who \"has a great beard and matted locks, and looks like a goat,\" and on all who think it necessary to flee a world pervaded by love, joy, and beauty\u2014the proper theatre of man's quest\u2014in order to find that One Reality Who has \"spread His form of love throughout all the world.\" [Footnote: Cf. Poems Nos. XXI, XL, XLIII, LXVI, LXXVI.]<\/p>\r\n
It does not need much experience of ascetic literature to recognize the boldness and originality of this attitude in such a time and place. From the point of view of orthodox sanctity, whether Hindu or Mohammedan, Kab\u00eer was plainly a heretic; and his frank dislike of all institutional religion, all external observance\u2014which was as thorough and as intense as that of the Quakers themselves\u2014completed, so far as ecclesiastical opinion was concerned, his reputation as a dangerous man. The \"simple union\" with Divine Reality which he perpetually extolled, as alike the duty and the joy of every soul, was independent both of ritual and of bodily austerities; the God whom he proclaimed was \"neither in Kaaba nor in Kail\u00e2sh.\" Those who sought Him needed not to go far; for He awaited discovery everywhere, more accessible to \"the washerwoman and the carpenter\" than to the self\u2014righteous holy man. [Footnote: Poems I, II, XLI.] Therefore the whole apparatus of piety, Hindu and Moslem alike\u2014the temple and mosque, idol and holy water, scriptures and priests\u2014were denounced by this inconveniently clear-sighted poet as mere substitutes for reality; dead things intervening between the soul and its love\u2014<\/p>\r\n
\/*\r\nThe images are all lifeless, they cannot speak:\r\nI know, for I have cried aloud to them.\r\nThe Pur\u00e2na and the Koran are mere words:\r\nlifting up the curtain, I have seen.\r\n*\/\r\n[Footnote: Poems XLII, LXV, LXVII.]<\/p>\r\n
This sort of thing cannot be tolerated by any organized church; and it is not surprising that Kab\u00eer, having his head-quarters in Benares, the very centre of priestly influence, was subjected to considerable persecution. The well-known legend of the beautiful courtesan sent by Br\u00e2hmans to tempt his virtue, and converted, like the Magdalen, by her sudden encounter with the initiate of a higher love, pre serves the memory of the fear and dislike with which he was regarded by the ecclesiastical powers. Once at least, after the performance of a supposed miracle of healing, he was brought before the Emperor Sikandar Lodi, and charged with claiming the possession of divine powers. But Sikandar Lodi, a ruler of considerable culture, was tolerant of the eccentricities of saintly persons belonging to his own faith. Kab\u00eer, being of Mohammedan birth, was outside the authority of the Br\u00e2hmans, and technically classed with the S\u00fbf\u00ees, to whom great theological latitude was allowed. Therefore, though he was banished in the interests of peace from Benares, his life was spared. This seems to have happened in 1495, when he was nearly sixty years of age; it is the last event in his career of which we have definite knowledge. Thenceforth he appears to have moved about amongst various cities of northern India, the centre of a group of disciples; continuing in exile that life of apostle and poet of love to which, as he declares in one of his songs, he was destined \"from the beginning of time.\" In 1518, an old man, broken in health, and with hands so feeble that he could no longer make the music which he loved, he died at Maghar near Gorakhpur.<\/p>\r\n
A beautiful legend tells us that after his death his Mohammedan and Hindu disciples disputed the possession of his body; which the Mohammedans wished to bury, the Hindus to burn. As they argued together, Kab\u00eer appeared before them, and told them to lift the shroud and look at that which lay beneath. They did so, and found in the place of the corpse a heap of flowers; half of which were buried by the Mohammedans at Maghar, and half carried by the Hindus to the holy city of Benares to be burned\u2014fitting conclusion to a life which had made fragrant the most beautiful doctrines of two great creeds.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The poetry of mysticism might be defined on the one hand as a temperamental reaction to the vision of Reality: on the other, as a form of prophecy. As it is the special vocation of the mystical consciousness to mediate between two orders, going out in loving adoration towards God and coming home to tell the secrets of Eternity to other men; so the artistic self-expression of this consciousness has also a double character. It is love-poetry, but love-poetry which is often written with a missionary intention.<\/p>\r\n
Kab\u00eer's songs are of this kind: out-births at once of rapture and of charity. Written in the popular Hindi, not in the literary tongue, they were deliberately addressed\u2014like the vernacular poetry of Jacopone da Tod\u00ec and Richard Rolle\u2014to the people rather than to the professionally religious class; and all must be struck by the constant employment in them of imagery drawn from the common life, the universal experience. It is by the simplest metaphors, by constant appeals to needs, passions, relations which all men understand\u2014the bridegroom and bride, the guru and disciple, the pilgrim, the farmer, the migrant bird\u2014 that he drives home his intense conviction of the reality of the soul's intercourse with the Transcendent. There are in his universe no fences between the \"natural\" and \"supernatural\" worlds; everything is a part of the creative Play of God, and therefore\u2014even in its humblest details\u2014capable of revealing the Player's mind.<\/p>\r\n
This willing acceptance of the here-and-now as a means of representing supernal realities is a trait common to the greatest mystics. For them, when they have achieved at last the true theopathetic state, all aspects of the universe possess equal authority as sacramental declarations of the Presence of God; and their fearless employment of homely and physical symbols\u2014often startling and even revolting to the unaccustomed taste\u2014is in direct proportion to the exaltation of their spiritual life. The works of the great S\u00fbf\u00ees, and amongst the Christians of Jacopone da Tod\u00ec, Ruysbroeck, Boehme, abound in illustrations of this law. Therefore we must not be surprised to find in Kab\u00eer's songs\u2014his desperate attempts to communicate his ecstasy and persuade other men to share it\u2014a constant juxtaposition of concrete and metaphysical language; swift alternations between the most intensely anthropomorphic, the most subtly philosophical, ways of apprehending man's communion with the Divine. The need for this alternation, and its entire naturalness for the mind which employs it, is rooted in his concept, or vision, of the Nature of God; and unless we make some attempt to grasp this, we shall not go far in our understanding of his poems.<\/p>\r\n
Kab\u00eer belongs to that small group of supreme mystics\u2014amongst whom St. Augustine, Ruysbroeck, and the S\u00fbf\u00ee poet Jal\u00e2lu'dd\u00een R\u00fbm\u00ee are perhaps the chief\u2014who have achieved that which we might call the synthetic vision of God. These have resolved the perpetual opposition between the personal and impersonal, the transcendent and immanent, static and dynamic aspects of the Divine Nature; between the Absolute of philosophy and the \"sure true Friend\" of devotional religion. They have done this, not by taking these apparently incompatible concepts one after the other; but by ascending to a height of spiritual intuition at which they are, as Ruysbroeck said, \"melted and merged in the Unity,\" and perceived as the completing opposites of a perfect Whole. This proceeding entails for them\u2014and both Kab\u00eer and Ruysbroeck expressly acknowledge it\u2014a universe of three orders: Becoming, Being, and that which is \"More than Being,\" i.e., God. [Footnote: Nos. VII and XLIX.] God is here felt to be not the final abstraction, but the one actuality. He inspires, supports, indeed inhabits, both the durational, conditioned, finite world of Becoming and the unconditioned, non-successional, infinite world of Being; yet utterly transcends them both. He is the omnipresent Reality, the \"All-pervading\" within Whom \"the worlds are being told like beads.\" In His personal aspect He is the \"beloved Fakir,\" teaching and companioning each soul. Considered as Immanent Spirit, He is \"the Mind within the mind.\" But all these are at best partial aspects of His nature, mutually corrective: as the Persons in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity\u2014to which this theological diagram bears a striking resemblance\u2014represent different and compensating experiences of the Divine Unity within which they are resumed. As Ruysbroeck discerned a plane of reality upon which \"we can speak no more of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but only of One Being, the very substance of the Divine Persons\"; so Kab\u00eer says that \"beyond both the limited and the limitless is He, the Pure Being.\" [Footnote: No. VII.]<\/p>\r\n
Brahma, then, is the Ineffable Fact compared with which \"the distinction of the Conditioned from the Unconditioned is but a word\": at once the utterly transcendent One of Absolutist philosophy, and the personal Lover of the individual soul\u2014\"common to all and special to each,\" as one Christian mystic has it. The need felt by Kab\u00eer for both these ways of describing Reality is a proof of the richness and balance of his spiritual experience; which neither cosmic nor anthropomorphic symbols, taken alone, could express. More absolute than the Absolute, more personal than the human mind, Brahma therefore exceeds whilst He includes all the concepts of philosophy, all the passionate intuitions of the heart. He is the Great Affirmation, the font of energy, the source of life and love, the unique satisfaction of desire. His creative word is the Om<\/i> or \"Everlasting Yea.\" The negative philosophy which strips from the Divine Nature all Its attributes and defining Him only by that which He is not\u2014reduces Him to an \"Emptiness,\" is abhorrent to this most vital of poets.\u2014Brahma, he says, \"may never be found in abstractions.\" He is the One Love who Pervades the world., discerned in His fullness only by the eyes of love; and those who know Him thus share, though they may never tell, the joyous and ineffable secret of the universe. [Footnote: Nos. VII, XXVI, LXXVI, XC.]<\/p>\r\n
Now Kab\u00eer, achieving this synthesis between the personal and cosmic aspects of the Divine Nature, eludes the three great dangers which threaten mystical religion.<\/p>\r\n
First, he escapes the excessive emotionalism, the tendency to an exclusively anthropomorphic devotion, which results from an unrestricted cult of Divine Personality, especially under an incarnational form; seen in India in the exaggerations of Krishna worship, in Europe in the sentimental extravagances of certain Christian saints.<\/p>\r\n
Next, he is protected from the soul-destroying conclusions of pure monism, inevitable if its logical implications are pressed home: that is, the identity of substance between God and the soul, with its corollary of the total absorption of that soul in the Being of God as the goal of the spiritual life. For the thorough-going monist the soul, in so far as it is real, is substantially identical with God; and the true object of existence is the making patent of this latent identity, the realization which finds expression in the Ved\u00e2ntist formula \"That art thou.\" But Kab\u00eer says that Brahma and the creature are \"ever distinct, yet ever united\"; that the wise man knows the spiritual as well as the material world to \"be no more than His footstool.\" [Footnote: Nos. VII and IX.] The soul's union with Him is a love union, a mutual inhabitation; that essentially dualistic relation which all mystical religion expresses, not a self-mergence which leaves no place for personality. This eternal distinction, the mysterious union-in-separateness of God and the soul, is a necessary doctrine of all sane mysticism; for no scheme which fails to find a place for it can represent more than a fragment of that soul's intercourse with the spiritual world. Its affirmation was one of the distinguishing features of the Vaishnavite reformation preached by R\u00e2m\u00e2nuja; the principle of which had descended through R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda to Kab\u00eer.<\/p>\r\n
Last, the warmly human and direct apprehension of God as the supreme Object of love, the soul's comrade, teacher, and bridegroom, which is so passionately and frequently expressed in Kab\u00eer's poems, balances and controls those abstract tendencies which are inherent in the metaphysical side of his vision of Reality: and prevents it from degenerating into that sterile worship of intellectual formul\u00e6 which became the curse of the Ved\u00e2ntist school. For the mere intellectualist, as for the mere pietist, he has little approbation. [Footnote: Cf. especially Nos. LIX, LXVII, LXXV, XC, XCI.] Love is throughout his \"absolute sole Lord\": the unique source of the more abundant life which he enjoys, and the common factor which unites the finite and infinite worlds. All is soaked in love: that love which he described in almost Johannine language as the \"Form of God.\" The whole of creation is the Play of the Eternal Lover; the living, changing, growing expression of Brahma's love and joy. As these twin passions preside over the generation of human life, so \"beyond the mists of pleasure and pain\" Kab\u00eer finds them governing the creative acts of God. His manifestation is love; His activity is joy. Creation springs from one glad act of affirmation: the Everlasting Yea, perpetually uttered within the depths of the Divine Nature. [Footnote: Nos. XVII, XXVI, LXXVI, LXXXII.] In accordance with this concept of the universe as a Love-Game which eternally goes forward, a progressive manifestation of Brahma\u2014one of the many notions which he adopted from the common stock of Hindu religious ideas, and illuminated by his poetic genius\u2014movement, rhythm, perpetual change, forms an integral part of Kab\u00eer's vision of Reality. Though the Eternal and Absolute is ever present to his consciousness, yet his concept of the Divine Nature is essentially dynamic. It is by the symbols of motion that he most often tries to convey it to us: as in his constant reference to dancing, or the strangely modern picture of that Eternal Swing of the Universe which is \"held by the cords of love.\" [Footnote: No. XVI.]<\/p>\r\n
It is a marked characteristic of mystical literature that the great contemplatives, in their effort to convey to us the nature of their communion with the supersensuous, are inevitably driven to employ some form of sensuous imagery: coarse and inaccurate as they know such imagery to be, even at the best. Our normal human consciousness is so completely committed to dependence on the senses, that the fruits of intuition itself are instinctively referred to them. In that intuition it seems to the mystics that all the dim cravings and partial apprehensions of sense find perfect fulfilment. Hence their constant declaration that they see<\/i> the uncreated light, they hear<\/i> the celestial melody, they taste<\/i> the sweetness of the Lord, they know an ineffable fragrance, they feel the very contact of love. \"Him verily seeing and fully feeling, Him spiritually hearing and Him delectably smelling and sweetly swallowing,\" as Julian of Norwich has it. In those amongst them who develop psycho-sensorial automatisms, these parallels between sense and spirit may present themselves to consciousness in the form of hallucinations: as the light seen by Suso, the music heard by Rolle, the celestial perfumes which filled St. Catherine of Siena's cell, the physical wounds felt by St. Francis and St. Teresa. These are excessive dramatizations of the symbolism under which the mystic tends instinctively to represent his spiritual intuition to the surface consciousness. Here, in the special sense-perception which he feels to be most expressive of Reality, his peculiar idiosyncrasies come out.<\/p>\r\n
Now Kab\u00eer, as we might expect in one whose reactions to the spiritual order were so wide and various, uses by turn all the symbols of sense. He tells us that he has \"seen without sight\" the effulgence of Brahma, tasted the divine nectar, felt the ecstatic contact of Reality, smelt the fragrance of the heavenly flowers. But he was essentially a poet and musician: rhythm and harmony were to him the garments of beauty and truth. Hence in his lyrics he shows himself to be, like Richard Rolle, above all things a musical mystic. Creation, he says again and again, is full of music: it is<\/i> music. At the heart of the Universe \"white music is blossoming\": love weaves the melody, whilst renunciation beats the time. It can be heard in the home as well as in the heavens; discerned by the ears of common men as well as by the trained senses of the ascetic. Moreover, the body of every man is a lyre on which Brahma, \"the source of all music,\" plays. Everywhere Kab\u00eer discerns the \"Unstruck Music of the Infinite\"\u2014that celestial melody which the angel played to St. Francis, that ghostly symphony which filled the soul of Rolle with ecstatic joy. [Footnote: Nos. XVII, XVIII, XXXIX, XLI, LIV, LXXVI, LXXXIII, LXXXIX, XCVII.] The one figure which he adopts from the Hindu Pantheon and constantly uses, is that of Krishna the Divine Flute Player. [Footnote: Nos. L, LIII, LXVIII.] He sees the supernal music, too, in its visual embodiment, as rhythmical movement: that mysterious dance of the universe before the face of Brahma, which is at once an act of worship and an expression of the infinite rapture of the Immanent God.'<\/p>\r\n
Yet in this wide and rapturous vision of the universe Kab\u00eer never loses touch with diurnal existence, never forgets the common life. His feet are firmly planted upon earth; his lofty and passionate apprehensions are perpetually controlled by the activity of a sane and vigorous intellect, by the alert commonsense so often found in persons of real mystical genius. The constant insistence on simplicity and directness, the hatred of all abstractions and philosophizings,[Footnote: Nos. XXVI, XXXII, LXXVI] the ruthless criticism of external religion: these are amongst his most marked characteristics. God is the Root whence all manifestations, \"material\" and \"spiritual,\" alike proceed; [Footnote: Nos. LXXV, LXXVIII, LXXX, XC.] and God is the only need of man\u2014\"happiness shall be yours when you come to the Root.\" [Footnote: No. LXXX.] Hence to those who keep their eye on the \"one thing needful,\" denominations, creeds, ceremonies, the conclusions of philosophy, the disciplines of asceticism, are matters of comparative indifference. They represent merely the different angles from which the soul may approach that simple union with Brahma which is its goal; and are useful only in so faras they contribute to this consummation. So thorough-going is Kab\u00eer's eclecticism, that he seems by turns Ved\u00e2ntist and Vaishnavite, Pantheist and Transcendentalist, Br\u00e2hman and S\u00fbf\u00ee. In the effort to tell the truth about that ineffable apprehension, so vast and yet so near, which controls his life, he seizes and twines together\u2014as he might have woven together contrasting threads upon his loom\u2014symbols and ideas drawn from the most violent and conflicting philosophies and faiths. All are needed, if he is ever to suggest the character of that One whom the Upanishad called \"the Sun-coloured Being who is beyond this Darkness\": as all the colours of the spectrum are needed if we would demonstrate the simple richness of white light. In thus adapting traditional materials to his own use he follows a method common amongst the mystics; who seldom exhibit any special love for originality of form. They will pour their wine into almost any vessel that comes to hand: generally using by preference\u2014and lifting to new levels of beauty and significance\u2014the religious or philosophic formul\u00e6 current in their own day. Thus we find that some of Kab\u00eer's finest poems have as their subjects the commonplaces of Hindu philosophy and religion: the L\u00eel\u00e2 or Sport of God, the Ocean of Bliss, the Bird of the Soul, M\u00e2y\u00e2, the Hundred-petalled Lotus, and the \"Formless Form.\" Many, again, are soaked in S\u00fbf\u00ee imagery and feeling. Others use as their material the ordinary surroundings and incidents of Indian life: the temple bells, the ceremony of the lamps, marriage, suttee, pilgrimage, the characters of the seasons; all felt by him in their mystical aspect, as sacraments of the soul's relation with Brahma. In many of these a particularly beautiful and intimate feeling for Nature is shown. [Footnote: Nos. XV, XXIII, LXVII, LXXXVII, XCVII.]<\/p>\r\n
In the collection of songs here translated there will be found examples which illustrate nearly every aspect of Kab\u00eer's thought, and all the fluctuations of the mystic's emotion: the ecstasy, the despair, the still beatitude, the eager self-devotion, the flashes of wide illumination, the moments of intimate love. His wide and deep vision of the universe, the \"Eternal Sport\" of creation (LXXXII), the worlds being \"told like beads\" within the Being of God (XIV, XVI, XVII, LXXVI), is here seen balanced by his lovely and delicate sense of intimate communion with the Divine Friend, Lover, Teacher of the soul (X, XI, XXIII, XXXV, LI, LXXXV, LXXXVI, LXXXVIII, XCII, XCIII; above all, the beautiful poem XXXIV). As these apparently paradoxical views of Reality are resolved in Br\u00e2hma, so all other opposites are reconciled in Him: bondage and liberty, love and renunciation, pleasure and pain (XVII, XXV, XL, LXXIX). Union with Him is the one thing that matters to the soul, its destiny and its need (LI, I, II, LIV, LXX, LXXIV, XCIII, XCVI); and this union, this discovery of God, is the simplest and most natural of all things, if we would but grasp it (XLI, XLVI, LVI, LXXII, LXXVI, LXXVIII, XCVII). The union, however, is brought about by love, not by knowledge or ceremonial observances (XXXVIII, LIV, LV, LIX, XCI); and the apprehension which that union confers is ineffable\u2014\"neither This nor That,\" as Ruysbroeck has it (IX, XLVI, LXXVI). Real worship and communion is in Spirit and in Truth (XL, XLI, LVI, LXIII, LXV, LXX), therefore idolatry is an insult to the Divine Lover (XLII, LXIX) and the devices of professional sanctity are useless apart from charity and purity of soul (LIV, LXV, LXVI). Since all things, and especially the heart of man, are God-inhabited, God-possessed (XXVI, LVI, LXXVI, LXXXIX, XCVII), He may best be found in the here-and-now: in the normal. human, bodily existence, the \"mud\" of material life (III, IV, VI, XXI, XXXIX, XL, XLIII, XLVIII, LXXII). \"We can reach the goal without crossing the road\" (LXXVI)\u2014not the cloister but the home is the proper theatre of man's efforts: and if he cannot find God there, he need not hope for success by going farther afield. \"In the home is reality.\" There love and detachment, bondage and freedom, joy and pain play by turns upon the soul; and it is from their conflict that the Unstruck Music of the Infinite proceeds. Kab\u00eer says: \"None but Brahma can evoke its melodies.\"<\/p>\r\n
\"This version of Kab\u00eer's songs is chiefly the work of Mr. Rab\u00eendran\u00e2th Tagore, the trend of whose mystical genius makes him\u2014as all who read these poems will see\u2014a peculiarly sympathetic interpreter of Kab\u00eer's vision and thought. It has been based upon the printed Hind\u00ee text with Bengali translation of Mr. Kshiti Mohan Sen; who has gathered from many sources\u2014sometimes from books and manuscripts, sometimes from the lips of wandering ascetics and minstrels\u2014a large collection of poems and hymns to which Kab\u00eer's name is attached, and carefully sifted the authentic songs from the many spurious works now attributed to him. These painstaking labours alone have made the present undertaking possible.<\/p>\r\n
We have also had before us a manuscript English translation of 116 songs made by Mr. Ajit Kum\u00e2r Chakravarty from Mr. Kshiti Mohan Sen's text, and a prose essay upon Kab\u00eer from the same hand. From these we have derived great assistance. A considerable number of readings from the translation have been adopted by us; whilst several of the facts mentioned in the essay have been incorporated into this introduction. Our most grateful thanks are due to Mr. Ajit Kumar Chakravarty for the extremely generous and unselfish manner in which he has placed his work at our disposal.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The reference of the headlines of the poems is to:<\/p>\r\n
S\u00e2ntiniketana; Kab\u00eer by Sr\u00ee Kshitimohan Sen, 4 parts,\r\nBrahmachary\u00e2srama, Bolpur, 1910-1911.<\/p>\r\n
For some assistance in normalizing the transliteration we are indebted to Professor J. F. Blumhardt.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 13. mo ko kah\u00e2n dh\u00fbnro bande<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O servant, where dost thou seek Me?\r\nLo! I am beside thee.\r\nI am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor\r\nin Kailash:\r\nNeither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and\r\nrenunciation.\r\nIf thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt\r\nmeet Me in a moment of time.\r\nKab\u00eer says, \"O Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 16. Santan j\u00e2t na p\u00fbcho nirguniy\u00e2n<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0It is needless to ask of a saint the caste to which he belongs;\r\nFor the priest, the warrior. the tradesman, and all the\r\nthirty-six castes, alike are seeking for God.\r\nIt is but folly to ask what the caste of a saint may be;\r\nThe barber has sought God, the washerwoman, and the carpenter\u2014\r\nEven Raidas was a seeker after God.\r\nThe Rishi Swapacha was a tanner by caste.\r\nHindus and Moslems alike have achieved that End, where remains no\r\nmark of distinction.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 57. s\u00e2dho bh\u00e2\u00ee, j\u00eeval h\u00ee karo \u00e2s'\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O friend! hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live,\r\nunderstand whilst you live: for in life deliverance abides.\r\nIf your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of\r\ndeliverance in death?\r\nIt is but an empty dream, that the soul shall have union with Him\r\nbecause it has passed from the body:\r\nIf He is found now, He is found then,\r\nIf not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death.\r\nIf you have union now, you shall have it hereafter.\r\nBathe in the truth, know the true Guru, have faith in the true\r\nName!\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"It is the Spirit of the quest which helps; I am the\r\nslave of this Spirit of the quest.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 58. b\u00e2go n\u00e2 j\u00e2 re n\u00e2 j\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Do not go to the garden of flowers!\r\nO Friend! go not there;\r\nIn your body is the garden of flowers.\r\nTake your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there\r\ngaze on the Infinite Beauty.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 63. avadh\u00fb, m\u00e2y\u00e2 taj\u00ee na j\u00e2y<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Tell me, Brother, how can I renounce Maya?\r\nWhen I gave up the tying of ribbons, still I tied my garment\r\nabout me:\r\nWhen I gave up tying my garment, still I covered my body in its\r\nfolds.\r\nSo, when I give up passion, I see that anger remains;\r\nAnd when I renounce anger, greed is with me still;\r\nAnd when greed is vanquished, pride and vainglory remain;\r\nWhen the mind is detached and casts Maya away, still it clings to\r\nthe letter.\r\nKab\u00eer says, \"Listen to me, dear Sadhu! the true path is rarely\r\nfound.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 83. cand\u00e2 jhalkai yahi ghat m\u00e2h\u00een<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The moon shines in my body, but my blind eyes cannot see it:\r\nThe moon is within me, and so is the sun.\r\nThe unstruck drum of Eternity is sounded within me; but my deaf\r\nears cannot hear it.<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0So long as man clamours for the I<\/i> and the Mine<\/i>,\r\nhis works are as naught:\r\nWhen all love of the I<\/i> and the Mine<\/i> is dead, then\r\nthe work of the Lord is done.\r\nFor work has no other aim than the getting of knowledge:\r\nWhen that comes, then work is put away.<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The flower blooms for the fruit: when the fruit comes, the flower\r\nwithers.\r\nThe musk is in the deer, but it seeks it not within itself: it\r\nwanders in quest of grass.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 85. S\u00e2dho, Brahm alakh lakh\u00e2y\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0When He Himself reveals Himself, Brahma brings into manifestation\r\nThat which can never be seen.\r\nAs the seed is in the plant, as the shade is in the tree, as the\r\nvoid is in the sky, as infinite forms are in the void\u2014\r\nSo from beyond the Infinite, the Infinite comes; and from the\r\nInfinite the finite extends.<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The creature is in Brahma, and Brahma is in the creature: they\r\nare ever distinct, yet ever united.\r\nHe Himself is the tree, the seed, and the germ.\r\nHe Himself is the flower, the fruit, and the shade.\r\nHe Himself is the sun, the light, and the lighted.\r\nHe Himself is Brahma, creature, and Maya.\r\nHe Himself is the manifold form, the infinite space;\r\nHe is the breath, the word, and the meaning.\r\nHe Himself is the limit and the limitless: and beyond both the\r\nlimited and the limitless is He, the Pure Being.\r\nHe is the Immanent Mind in Brahma and in the creature.<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The Supreme Soul is seen within the soul,\r\nThe Point is seen within the Supreme Soul,\r\nAnd within the Point, the reflection is seen again.\r\nKab\u00eer is blest because he has this supreme vision!<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 101. is ghat antar b\u00e2g bag\u00eece<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Within this earthen vessel are bowers and groves, and within it\r\nis the Creator:\r\nWithin this vessel are the seven oceans and the unnumbered stars.\r\nThe touchstone and the jewel-appraiser are within;\r\nAnd within this vessel the Eternal soundeth, and the spring wells\r\nup.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Listen to me, my Friend! My beloved Lord is within.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 104. ais\u00e2 lo nah\u00een tais\u00e2 lo<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O How may I ever express that secret word?\r\nO how can I say He is not like this, and He is like that?\r\nIf I say that He is within me, the universe is ashamed:\r\nIf I say that He is without me, it is falsehood.\r\nHe makes the inner and the outer worlds to be indivisibly one;\r\nThe conscious and the unconscious, both are His footstools.\r\nHe is neither manifest nor hidden, He is neither revealed nor\r\nunrevealed:\r\nThere are no words to tell that which He is.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 121. tohi mori lagan lag\u00e2ye re phak\u00eer w\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0To Thee Thou hast drawn my love, O Fakir!\r\nI was sleeping in my own chamber, and Thou didst awaken me;\r\nstriking me with Thy voice, O Fakir!\r\nI was drowning in the deeps of the ocean of this world, and\r\nThou didst save me: upholding me with Thine arm, O Fakir!\r\nOnly one word and no second\u2014and Thou hast made me tear off all\r\nmy bonds, O Fakir!\r\nKab\u00eer says, \"Thou hast united Thy heart to my heart, O Fakir!\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 131. nis' din khelat rah\u00ee sakhiy\u00e2n sang<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0I played day and night with my comrades, and now I am greatly\r\nafraid.\r\nSo high is my Lord's palace, my heart trembles to mount its\r\nstairs: yet I must not be shy, if I would enjoy His love.\r\nMy heart must cleave to my Lover; I must withdraw my veil, and\r\nmeet Him with all my body:\r\nMine eyes must perform the ceremony of the lamps of love.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Listen to me, friend: he understands who loves. If\r\nyou feel not love's longing for your Beloved One, it is vain\r\nto adorn your body, vain to put unguent on your eyelids.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 24. hams\u00e2, kaho pur\u00e2tan v\u00e2t<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Tell me, O Swan, your ancient tale.\r\nFrom what land do you come, O Swan? to what shore will you fly?\r\nWhere would you take your rest, O Swan, and what do you seek?<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Even this morning, O Swan, awake, arise, follow me!\r\nThere is a land where no doubt nor sorrow have rule: where the\r\nterror of Death is no more.\r\nThere the woods of spring are a-bloom, and the fragrant scent \"He\r\nis I\" is borne on the wind:\r\nThere the bee of the heart is deeply immersed, and desires no\r\nother joy.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 37. angadhiy\u00e2 dev\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O Lord Increate, who will serve Thee?\r\nEvery votary offers his worship to the God of his own creation:\r\neach day he receives service\u2014\r\nNone seek Him, the Perfect: Brahma, the Indivisible Lord.\r\nThey believe in ten Avatars; but no Avatar can be the Infinite\r\nSpirit, for he suffers the results of his deeds:\r\nThe Supreme One must be other than this.\r\nThe Yogi, the Sanyasi, the Ascetics, are disputing one with\r\nanother:\r\nKab\u00eer says, \"O brother! he who has seen that radiance of love,\r\nhe is saved.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 56. dariy\u00e2 k\u00ee lahar dariy\u00e2o hai j\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The river and its waves are one\r\nsurf: where is the difference between the river and its waves?\r\nWhen the wave rises, it is the water; and when it falls, it is\r\nthe same water again. Tell me, Sir, where is the distinction?\r\nBecause it has been named as wave, shall it no longer be\r\nconsidered as water?<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Within the Supreme Brahma, the worlds are being told like beads:\r\nLook upon that rosary with the eyes of wisdom.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 57. j\u00e2nh khelat vasant ritur\u00e2j<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Where Spring, the lord of the seasons, reigneth, there the\r\nUnstruck Music sounds of itself,\r\nThere the streams of light flow in all directions;\r\nFew are the men who can cross to that shore!\r\nThere, where millions of Krishnas stand with hands folded,\r\nWhere millions of Vishnus bow their heads,\r\nWhere millions of Brahm\u00e2s are reading the Vedas,\r\nWhere millions of Shivas are lost in contemplation,\r\nWhere millions of Indras dwell in the sky,\r\nWhere the demi-gods and the munis are unnumbered,\r\nWhere millions of Saraswatis, Goddess of Music, play on the vina\u2014\r\nThere is my Lord self-revealed: and the scent of sandal and\r\nflowers dwells in those deeps.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 59. j\u00e2nh, cet acet khambh d\u00f4\u00fb<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Between the poles of the conscious and the unconscious, there has\r\nthe mind made a swing:\r\nThereon hang all beings and all worlds, and that swing never\r\nceases its sway.\r\nMillions of beings are there: the sun and the moon in their\r\ncourses are there:\r\nMillions of ages pass, and the swing goes on.\r\nAll swing! the sky and the earth and the air and the water; and\r\nthe Lord Himself taking form:\r\nAnd the sight of this has made Kab\u00eer a servant.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 61. grah candra tapan jot varat hai<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The light of the sun, the moon, and the stars shines bright:\r\nThe melody of love swells forth, and the rhythm of love's\r\ndetachment beats the time.\r\nDay and night, the chorus of music fills the heavens; and Kab\u00eer\r\nsays\r\n\"My Beloved One gleams like the lightning flash in the sky.\"<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Do you know how the moments perform their adoration?\r\nWaving its row of lamps, the universe sings in worship day and\r\nnight,\r\nThere are the hidden banner and the secret canopy:\r\nThere the sound of the unseen bells is heard.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"There adoration never ceases; there the Lord of the\r\nUniverse sitteth on His throne.\"\r\nThe whole world does its works and commits its errors: but few\r\nare the lovers who know the Beloved.\r\nThe devout seeker is he who mingles in his heart the double\r\ncurrents of love and detachment, like the mingling of the\r\nstreams of Ganges and Jumna;\r\nIn his heart the sacred water flows day and night; and thus the\r\nround of births and deaths is brought to an end.<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Behold what wonderful rest is in the Supreme Spirit! and he\r\nenjoys it, who makes himself meet for it.\r\nHeld by the cords of love, the swing of the Ocean of Joy sways to\r\nand fro; and a mighty sound breaks forth in song.\r\nSee what a lotus blooms there without water! and Kab\u00eer says\r\n\"My heart's bee drinks its nectar.\"\r\nWhat a wonderful lotus it is, that blooms at the heart of the\r\nspinning wheel of the universe! Only a few pure souls know of\r\nits true delight.\r\nMusic is all around it, and there the heart partakes of the joy\r\nof the Infinite Sea.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Dive thou into that Ocean of sweetness: thus let all\r\nerrors of life and of death flee away.\"<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Behold how the thirst of the five senses is quenched there! and\r\nthe three forms of misery are no more!\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"It is the sport of the Unattainable One: look\r\nwithin, and behold how the moon-beams of that Hidden One shine\r\nin you.\"\r\nThere falls the rhythmic beat of life and death:\r\nRapture wells forth, and all space is radiant with light.\r\nThere the Unstruck Music is sounded; it is the music of the love\r\nof the three worlds.\r\nThere millions of lamps of sun and of moon are burning;\r\nThere the drum beats, and the lover swings in play.\r\nThere love-songs resound, and light rains in showers; and the\r\nworshipper is entranced in the taste of the heavenly nectar.\r\nLook upon life and death; there is no separation between them,\r\nThe right hand and the left hand are one and the same.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"There the wise man is speechless; for this truth may\r\nnever be found in Vadas or in books.\"<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0I have had my Seat on the Self-poised One,\r\nI have drunk of the Cup of the Ineffable,\r\nI have found the Key of the Mystery,\r\nI have reached the Root of Union.\r\nTravelling by no track, I have come to the Sorrowless Land: very\r\neasily has the mercy of the great Lord come upon me.\r\nThey have sung of Him as infinite and unattainable: but I in my\r\nmeditations have seen Him without sight.\r\nThat is indeed the sorrowless land, and none know the path that\r\nleads there:\r\nOnly he who is on that path has surely transcended all sorrow.\r\nWonderful is that land of rest, to which no merit can win;\r\nIt is the wise who has seen it, it is the wise who has sung of\r\nit.\r\nThis is the Ultimate Word: but can any express its marvellous\r\nsavour?\r\nHe who has savoured it once, he knows what joy it can give.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Knowing it, the ignorant man becomes wise, and the\r\nwise man becomes speechless and silent,\r\nThe worshipper is utterly inebriated,\r\nHis wisdom and his detachment are made perfect;\r\nHe drinks from the cup of the inbreathings and the outbreathings\r\nof love.\"<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0There the whole sky is filled with sound, and there that music is\r\nmade without fingers and without strings;\r\nThere the game of pleasure and pain does not cease.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"If you merge your life in the Ocean of Life, you\r\nwill find your life in the Supreme Land of Bliss.\"<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0What a frenzy of ecstasy there is in every hour! and the\r\nworshipper is pressing out and drinking the essence of the\r\nhours: he lives in the life of Brahma.\r\nI speak truth, for I have accepted truth in life; I am now\r\nattached to truth, I have swept all tinsel away.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Thus is the worshipper set free from fear; thus have\r\nall errors of life and of death left him.\"<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0There the sky is filled with music:\r\nThere it rains nectar:\r\nThere the harp-strings jingle, and there the drums beat.\r\nWhat a secret splendour is there, in the mansion of the sky!\r\nThere no mention is made of the rising and the setting of the\r\nsun;\r\nIn the ocean of manifestation, which is the light of love, day\r\nand night are felt to be one.\r\nJoy for ever, no sorrow,\u2014no struggle!\r\nThere have I seen joy filled to the brim, perfection of joy;\r\nNo place for error is there.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"There have I witnessed the sport of One Bliss!\"<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0I have known in my body the sport of the universe: I have escaped\r\nfrom the error of this world..\r\nThe inward and the outward are become as one sky, the Infinite\r\nand the finite are united: I am drunken with the sight of this\r\nAll!\r\nThis Light of Thine fulfils the universe: the lamp of love that\r\nburns on the salver of knowledge.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"There error cannot enter, and the conflict of life\r\nand death is felt no more.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 77. maddh \u00e2kas' \u00e2p jah\u00e2n baithe<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The middle region of the sky, wherein the spirit dwelleth, is\r\nradiant with the music of light;\r\nThere, where the pure and white music blossoms, my Lord takes His\r\ndelight.\r\nIn the wondrous effulgence of each hair of His body, the\r\nbrightness of millions of suns and of moons is lost.\r\nOn that shore there is a city, where the rain of nectar pours and\r\npours, and never ceases.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Come, O Dharmadas! and see my great Lord's Durbar.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 20. param\u00e2tam guru nikat vir\u00e2jatn<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O my heart! the Supreme Spirit, the great Master, is near you:\r\nwake, oh wake!\r\nRun to the feet of your Beloved: for your Lord stands near to your\r\nhead.\r\nYou have slept for unnumbered ages; this morning will you not\r\nwake?<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 22. man tu p\u00e2r utar k\u00e2nh jaiho<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0To what shore would you cross, O my heart? there is no traveller\r\nbefore you, there is no road:\r\nWhere is the movement, where is the rest, on that shore?\r\nThere is no water; no boat, no boatman, is there;\r\nThere is not so much as a rope to tow the boat, nor a man to draw\r\nit.\r\nNo earth, no sky, no time, no thing, is there: no shore, no ford!\r\nThere, there is neither body nor mind: and where is the place\r\nthat shall still the thirst of the soul? You shall find naught\r\nin that emptiness.\r\nBe strong, and enter into your own body: for there your foothold\r\nis firm. Consider it well, O my heart! go not elsewhere,\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Put all imaginations away, and stand fast in that\r\nwhich you are.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 33. ghar ghar d\u00eepak barai<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Lamps burn in every house, O blind one! and you cannot see them.\r\nOne day your eyes shall suddenly be opened, and you shall see:\r\nand the fetters of death will fall from you.\r\nThere is nothing to say or to hear, there is nothing to do: it is\r\nhe who is living, yet dead, who shall never die again.<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Because he lives in solitude, therefore the Yogi says that his\r\nhome is far away.\r\nYour Lord is near: yet you are climbing the palm-tree to seek\r\nHim.\r\nThe Br\u00e2hman priest goes from house to house and initiates people\r\ninto faith:\r\nAlas! the true fountain of life is beside you., and you have set\r\nup a stone to worship.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"I may never express how sweet my Lord is. Yoga and\r\nthe telling of beads, virtue and vice\u2014these are naught to Him.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 38. S\u00e2dho, so satgur mohi bh\u00e2wai<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O brother, my heart yearns for that true Guru, who fills the cup\r\nof true love, and drinks of it himself, and offers it then to\r\nme.\r\nHe removes the veil from the eyes, and gives the true Vision of\r\nBrahma:\r\nHe reveals the worlds in Him, and makes me to hear the Unstruck\r\nMusic:\r\nHe shows joy and sorrow to be one:\r\nHe fills all utterance with love.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Verily he has no fear, who has such a Guru to lead\r\nhim to the shelter of safety!\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 40. tinwir s\u00e2\u00f1jh k\u00e2 gahir\u00e2 \u00e2wai<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The shadows of evening fall thick and deep, and the darkness of\r\nlove envelops the body and the mind.\r\nOpen the window to the west, and be lost in the sky of love;\r\nDrink the sweet honey that steeps the petals of the lotus of the\r\nheart.\r\nReceive the waves in your body: what splendour is in the region\r\nof the sea!\r\nHark! the sounds of conches and bells are rising.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"O brother, behold! the Lord is in this vessel of my\r\nbody.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 48. jis se rahani ap\u00e2r jagat men<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0More than all else do I cherish at heart that love which makes me\r\nto live a limitless life in this world.\r\nIt is like the lotus, which lives in the water and blooms in the\r\nwater: yet the water cannot touch its petals, they open beyond\r\nits reach.\r\nIt is like a wife, who enters the fire at the bidding of love.\r\nShe burns and lets others grieve, yet never dishonours love.\r\nThis ocean of the world is hard to cross: its waters are very\r\ndeep. Kab\u00eer says: \"Listen to me, O Sadhu! few there are who\r\nhave reached its end.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 45. Hari ne apn\u00e2 \u00e2p chip\u00e2y\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0My Lord hides Himself, and my Lord wonderfully reveals Himself:\r\nMy Lord has encompassed me with hardness, and my Lord has cast\r\ndown my limitations.\r\nMy Lord brings to me words of sorrow and words of joy, and He\r\nHimself heals their strife.\r\nI will offer my body and mind to my Lord: I will give up my life,\r\nbut never can I forget my Lord!<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 75. \u00f4nk\u00e2r siwae k\u00f4\u00ee sirjai<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0All things are created by the Om;\r\nThe love-form is His body.\r\nHe is without form, without quality, without decay:\r\nSeek thou union with Him!\r\nBut that formless God takes a thousand forms in the eyes of His\r\ncreatures:\r\nHe is pure and indestructible,\r\nHis form is infinite and fathomless,\r\nHe dances in rapture, and waves of form arise from His dance.\r\nThe body and the mind cannot contain themselves, when they are\r\ntouched by His great joy.\r\nHe is immersed in all consciousness, all joys, and all sorrows;\r\nHe has no beginning and no end;\r\nHe holds all within His bliss.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 81. satgur s\u00f4\u00ee day\u00e2 kar d\u00eenh\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0It is the mercy of my true Guru that has made me to know the\r\nunknown;\r\nI have learned from Him how to walk without feet, to see without\r\neyes, to hear without ears, to drink without mouth, to fly\r\nwithout wings;\r\nI have brought my love and my meditation into the land where\r\nthere is no sun and moon, nor day and night.\r\nWithout eating, I have tasted of the sweetness of nectar; and\r\nwithout water, I have quenched my thirst.\r\nWhere there is the response of delight, there is the fullness of\r\njoy. Before whom can that joy be uttered?\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"The Guru is great beyond words, and great is the\r\ngood fortune of the disciple.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 85. nirgun \u00e2ge sargun n\u00e2cai<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Before the Unconditioned, the Conditioned dances: \"Thou and I are\r\none!\" this trumpet proclaims.\r\nThe Guru comes, and bows down before the disciple:\r\nThis is the greatest of wonders.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 87. Kab\u00eer kab se bhaye vair\u00e2g\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Gorakhnath asks Kab\u00eer:\r\n\"Tell me, O Kab\u00eer, when did your vocation begin? Where did your\r\nlove have its rise?\"\r\nKab\u00eer answers:\r\n\"When He whose forms are manifold had not begun His play: when\r\nthere was no Guru, and no disciple: when the world was not\r\nspread out: when the Supreme One was alone\u2014\r\nThen I became an ascetic; then, O Gorakh, my love was drawn to\r\nBrahma.\r\nBrahma did not hold the crown on his head; the god Vishnu was not\r\nanointed as king; the power of Shiva was still unborn; when I\r\nwas instructed in Yoga.<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0I became suddenly revealed in Benares, and R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda illumined\r\nme;\r\nI brought with me the thirst for the Infinite, and I have come\r\nfor the meeting with Him.\r\nIn simplicity will I unite with the Simple One; my love will\r\nsurge up.\r\nO Gorakh, march thou with His music!\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 95. y\u00e2 tarvar men ek pakher\u00fb<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0On this tree is a bird: it dances in the joy of life.\r\nNone knows where it is: and who knows what the burden of its\r\nmusic may be?\r\nWhere the branches throw a deep shade, there does it have its\r\nnest: and it comes in the evening and flies away in the morning,\r\nand says not a word of that which it means.\r\nNone tell me of this bird that sings within me.\r\nIt is neither coloured nor colourless: it has neither form nor\r\noutline:\r\nIt sits in the shadow of love.\r\nIt dwells within the Unattainable, the Infinite, and the Eternal;\r\nand no one marks when it comes and goes.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"O brother Sadhu! deep is the mystery. Let wise men\r\nseek to know where rests that bird.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 100. nis` din s\u00e2lai gh\u00e2w<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0A sore pain troubles me day and night, and I cannot sleep;\r\nI long for the meeting with my Beloved, and my father's house\r\ngives me pleasure no more.\r\nThe gates of the sky are opened, the temple is revealed:\r\nI meet my husband, and leave at His feet the offering of my body\r\nand my mind.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 103. n\u00e2co re mero man, matta hoy<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Dance, my heart! dance to-day with joy.\r\nThe strains of love fill the days and the nights with music, and\r\nthe world is listening to its melodies:\r\nMad with joy, life and death dance to the rhythm of this music.\r\nThe hills and the sea and the earth dance. The world of man\r\ndances in laughter and tears.\r\nWhy put on the robe of the monk, and live aloof from the world in\r\nlonely pride?\r\nBehold! my heart dances in the delight of a hundred arts; and\r\nthe Creator is well pleased.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 105. man mast hu\u00e2 tab kyon bole<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Where is the need of words, when love has made drunken the heart?\r\nI have wrapped the diamond in my cloak; why open it again and\r\nagain?\r\nWhen its load was light, the pan of the balance went up: now it\r\nis full, where is the need for weighing?\r\nThe swan has taken its flight to the lake beyond the mountains;\r\nwhy should it search for the pools and ditches any more?\r\nYour Lord dwells within you: why need your outward eyes be\r\nopened?\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Listen, my brother! my Lord, who ravishes my eyes,\r\nhas united Himself with me.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 110. mohi tohi l\u00e2g\u00ee kaise chute<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0How could the love between Thee and me sever?\r\nAs the leaf of the lotus abides on the water: so thou art my\r\nLord, and I am Thy servant.\r\nAs the night-bird Chakor gazes all night at the moon: so Thou art\r\nmy Lord and I am Thy servant.\r\nFrom the beginning until the ending of time, there is love\r\nbetween Thee and me; and how shall such love be extinguished?\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"As the river enters into the ocean, so my heart\r\ntouches Thee.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 113. v\u00e2lam, \u00e2wo ham\u00e2re geh re<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0My body and my mind are grieved for the want of Thee;\r\nO my Beloved! come to my house.\r\nWhen people say I am Thy bride, I am ashamed; for I have not\r\ntouched Thy heart with my heart.\r\nThen what is this love of mine? I have no taste for food, I have\r\nno sleep; my heart is ever restless within doors and without.\r\nAs water is to the thirsty, so is the lover to the bride. Who is\r\nthere that will carry my news to my Beloved?\r\nKab\u00eer is restless: he is dying for sight of Him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 126. j\u00e2g piy\u00e2r\u00ee, ab k\u00e2n sowai<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O friend, awake, and sleep no more!\r\nThe night is over and gone, would you lose your day also?\r\nOthers, who have wakened, have received jewels;\r\nO foolish woman! you have lost all whilst you slept.\r\nYour lover is wise, and you are foolish, O woman!\r\nYou never prepared the bed of your husband:\r\nO mad one! you passed your time in silly play.\r\nYour youth was passed in vain, for you did not know your Lord;\r\nWake, wake! See! your bed is empty: He left you in the night.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Only she wakes, whose heart is pierced with the\r\narrow of His music.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 36. s\u00fbr park\u00e2s', tanh rain kah\u00e2n p\u00e2\u00efye<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Where is the night, when the sun is shining? If it is night,\r\nthen the sun withdraws its light. Where knowledge is, can\r\nignorance endure?\r\nIf there be ignorance, then knowledge must die.\r\nIf there be lust, how can love be there? Where there is love,\r\nthere is no lust.<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Lay hold on your sword, and join in the fight. Fight, O my\r\nbrother, as long as life lasts.\r\nStrike off your enemy's head, and there make an end of him\r\nquickly: then come, and bow your head at your King's Durbar.\r\nHe who is brave, never forsakes the battle: he who flies from it\r\nis no true fighter.\r\nIn the field of this body a great war goes forward, against\r\npassion, anger, pride, and greed:\r\nIt is in the kingdom of truth, contentment and purity, that this\r\nbattle is raging; and the sword that rings forth most loudly is\r\nthe sword of His Name.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"When a brave knight takes the field, a host of\r\ncowards is put to flight.\r\nIt is a hard fight and a weary one, this fight of the\r\ntruth-seeker: for the vow of the truth-seeker is more hard than\r\nthat of the warrior, or of the widowed wife who would follow her\r\nhusband.\r\nFor the warrior fights for a few hours, and the widow's struggle\r\nwith death is soon ended:\r\nBut the truth-seeker's battle goes on day and night, as long as\r\nlife lasts it never ceases.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 50. bhram k\u00e2 t\u00e2l\u00e2 lag\u00e2 mahal re<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The lock of error shuts the gate, open it with the key of love:\r\nThus, by opening the door, thou shalt wake the Beloved.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"O brother! do not pass by such good fortune as\r\nthis.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 59. s\u00e2dho, yah tan th\u00e2th tanvure ka<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O friend! this body is His lyre; He tightens its strings, and\r\ndraws from it the melody of Brahma.\r\nIf the strings snap and the keys slacken, then to dust must this\r\ninstrument of dust return:\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"None but Brahma can evoke its melodies.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 65. avadh\u00fb bh\u00fble ko ghar l\u00e2we<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0He is dear to me indeed who can call back the wanderer to his\r\nhome. In the home is the true union, in the home is enjoyment\r\nof life: why should I forsake my home and wander in the forest?\r\nIf Brahma helps me to realize truth, verily I will find both\r\nbondage and deliverance in home.\r\nHe is dear to me indeed who has power to dive deep into Brahma;\r\nwhose mind loses itself with ease in His contemplation.\r\nHe is dear to me who knows Brahma, and can dwell on His supreme\r\ntruth in meditation; and who can play the melody of the\r\nInfinite by uniting love and renunciation in life.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"The home is the abiding place; in the home is\r\nreality; the home helps to attain Him Who is real. So stay\r\nwhere you are, and all things shall come to you in time.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 76. santo, sahaj sam\u00e2dh bhal\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O sadhu! the simple union is the best. Since the day when I met\r\nwith my Lord, there has been no end to the sport of our love.\r\nI shut not my eyes, I close not my ears, I do not mortify my\r\nbody;\r\nI see with eyes open and smile, and behold His beauty everywhere:\r\nI utter His Name, and whatever I see, it reminds me of Him;\r\nwhatever I do., it becomes His worship.\r\nThe rising and the setting are one to me; all contradictions are\r\nsolved.\r\nWherever I go, I move round Him,\r\nAll I achieve is His service:\r\nWhen I lie down, I lie prostrate at His feet.<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0He is the only adorable one to me: I have none other.\r\nMy tongue has left off impure words, it sings His glory day and\r\nnight:\r\nWhether I rise or sit down, I can never forget Him; for the\r\nrhythm of His music beats in my ears.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"My heart is frenzied, and I disclose in my soul what\r\nis hidden. I am immersed in that one great bliss which\r\ntranscends all pleasure and pain.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 79. t\u00eerath men to sab p\u00e2n\u00ee hai<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0There is nothing but water at the holy bathing places; and I know\r\nthat they are useless, for I have bathed in them.\r\nThe images are all lifeless, they cannot speak; I know, for I\r\nhave cried aloud to them.\r\nThe Purana and the Koran are mere words; lifting up the curtain,\r\nI have seen.\r\nKab\u00eer gives utterance to the words of experience; and he knows\r\nvery well that all other things are untrue.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 82. p\u00e2n\u00ee vic m\u00een piy\u00e2s\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty:\r\nYou do not see that the Real is in your home, and you wander from\r\nforest to forest listlessly!\r\nHere is the truth! Go where you will, to Benares or to Mathura;\r\nif you do not find your soul, the world is unreal to you.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 93. gagan math gaib nis\u00e2n gade<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The Hidden Banner is planted in the temple of the sky; there the\r\nblue canopy decked with the moon and set with bright jewels is\r\nspread.\r\nThere the light of the sun and the moon is shining: still your\r\nmind to silence before that splendour.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"He who has drunk of this nectar, wanders like one\r\nwho is mad.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 97. s\u00e2dho, ko hai k\u00e2nh se \u00e2yo<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Who are you, and whence do you come?\r\nWhere dwells that Supreme Spirit, and how does He have His sport\r\nwith all created things?\r\nThe fire is in the wood; but who awakens it suddenly? Then it\r\nturns to ashes, and where goes the force of the fire?\r\nThe true guru teaches that He has neither limit nor infinitude.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Brahma suits His language to the understanding of\r\nHis hearer.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 98. s\u00e2dho, sahajai k\u00e2y\u00e2 s'odho<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O sadhu! purify your body in the simple way.\r\nAs the seed is within the banyan tree, and within the seed are\r\nthe flowers, the fruits, and the shade:\r\nSo the germ is within the body, and within that germ is the body\r\nagain.\r\nThe fire, the air, the water, the earth, and the aether; you\r\ncannot have these outside of Him.\r\nO, Kazi, O Pundit, consider it well: what is there that is not in\r\nthe soul?\r\nThe water-filled pitcher is placed upon water, it has water\r\nwithin and without.\r\nIt should not be given a name, lest it call forth the error of\r\ndualism.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Listen to the Word, the Truth, which is your\r\nessence. He speaks the Word to Himself; and He Himself is the\r\nCreator.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 102. tarvar ek m\u00fbl vin th\u00e2d\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0There is a strange tree, which stands without roots and bears\r\nfruits without blossoming;\r\nIt has no branches and no leaves, it is lotus all over.\r\nTwo birds sing there; one is the Guru, and the other the\r\ndisciple:\r\nThe disciple chooses the manifold fruits of life and tastes them,\r\nand the Guru beholds him in joy.\r\nWhat Kab\u00eer says is hard to understand: \"The bird is beyond\r\nseeking, yet it is most clearly visible. The Formless is in\r\nthe midst of all forms. I sing the glory of forms.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 107. calat mans\u00e2 acal k\u00eenh\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0I have stilled my restless mind, and my heart is radiant: for in\r\nThatness I have seen beyond That-ness. In company I have seen\r\nthe Comrade Himself.\r\nLiving in bondage, I have set myself free: I have broken away\r\nfrom the clutch of all narrowness.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"I have attained the unattainable, and my heart is\r\ncoloured with the colour of love.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 105. jo d\u00eesai, so to hai n\u00e2h\u00een<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0That which you see is not: and for that which is, you have no\r\nwords.\r\nUnless you see, you believe not: what is told you you cannot\r\naccept.\r\nHe who is discerning knows by the word; and the ignorant stands\r\ngaping.\r\nSome contemplate the Formless, and others meditate on form: but\r\nthe wise man knows that Brahma is beyond both.\r\nThat beauty of His is not seen of the eye: that metre of His is\r\nnot heard of the ear.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"He who has found both love and renunciation never\r\ndescends to death.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 126. mural\u00ee bajat akhand sad\u00e2ye<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The flute of the Infinite is played without ceasing, and its\r\nsound is love:\r\nWhen love renounces all limits, it reaches truth.\r\nHow widely the fragrance spreads! It has no end, nothing stands\r\nin its way.\r\nThe form of this melody is bright like a million suns:\r\nincomparably sounds the vina, the vina of the notes of truth.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 129. sakhiyo, ham h\u00fbn bh\u00e2\u00ee v\u00e2lam\u00e2s'\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Dear friend, I am eager to meet my Beloved! My youth has\r\nflowered, and the pain of separation from Him troubles my\r\nbreast.\r\nI am wandering yet in the alleys of knowledge without purpose,\r\nbut I have received His news in these alleys of knowledge.\r\nI have a letter from my Beloved: in this letter is an unutterable\r\nmessage, and now my fear of death is done away.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"O my loving friend! I have got for my gift the\r\nDeathless One.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 130. s\u00e2\u00een vin dard kareje hoy<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0When I am parted from my Beloved, my heart is full of misery: I\r\nhave no comfort in the day, I have no sleep in the night. To\r\nwhom shall I tell my sorrow?\r\nThe night is dark; the hours slip by. Because my Lord is absent,\r\nI start up and tremble with fear.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Listen, my friend! there is no other satisfaction,\r\nsave in the encounter with the Beloved.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 122. kaum mural\u00ee s'abd s'un \u00e2nand bhayo<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0What is that flute whose music thrills me with joy?\r\nThe flame burns without a lamp;\r\nThe lotus blossoms without a root;\r\nFlowers bloom in clusters;\r\nThe moon-bird is devoted to the moon;\r\nWith all its heart the rain-bird longs for the shower of rain;\r\nBut upon whose love does the Lover concentrate His entire life?<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 112. s'unt\u00e2 nah\u00ee dhun k\u00ee khabar<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Have you not heard the tune which the Unstruck Music is playing?\r\nIn the midst of the chamber the harp of joy is gently and\r\nsweetly played; and where is the need of going without to hear\r\nit?\r\nIf you have not drunk of the nectar of that One Love, what boots\r\nit though you should purge yourself of all stains?\r\nThe Kazi is searching the words of the Koran, and instructing\r\nothers: but if his heart be not steeped in that love, what does\r\nit avail, though he be a teacher of men?\r\nThe Yogi dyes his garments with red: but if he knows naught of\r\nthat colour of love, what does it avail though his garments be\r\ntinted?\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Whether I be in the temple or the balcony, in the\r\ncamp or in the flower garden, I tell you truly that every\r\nmoment my Lord is taking His delight in me.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 73. bhakti k\u00e2 m\u00e2rag jh\u00een\u00e2 re<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Subtle is the path of love!\r\nTherein there is no asking and no not-asking,\r\nThere one loses one's self at His feet,\r\nThere one is immersed in the joy of the seeking: plunged in the\r\ndeeps of love as the fish in the water.\r\nThe lover is never slow in offering his head for his Lord's\r\nservice.\r\nKab\u00eer declares the secret of this love.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 68. bh\u00e2i k\u00f4\u00ee satguru sant kah\u00e2wa\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0He is the real Sadhu, who can reveal the form of the Formless to\r\nthe vision of these eyes:\r\nWho teaches the simple way of attaining Him, that is other than\r\nrites or ceremonies:\r\nWho does not make you close the doors, and hold the breath, and\r\nrenounce the world:\r\nWho makes you perceive the Supreme Spirit wherever the mind\r\nattaches itself:\r\nWho teaches you to be still in the midst of all your activities.\r\nEver immersed in bliss, having no fear in his mind, he keeps the\r\nspirit of union in the midst of all enjoyments.\r\nThe infinite dwelling of the Infinite Being is everywhere: in\r\nearth, water, sky, and air:\r\nFirm as the thunderbolt, the seat of the seeker is established\r\nabove the void.\r\nHe who is within is without: I see Him and none else.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 66. s\u00e2dho, s'abd s\u00e2dhn\u00e2 k\u00eejai<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Receive that Word from which the Universe springeth!\r\nThat word is the Guru; I have heard it, and become the disciple.\r\nHow many are there who know the meaning of that word?<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O Sadhu! practise that Word!\r\nThe Vedas and the Puranas proclaim it,\r\nThe world is established in it,\r\nThe Rishis and devotees speak of it:\r\nBut none knows the mystery of the Word.\r\nThe householder leaves his house when he hears it,\r\nThe ascetic comes back to love when he hears it,\r\nThe Six Philosophies expound it,\r\nThe Spirit of Renunciation points to that Word,\r\nFrom that Word the world-form has sprung,\r\nThat Word reveals all.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"But who knows whence the Word cometh?<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 63. p\u00eele py\u00e2l\u00e2, ho matw\u00e2l\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Empty the Cup! O be drunken!\r\nDrink the divine nectar of His Name!\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Listen to me, dear Sadhu!\r\nFrom the sole of the foot to the crown of the head this mind is\r\nfilled with poison.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 52. khasm na c\u00eenhai b\u00e2wari<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O man, if thou dost not know thine own Lord, whereof art thou so\r\nproud?\r\nPut thy cleverness away: mere words shall never unite thee to\r\nHim.\r\nDo not deceive thyself with the witness of the Scriptures:\r\nLove is something other than this, and he who has sought it truly\r\nhas found it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 56. sukh sindh k\u00ee sair k\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The savour of wandering in the ocean of deathless life has rid me\r\nof all my asking:\r\nAs the tree is in the seed, so all diseases are in this asking.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 48. sukh s\u00e2gar men \u00e2\u00eeke<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0When at last you are come to the ocean of happiness, do not go\r\nback thirsty.\r\nWake, foolish man! for Death stalks you. Here is pure water\r\nbefore you; drink it at every breath.\r\nDo not follow the mirage on foot, but thirst for the nectar;\r\nDhruva, Prahlad, and Shukadeva have drunk of it, and also Raidas\r\nhas tasted it:\r\nThe saints are drunk with love, their thirst is for love.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Listen to me, brother! The nest of fear is broken.\r\nNot for a moment have you come face to face with the world:\r\nYou are weaving your bondage of falsehood, your words are full of\r\ndeception:\r\nWith the load of desires which you. hold on your head, how can\r\nyou be light?\"\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Keep within you truth, detachment, and love.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 35. sat\u00ee ko kaun s'ikh\u00e2wt\u00e2 hai<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Who has ever taught the widowed wife to burn herself on the pyre\r\nof her dead husband?\r\nAnd who has ever taught love to find bliss in renunciation?<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 39. are man, dh\u00eeraj k\u00e2he na dharai<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Why so impatient, my heart?\r\nHe who watches over birds, beasts, and insects,\r\nHe who cared for you whilst you were yet in your mother's womb,\r\nShall He not care for you now that you are come forth?\r\nOh my heart, how could you turn from the smile of your Lord and\r\nwander so far from Him?\r\nYou have left Your Beloved and are thinking of others: and this\r\nis why all your work is in vain.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 117. s\u00e2\u00een se lagan kathin hai, bh\u00e2\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Now hard it is to meet my Lord!\r\nThe rain-bird wails in thirst for the rain: almost she dies of\r\nher longing, yet she would have none other water than the\r\nrain.\r\nDrawn by the love of music, the deer moves forward: she dies as\r\nshe listens to the music, yet she shrinks not in fear.\r\nThe widowed wife sits by the body of her dead husband: she is not\r\nafraid of the fire.\r\nPut away all fear for this poor body.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 22. jab main bh\u00fbl\u00e2, re bh\u00e2\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O brother! when I was forgetful, my true Guru showed me the Way.\r\nThen I left off all rites and ceremonies, I bathed no more in the\r\nholy water:\r\nThen I learned that it was I alone who was mad, and the whole\r\nworld beside me was sane; and I had disturbed these wise people.\r\nFrom that time forth I knew no more how to roll in the dust in\r\nobeisance:\r\nI do not ring the temple bell:\r\nI do not set the idol on its throne:\r\nI do not worship the image with flowers.\r\nIt is not the austerities that mortify the flesh which are\r\npleasing to the Lord,\r\nWhen you leave off your clothes and kill your senses, you do not\r\nplease the Lord:\r\nThe man who is kind and who practises righteousness, who remains\r\npassive amidst the affairs of the world, who considers all\r\ncreatures on earth as his own self,\r\nHe attains the Immortal Being, the true God is ever with him.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"He attains the true Name whose words are pure, and\r\nwho is free from pride and conceit.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 20. man na rang\u00e2ye<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The Yogi dyes his garments, instead of dyeing his mind in the\r\ncolours of love:\r\nHe sits within the temple of the Lord, leaving Brahma to worship\r\na stone.\r\nHe pierces holes in his ears, he has a great beard and matted\r\nlocks, he looks like a goat:\r\nHe goes forth into the wilderness, killing all his desires, and\r\nturns himself into an eunuch:\r\nHe shaves his head and dyes his garments; he reads the G\u00eet\u00e2 and\r\nbecomes a mighty talker.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"You are going to the doors of death, bound hand and\r\nfoot!\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 9. n\u00e2 j\u00e2ne s\u00e2hab kais\u00e2 hai<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0I do not know what manner of God is mine.\r\nThe Mullah cries aloud to Him: and why? Is your Lord deaf? The\r\nsubtle anklets that ring on the feet of an insect when it moves\r\nare heard of Him.\r\nTell your beads, paint your forehead with the mark of your God,\r\nand wear matted locks long and showy: but a deadly weapon is in\r\nyour heart, and how shall you have God?<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 102. ham se rah\u00e2 na j\u00e2y<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0I hear the melody of His flute, and I cannot contain myself:\r\nThe flower blooms, though it is not spring; and already the bee\r\nhas received its invitation.\r\nThe sky roars and the lightning flashes, the waves arise in my\r\nheart,\r\nThe rain falls; and my heart longs for my Lord.\r\nWhere the rhythm of the world rises and falls, thither my heart\r\nhas reached:\r\nThere the hidden banners are fluttering in the air.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"My heart is dying, though it lives.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 2. jo khod\u00e2 masjid vasat hai<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0If God be within the mosque, then to whom does this world belong?\r\nIf Ram be within the image which you find upon your pilgrimage,\r\nthen who is there to know what happens without?\r\nHari is in the East: Allah is in the West. Look within your\r\nheart, for there you will find both Karim and Ram;\r\nAll the men and women of the world are His living forms.\r\nKab\u00eer is the child of Allah and of Ram: He is my Guru, He is my\r\nPir.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 9. s'\u00eel santosh sad\u00e2 samadrishti<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0He who is meek and contented., he who has an equal vision, whose\r\nmind is filled with the fullness of acceptance and of rest;\r\nHe who has seen Him and touched Him, he is freed from all fear\r\nand trouble.\r\nTo him the perpetual thought of God is like sandal paste smeared\r\non the body, to him nothing else is delight:\r\nHis work and his rest are filled with music: he sheds abroad the\r\nradiance of love.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Touch His feet, who is one and indivisible,\r\nimmutable and peaceful; who fills all vessels to the brim with\r\njoy, and whose form is love.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 13. s\u00e2dh sangat p\u00eetam<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Go thou to the company of the good, where the Beloved One has His\r\ndwelling place:\r\nTake all thy thoughts and love and instruction from thence.\r\nLet that assembly be burnt to ashes where His Name is not spoken!\r\nTell me, how couldst thou hold a wedding-feast, if the bridegroom\r\nhimself were not there?\r\nWaver no more, think only of the Beloved;\r\nSet not thy heart on the worship of other gods, there is no worth\r\nin the worship of other masters.\r\nKab\u00eer deliberates and says: \"Thus thou shalt never find the\r\nBeloved!\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 26. tor h\u00eer\u00e2 hir\u00e2ilw\u00e2 k\u00eecad men<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The jewel is lost in the mud, and all are seeking for it;\r\nSome look for it in the east, and some in the west; some in the\r\nwater and some amongst stones.\r\nBut the servant Kab\u00eer has appraised it at its true value, and has\r\nwrapped it with care in the end of the mantle of his heart.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 26. \u00e2yau din gaune k\u00e2 ho<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The palanquin came to take me away to my husband's home, and it\r\nsent through my heart a thrill of joy;\r\nBut the bearers have brought me into the lonely forest, where I\r\nhave no one of my own.\r\nO bearers, I entreat you by your feet, wait but a moment longer:\r\nlet me go back to my kinsmen and friends, and take my leave of\r\nthem.\r\nThe servant Kab\u00eer sings: \"O Sadhu! finish your buying and\r\nselling, have done with your good and your bad: for there are\r\nno markets and no shops in the land to which you go.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 30. are dil, prem nagar k\u00e4 ant na p\u00e2y\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O my heart! you have not known all the secrets of this city of\r\nlove: in ignorance you came, and in ignorance you return.\r\nO my friend, what have you done with this life? You have taken\r\non your head the burden heavy with stones, and who is to\r\nlighten it for you?\r\nYour Friend stands on the other shore, but you never think in\r\nyour mind how you may meet with Him:\r\nThe boat is broken, and yet you sit ever upon the bank; and thus\r\nyou are beaten to no purpose by the waves.\r\nThe servant Kab\u00eer asks you to consider; who is there that shall\r\nbefriend you at the last?\r\nYou are alone, you have no companion: you will suffer the\r\nconsequences of your own deeds.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 55. ved kahe sargun ke \u00e2ge<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The Vedas say that the Unconditioned stands beyond the world of\r\nConditions.\r\nO woman, what does it avail thee to dispute whether He is beyond\r\nall or in all?\r\nSee thou everything as thine own dwelling place: the mist of\r\npleasure and pain can never spread there.\r\nThere Brahma is revealed day and night: there light is His\r\ngarment, light is His seat, light rests on thy head.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"The Master, who is true, He is all light.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 48. t\u00fb surat nain nih\u00e2r<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Open your eyes of love, and see Him who pervades this world I\r\nconsider it well, and know that this is your own country.\r\nWhen you meet the true Guru, He will awaken your heart;\r\nHe will tell you the secret of love and detachment, and then you\r\nwill know indeed that He transcends this universe.\r\nThis world is the City of Truth, its maze of paths enchants the\r\nheart:\r\nWe can reach the goal without crossing the road, such is the\r\nsport unending.\r\nWhere the ring of manifold joys ever dances about Him, there is\r\nthe sport of Eternal Bliss.\r\nWhen we know this, then all our receiving and renouncing is\r\nover;\r\nThenceforth the heat of having shall never scorch us more.<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0He is the Ultimate Rest unbounded:\r\nHe has spread His form of love throughout all the world.\r\nFrom that Ray which is Truth, streams of new forms are\r\nperpetually springing: and He pervades those forms.\r\nAll the gardens and groves and bowers are abounding with blossom;\r\nand the air breaks forth into ripples of joy.\r\nThere the swan plays a wonderful game,\r\nThere the Unstruck Music eddies around the Infinite One;\r\nThere in the midst the Throne of the Unheld is shining, whereon\r\nthe great Being sits\u2014\r\nMillions of suns are shamed by the radiance of a single hair of\r\nHis body.\r\nOn the harp of the road what true melodies are being sounded!\r\nand its notes pierce the heart:\r\nThere the Eternal Fountain is playing its endless life-streams of\r\nbirth and death.\r\nThey call Him Emptiness who is the Truth of truths, in Whom all\r\ntruths are stored!<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0There within Him creation goes forward, which is beyond all\r\nphilosophy; for philosophy cannot attain to Him:\r\nThere is an endless world, O my Brother! and there is the\r\nNameless Being, of whom naught can be said.\r\nOnly he knows it who has reached that region: it is other than\r\nall that is heard and said.\r\nNo form, no body, no length, no breadth is seen there: how can I\r\ntell you that which it is?\r\nHe comes to the Path of the Infinite on whom the grace of the\r\nLord descends: he is freed from births and deaths who attains\r\nto Him.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"It cannot be told by the words of the mouth, it\r\ncannot be written on paper:\r\nIt is like a dumb person who tastes a sweet thing\u2014how shall it\r\nbe explained?\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 60. cal hams\u00e2 w\u00e2 des' jah\u00e2n<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O my heart! let us go to that country where dwells the Beloved,\r\nthe ravisher of my heart!\r\nThere Love is filling her pitcher from the well, yet she has no\r\nrope wherewith to draw water;\r\nThere the clouds do not cover the sky, yet the rain falls down in\r\ngentle showers:\r\nO bodiless one! do not sit on your doorstep; go forth and bathe\r\nyourself in that rain!\r\nThere it is ever moonlight and never dark; and who speaks of one\r\nsun only? that land is illuminate with the rays of a million\r\nsuns.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 63. kahain Kab\u00eer, s'uno ho s\u00e2dho<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Kab\u00eer says: \"O Sadhu! hear my deathless words. If you want your\r\nown good, examine and consider them well.\r\nYou have estranged yourself from the Creator, of whom you have\r\nsprung: you have lost your reason, you have bought death.\r\nAll doctrines and all teachings are sprung from Him, from Him\r\nthey grow: know this for certain, and have no fear.\r\nHear from me the tidings of this great truth!\r\nWhose name do you sing, and on whom do you meditate? O, come\r\nforth from this entanglement!\r\nHe dwells at the heart of all things, so why take refuge in empty\r\ndesolation?\r\nIf you place the Guru at a distance from you, then it is but the\r\ndistance that you honour:\r\nIf indeed the Master be far away, then who is it else that is\r\ncreating this world?\r\nWhen you think that He is not here, then you wander further and\r\nfurther away, and seek Him in vain with tears.\r\nWhere He is far off, there He is unattainable: where He is near,\r\nHe is very bliss.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Lest His servant should suffer pain He pervades him\r\nthrough and through.\"\r\nKnow yourself then, O Kab\u00eer; for He is in you from head to foot.\r\nSing with gladness, and keep your seat unmoved within your heart.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 66. n\u00e2 main dharm\u00ee nah\u00een adharm\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0I am neither pious nor ungodly, I live neither by law nor by\r\nsense,\r\nI am neither a speaker nor hearer, I am neither a servant nor\r\nmaster, I am neither bond nor free,\r\nI am neither detached nor attached.\r\nI am far from none: I am near to none.\r\nI shall go neither to hell nor to heaven.\r\nI do all works; yet I am apart from all works.\r\nFew comprehend my meaning: he who can comprehend it, he sits\r\nunmoved.\r\nKab\u00eer seeks neither to establish nor to destroy.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 69. satta n\u00e2m hai sab ten ny\u00e2r\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The true Name is like none other name!\r\nThe distinction of the Conditioned from the Unconditioned is but\r\na word:\r\nThe Unconditioned is the seed, the Conditioned is the flower and\r\nthe fruit.\r\nKnowledge is the branch, and the Name is the root.\r\nLook, and see where the root is: happiness shall be yours when\r\nyou come to the root.\r\nThe root will lead you to the branch, the leaf, the flower, and\r\nthe fruit:\r\nIt is the encounter with the Lord, it is the attainment of bliss,\r\nit is the reconciliation of the Conditioned and the\r\nUnconditioned.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 74. pratham ek jo \u00e2pai \u00e2p<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0In the beginning was He alone, sufficient unto Himself: the\r\nformless, colourless, and unconditioned Being.\r\nThen was there neither beginning, middle, nor end;\r\nThen were no eyes, no darkness, no light;\r\nThen were no ground, air, nor sky; no fire, water, nor earth; no\r\nrivers like the Ganges and the Jumna, no seas, oceans, and waves.\r\nThen was neither vice nor virtue; scriptures there were not, as\r\nthe Vedas and Puranas, nor as the Koran.\r\nKab\u00eer ponders in his mind and says, \"Then was there no activity:\r\nthe Supreme Being remained merged in the unknown depths of His\r\nown self.\"\r\nThe Guru neither eats nor drinks, neither lives nor dies:\r\nNeither has He form, line, colour, nor vesture.\r\nHe who has neither caste nor clan nor anything else\u2014how may I\r\ndescribe His glory?\r\nHe has neither form nor formlessness,\r\nHe has no name,\r\nHe has neither colour nor colourlessness,\r\nHe has no dwelling-place.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 76. kahain Kab\u00eer vic\u00e2r ke<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Kab\u00eer ponders and says: \"He who has neither caste nor country,\r\nwho is formless and without quality, fills all space.\"\r\nThe Creator brought into being the Game of Joy: and from the word\r\nOm the Creation sprang.\r\nThe earth is His joy; His joy is the sky;\r\nHis joy is the flashing of the sun and the moon;\r\nHis joy is the beginning, the middle, and the end;\r\nHis joy is eyes, darkness, and light.\r\nOceans and waves are His joy: His joy the Sarasvati, the Jumna,\r\nand the Ganges.\r\nThe Guru is One: and life and death., union and separation, are\r\nall His plays of joy!\r\nHis play the land and water, the whole universe!\r\nHis play the earth and the sky!\r\nIn play is the Creation spread out, in play it is established.\r\nThe whole world, says Kab\u00eer, rests in His play, yet still the\r\nPlayer remains unknown.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 84. jh\u00ee jh\u00ee jantar b\u00e2jai<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The harp gives forth murmurous music; and the dance goes on\r\nwithout hands and feet.\r\nIt is played without fingers, it is heard without ears: for He is\r\nthe ear, and He is the listener.\r\nThe gate is locked, but within there is fragrance: and there the\r\nmeeting is seen of none.\r\nThe wise shall understand it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 89. mor phak\u00eerw\u00e2 m\u00e2ngi j\u00e2y<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The Beggar goes a-begging, but\r\nI could not even catch sight of Him:\r\nAnd what shall I beg of the Beggar He gives without my asking.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"I am His own: now let that befall which may befall!\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 90. naihar se jiyar\u00e2 ph\u00e2t re<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0My heart cries aloud for the house of my lover; the open road and\r\nthe shelter of a roof are all one to her who has lost the city\r\nof her husband.\r\nMy heart finds no joy in anything: my mind and my body are\r\ndistraught.\r\nHis palace has a million gates, but there is a vast ocean between\r\nit and me:\r\nHow shall I cross it, O friend? for endless is the outstretching\r\nof the path.\r\nHow wondrously this lyre is wrought! When its strings are\r\nrightly strung, it maddens the heart: but when the keys are\r\nbroken and the strings are loosened, none regard it more.\r\nI tell my parents with laughter that I must go to my Lord in the\r\nmorning;<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0They are angry, for they do not want me to go, and they say: \"She\r\nthinks she has gained such dominion over her husband that she\r\ncan have whatsoever she wishes; and therefore she is impatient\r\nto go to him.\"\r\nDear friend, lift my veil lightly now; for this is the night of\r\nlove.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Listen to me! My heart is eager to meet my lover: I\r\nlie sleepless upon my bed. Remember me early in the morning!\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 96. j\u00eev mahal men S'iv pahunw\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Serve your God, who has come into this temple of life!\r\nDo not act the part of a madman, for the night is thickening\r\nfast.\r\nHe has awaited me for countless ages, for love of me He has\r\nlost His heart:\r\nYet I did not know the bliss that was so near to me, for my love\r\nwas not yet awake.\r\nBut now, my Lover has made known to me the meaning of the note\r\nthat struck my ear:\r\nNow, my good fortune is come.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Behold! how great is my good fortune! I have\r\nreceived the unending caress of my Beloved!\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 71. gagan ghat\u00e2 ghahar\u00e2n\u00ee, s\u00e2dho<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Clouds thicken in the sky! O, listen to the deep voice of their\r\nroaring;\r\nThe rain comes from the east with its monotonous murmur.\r\nTake care of the fences and boundaries of your fields, lest the\r\nrains overflow them;\r\nPrepare the soil of deliverance, and let the creepers of love and\r\nrenunciation be soaked in this shower.\r\nIt is the prudent farmer who will bring his harvest home; he\r\nshall fill both his vessels, and feed both the wise men and the\r\nsaints.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 118. \u00e2j din ke main jaun balih\u00e2r\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0This day is dear to me above all other days, for to-day the\r\nBeloved Lord is a guest in my house;\r\nMy chamber and my courtyard are beautiful with His presence.\r\nMy longings sing His Name, and they are become lost in His great\r\nbeauty:\r\nI wash His feet, and I look upon His Face; and I lay before Him\r\nas an offering my body, my mind, and all that I have.\r\nWhat a day of gladness is that day in which my Beloved, who is my\r\ntreasure, comes to my house!\r\nAll evils fly from my heart when I see my Lord.\r\n\"My love has touched Him; my heart is longing for the Name which\r\nis Truth.\"\r\nThus sings Kab\u00eer, the servant of all servants.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 100. k\u00f4i s'unt\u00e2 hai j\u00f1\u00e2n\u00ee r\u00e2g gagan men<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Is there any wise man who will listen to that solemn music which\r\narises in the sky?\r\nFor He, the Source of all music, makes all vessels full fraught,\r\nand rests in fullness Himself.\r\nHe who is in the body is ever athirst, for he pursues that which\r\nis in part:\r\nBut ever there wells forth deeper and deeper the sound \"He is\r\nthis\u2014this is He\"; fusing love and renunciation into one.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"O brother! that is the Primal Word.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 108. main k\u00e2 se b\u00fbjhaun<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0To whom shall I go to learn about my Beloved?\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"As you never may find the forest if you ignore the\r\ntree, so He may never be found in abstractions.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 12. samskirit bh\u00e2sh\u00e2 padhi l\u00eenh\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0I have learned the Sanskrit language, so let all men call me\r\nwise:\r\nBut where is the use of this, when I am floating adrift, and\r\nparched with thirst, and burning with the heat of desire?\r\nTo no purpose do you bear on your head this load of pride and\r\nvanity.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Lay it down in the dust, and go forth to meet the\r\nBeloved. Address Him as your Lord.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 110. carkh\u00e2 calai surat virahin k\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The woman who is parted from her lover spins at the spinning\r\nwheel.\r\nThe city of the body arises in its beauty; and within it the\r\npalace of the mind has been built.\r\nThe wheel of love revolves in the sky, and the seat is made of\r\nthe jewels of knowledge:\r\nWhat subtle threads the woman weaves, and makes them fine with\r\nlove and reverence!\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"I am weaving the garland of day and night. When my\r\nLover comes and touches me with His feet, I shall offer Him my\r\ntears.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
III. 111. kot\u00een bh\u00e2nu candra t\u00e2r\u00e2gan<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Beneath the great umbrella of my King millions of suns and moons\r\nand stars are shining!\r\nHe is the Mind within my mind: He is the Eye within mine eye.\r\nAh, could my mind and eyes be one! Could my love but reach to my\r\nLover! Could but the fiery heat of my heart be cooled!\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"When you unite love with the Lover, then you have\r\nlove's perfection.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 92. avadh\u00fb begam des' ham\u00e2r\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O sadhu! my land is a sorrowless land.\r\nI cry aloud to all, to the king and the beggar, the emperor and\r\nthe fakir\u2014\r\nWhosoever seeks for shelter in the Highest, let all come and\r\nsettle in my land!\r\nLet the weary come and lay his burdens here!<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0So live here, my brother, that you may cross with ease to that\r\nother shore.\r\nIt is a land without earth or sky, without moon or stars;\r\nFor only the radiance of Truth shines in my Lord's Durbar.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"O beloved brother! naught is essential save Truth.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 109. s\u00e2\u00een ke sangat s\u00e2sur \u00e2\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Came with my Lord to my Lord's home: but I lived not with Him and\r\nI tasted Him not, and my youth passed away like a dream.\r\nOn my wedding night my women-friends sang in chorus, and I was\r\nanointed with the unguents of pleasure and pain:\r\nBut when the ceremony was over, I left my Lord and came away, and\r\nmy kinsman tried to console me upon the road.\r\nKab\u00eer says, \"I shall go to my Lord's house with my love at my\r\nside; then shall I sound the trumpet of triumph!\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
I. 75. samajh dekh man m\u00eet piyarw\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0O friend, dear heart of mine, think well! if you love indeed,\r\nthen why do you sleep?\r\nIf you have found Him, then give yourself utterly, and take Him\r\nto you.\r\nWhy do you loose Him again and again?\r\nIf the deep sleep of rest has come to your eyes, why waste your\r\ntime making the bed and arranging the pillows?\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"I tell you the ways of love! Even though the head\r\nitself must be given, why should you weep over it?\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 90. s\u00e2hab ham men, s\u00e2hab tum men<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The Lord is in me, the Lord is in you, as life is in every seed.\r\nO servant! put false pride away, and seek for Him within you.\r\nA million suns are ablaze with light,\r\nThe sea of blue spreads in the sky,\r\nThe fever of life is stilled, and all stains are washed away;\r\nwhen I sit in the midst of that world.\r\nHark to the unstruck bells and drums! Take your delight in love!\r\nRains pour down without water, and the rivers are streams of\r\nlight.\r\nOne Love it is that pervades the whole world, few there are who\r\nknow it fully:\r\nThey are blind who hope to see it by the light of reason, that\r\nreason which is the cause of separation\u2014\r\nThe House of Reason is very far away!\r\nHow blessed is Kab\u00eer, that amidst this great joy he sings within\r\nhis own vessel.\r\nIt is the music of the meeting of soul with soul;\r\nIt is the music of the forgetting of sorrows;\r\nIt is the music that transcends all coming in and all going\r\nforth.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 98. ritu ph\u00e2gun niyar\u00e2n\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0The month of March draws near: ah, who will unite me to my Lover?\r\nHow shall I find words for the beauty of my Beloved? For He is\r\nmerged in all beauty.\r\nHis colour is in all the pictures of the world, and it bewitches\r\nthe body and the mind.\r\nThose who know this, know what is this unutterable play of the\r\nSpring.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Listen to me, brother' there are not many who have\r\nfound this out.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 111. N\u00e2rad, py\u00e2r so antar n\u00e2h\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Oh Narad! I know that my Lover cannot be far:\r\nWhen my Lover wakes, I wake; when He sleeps, I sleep.\r\nHe is destroyed at the root who gives pain to my Beloved.\r\nWhere they sing His praise, there I live;\r\nWhen He moves, I walk before Him: my heart yearns for my Beloved.\r\nThe infinite pilgrimage lies at His feet, a million devotees are\r\nseated there.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"The Lover Himself reveals the glory of true love.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
II. 122. k\u00f4\u00ee prem k\u00ee peng jhul\u00e2o re<\/i><\/p>\r\n
\u00a0\u00a0Hang up the swing of love to-day! Hang the body and the mind\r\nbetween the arms of the Beloved, in the ecstasy of love's joy:\r\nBring the tearful streams of the rainy clouds to your eyes, and\r\ncover your heart with the shadow of darkness:\r\nBring your face nearer to His ear, and speak of the deepest\r\nlongings of your heart.\r\nKab\u00eer says: \"Listen to me, brother! bring the vision of the\r\nBeloved in your heart.\"<\/p>","rendered":"
Translated by Rabindranath Tagore<\/p>\n
Introduction by Evelyn Underhill<\/p>\n
New York, The Macmillan Company<\/p>\n
1915<\/p>\n
The poet Kab\u00eer, a selection from whose songs is here for the first time offered to English readers, is one of the most interesting personalities in the history of Indian mysticism. Born in or near Benares, of Mohammedan parents, and probably about the year 1440, he became in early life a disciple of the celebrated Hindu ascetic R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda. R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda had brought to Northern India the religious revival which R\u00e2m\u00e2nuja, the great twelfth-century reformer of Br\u00e2hmanism, had initiated in the South. This revival was in part a reaction against the increasing formalism of the orthodox cult, in part an assertion of the demands of the heart as against the intense intellectualism of the Ved\u00e2nta philosophy, the exaggerated monism which that philosophy proclaimed. It took in R\u00e2m\u00e2nuja’s preaching the form of an ardent personal devotion to the God Vishnu, as representing the personal aspect of the Divine Nature: that mystical “religion of love” which everywhere makes its appearance at a certain level of spiritual culture, and which creeds and philosophies are powerless to kill.<\/p>\n
Though such a devotion is indigenous in Hinduism, and finds expression in many passages of the Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2, there was in its medi\u00e6val revival a large element of syncretism. R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda, through whom its spirit is said to have reached Kab\u00eer, appears to have been a man of wide religious culture, and full of missionary enthusiasm. Living at the moment in which the impassioned poetry and deep philosophy of the great Persian mystics, Att\u00e2r, S\u00e2d\u00ee, Jal\u00e2lu’dd\u00een R\u00fbm\u00ee, and H\u00e2fiz, were exercising a powerful influence on the religious thought of India, he dreamed of reconciling this intense and personal Mohammedan mysticism with the traditional theology of Br\u00e2hmanism. Some have regarded both these great religious leaders as influenced also by Christian thought and life: but as this is a point upon which competent authorities hold widely divergent views, its discussion is not attempted here. We may safely assert, however, that in their teachings, two\u2014perhaps three\u2014apparently antagonistic streams of intense spiritual culture met, as Jewish and Hellenistic thought met in the early Christian Church: and it is one of the outstanding characteristics of Kab\u00eer’s genius that he was able in his poems to fuse them into one.<\/p>\n
A great religious reformer, the founder of a sect to which nearly a million northern Hindus still belong, it is yet supremely as a mystical poet that Kab\u00eer lives for us. His fate has been that of many revealers of Reality. A hater of religious exclusivism, and seeking above all things to initiate men into the liberty of the children of God, his followers have honoured his memory by re-erecting in a new place the barriers which he laboured to cast down. But his wonderful songs survive, the spontaneous expressions of his vision and his love; and it is by these, not by the didactic teachings associated with his name, that he makes his immortal appeal to the heart. In these poems a wide range of mystical emotion is brought into play: from the loftiest abstractions, the most otherworldly passion for the Infinite, to the most intimate and personal realization of God, expressed in homely metaphors and religious symbols drawn indifferently from Hindu and Mohammedan belief. It is impossible to say of their author that he was Br\u00e2hman or S\u00fbf\u00ee, Ved\u00e2ntist or Vaishnavite. He is, as he says himself, “at once the child of Allah and of R\u00e2m.” That Supreme Spirit Whom he knew and adored, and to Whose joyous friendship he sought to induct the souls of other men, transcended whilst He included all metaphysical categories, all credal definitions; yet each contributed something to the description of that Infinite and Simple Totality Who revealed Himself, according to their measure, to the faithful lovers of all creeds.<\/p>\n
Kab\u00eer’s story is surrounded by contradictory legends, on none of which reliance can be placed. Some of these emanate from a Hindu, some from a Mohammedan source, and claim him by turns as a S\u00fbf\u00ee and a Br\u00e2hman saint. His name, however, is practically a conclusive proof of Moslem ancestry: and the most probable tale is that which represents him as the actual or adopted child of a Mohammedan weaver of Benares, the city in which the chief events of his life took place.<\/p>\n
In fifteenth-century Benares the syncretistic tendencies of Bhakti religion had reached full development. S\u00fbf\u00ees and Br\u00e2hmans appear to have met in disputation: the most spiritual members of both creeds frequenting the teachings of R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda, whose reputation was then at its height. The boy Kab\u00eer, in whom the religious passion was innate, saw in R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda his destined teacher; but knew how slight were the chances that a Hindu guru would accept a Mohammedan as disciple. He therefore hid upon the steps of the river Ganges, where R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda was accustomed to bathe; with the result that the master, coming down to the water, trod upon his body unexpectedly, and exclaimed in his astonishment, “Ram! Ram!”\u2014the name of the incarnation under which he worshipped God. Kab\u00eer then declared that he had received the mantra of initiation from R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda’s lips, and was by it admitted to discipleship. In spite of the protests of orthodox Br\u00e2hmans and Mohammedans, both equally annoyed by this contempt of theological landmarks, he persisted in his claim; thus exhibiting in action that very principle of religious synthesis which R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda had sought to establish in thought. R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda appears to have accepted him, and though Mohammedan legends speak of the famous S\u00fbf\u00ee P\u00eer, Takk\u00ee of Jhans\u00ee, as Kab\u00eer’s master in later life, the Hindu saint is the only human teacher to whom in his songs he acknowledges indebtedness.<\/p>\n
The little that we know of Kab\u00eer’s life contradicts many current ideas concerning the Oriental mystic. Of the stages of discipline through which he passed, the manner in which his spiritual genius developed, we are completely ignorant. He seems to have remained for years the disciple of R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda, joining in the theological and philosophical arguments which his master held with all the great Mullahs and Br\u00e2hmans of his day; and to this source we may perhaps trace his acquaintance with the terms of Hindu and S\u00fbf\u00ee philosophy. He may or may not have submitted to the traditional education of the Hindu or the S\u00fbf\u00ee contemplative: it is clear, at any rate, that he never adopted the life of the professional ascetic, or retired from the world in order to devote himself to bodily mortifications and the exclusive pursuit of the contemplative life. Side by side with his interior life of adoration, its artistic expression in music and words\u2014for he was a skilled musician as well as a poet\u2014he lived the sane and diligent life of the Oriental craftsman. All the legends agree on this point: that Kab\u00eer was a weaver, a simple and unlettered man, who earned his living at the loom. Like Paul the tentmaker, Boehme the cobbler, Bunyan the tinker, Tersteegen the ribbon-maker, he knew how to combine vision and industry; the work of his hands helped rather than hindered the impassioned meditation of his heart. Hating mere bodily austerities, he was no ascetic, but a married man, the father of a family\u2014a circumstance which Hindu legends of the monastic type vainly attempt to conceal or explain\u2014and it was from out of the heart of the common life that he sang his rapturous lyrics of divine love. Here his works corroborate the traditional story of his life. Again and again he extols the life of home, the value and reality of diurnal existence, with its opportunities for love and renunciation; pouring contempt\u2014upon the professional sanctity of the Yogi, who “has a great beard and matted locks, and looks like a goat,” and on all who think it necessary to flee a world pervaded by love, joy, and beauty\u2014the proper theatre of man’s quest\u2014in order to find that One Reality Who has “spread His form of love throughout all the world.” [Footnote: Cf. Poems Nos. XXI, XL, XLIII, LXVI, LXXVI.]<\/p>\n
It does not need much experience of ascetic literature to recognize the boldness and originality of this attitude in such a time and place. From the point of view of orthodox sanctity, whether Hindu or Mohammedan, Kab\u00eer was plainly a heretic; and his frank dislike of all institutional religion, all external observance\u2014which was as thorough and as intense as that of the Quakers themselves\u2014completed, so far as ecclesiastical opinion was concerned, his reputation as a dangerous man. The “simple union” with Divine Reality which he perpetually extolled, as alike the duty and the joy of every soul, was independent both of ritual and of bodily austerities; the God whom he proclaimed was “neither in Kaaba nor in Kail\u00e2sh.” Those who sought Him needed not to go far; for He awaited discovery everywhere, more accessible to “the washerwoman and the carpenter” than to the self\u2014righteous holy man. [Footnote: Poems I, II, XLI.] Therefore the whole apparatus of piety, Hindu and Moslem alike\u2014the temple and mosque, idol and holy water, scriptures and priests\u2014were denounced by this inconveniently clear-sighted poet as mere substitutes for reality; dead things intervening between the soul and its love\u2014<\/p>\n
\/*
\nThe images are all lifeless, they cannot speak:
\nI know, for I have cried aloud to them.
\nThe Pur\u00e2na and the Koran are mere words:
\nlifting up the curtain, I have seen.
\n*\/
\n[Footnote: Poems XLII, LXV, LXVII.]<\/p>\n
This sort of thing cannot be tolerated by any organized church; and it is not surprising that Kab\u00eer, having his head-quarters in Benares, the very centre of priestly influence, was subjected to considerable persecution. The well-known legend of the beautiful courtesan sent by Br\u00e2hmans to tempt his virtue, and converted, like the Magdalen, by her sudden encounter with the initiate of a higher love, pre serves the memory of the fear and dislike with which he was regarded by the ecclesiastical powers. Once at least, after the performance of a supposed miracle of healing, he was brought before the Emperor Sikandar Lodi, and charged with claiming the possession of divine powers. But Sikandar Lodi, a ruler of considerable culture, was tolerant of the eccentricities of saintly persons belonging to his own faith. Kab\u00eer, being of Mohammedan birth, was outside the authority of the Br\u00e2hmans, and technically classed with the S\u00fbf\u00ees, to whom great theological latitude was allowed. Therefore, though he was banished in the interests of peace from Benares, his life was spared. This seems to have happened in 1495, when he was nearly sixty years of age; it is the last event in his career of which we have definite knowledge. Thenceforth he appears to have moved about amongst various cities of northern India, the centre of a group of disciples; continuing in exile that life of apostle and poet of love to which, as he declares in one of his songs, he was destined “from the beginning of time.” In 1518, an old man, broken in health, and with hands so feeble that he could no longer make the music which he loved, he died at Maghar near Gorakhpur.<\/p>\n
A beautiful legend tells us that after his death his Mohammedan and Hindu disciples disputed the possession of his body; which the Mohammedans wished to bury, the Hindus to burn. As they argued together, Kab\u00eer appeared before them, and told them to lift the shroud and look at that which lay beneath. They did so, and found in the place of the corpse a heap of flowers; half of which were buried by the Mohammedans at Maghar, and half carried by the Hindus to the holy city of Benares to be burned\u2014fitting conclusion to a life which had made fragrant the most beautiful doctrines of two great creeds.<\/p>\n
The poetry of mysticism might be defined on the one hand as a temperamental reaction to the vision of Reality: on the other, as a form of prophecy. As it is the special vocation of the mystical consciousness to mediate between two orders, going out in loving adoration towards God and coming home to tell the secrets of Eternity to other men; so the artistic self-expression of this consciousness has also a double character. It is love-poetry, but love-poetry which is often written with a missionary intention.<\/p>\n
Kab\u00eer’s songs are of this kind: out-births at once of rapture and of charity. Written in the popular Hindi, not in the literary tongue, they were deliberately addressed\u2014like the vernacular poetry of Jacopone da Tod\u00ec and Richard Rolle\u2014to the people rather than to the professionally religious class; and all must be struck by the constant employment in them of imagery drawn from the common life, the universal experience. It is by the simplest metaphors, by constant appeals to needs, passions, relations which all men understand\u2014the bridegroom and bride, the guru and disciple, the pilgrim, the farmer, the migrant bird\u2014 that he drives home his intense conviction of the reality of the soul’s intercourse with the Transcendent. There are in his universe no fences between the “natural” and “supernatural” worlds; everything is a part of the creative Play of God, and therefore\u2014even in its humblest details\u2014capable of revealing the Player’s mind.<\/p>\n
This willing acceptance of the here-and-now as a means of representing supernal realities is a trait common to the greatest mystics. For them, when they have achieved at last the true theopathetic state, all aspects of the universe possess equal authority as sacramental declarations of the Presence of God; and their fearless employment of homely and physical symbols\u2014often startling and even revolting to the unaccustomed taste\u2014is in direct proportion to the exaltation of their spiritual life. The works of the great S\u00fbf\u00ees, and amongst the Christians of Jacopone da Tod\u00ec, Ruysbroeck, Boehme, abound in illustrations of this law. Therefore we must not be surprised to find in Kab\u00eer’s songs\u2014his desperate attempts to communicate his ecstasy and persuade other men to share it\u2014a constant juxtaposition of concrete and metaphysical language; swift alternations between the most intensely anthropomorphic, the most subtly philosophical, ways of apprehending man’s communion with the Divine. The need for this alternation, and its entire naturalness for the mind which employs it, is rooted in his concept, or vision, of the Nature of God; and unless we make some attempt to grasp this, we shall not go far in our understanding of his poems.<\/p>\n
Kab\u00eer belongs to that small group of supreme mystics\u2014amongst whom St. Augustine, Ruysbroeck, and the S\u00fbf\u00ee poet Jal\u00e2lu’dd\u00een R\u00fbm\u00ee are perhaps the chief\u2014who have achieved that which we might call the synthetic vision of God. These have resolved the perpetual opposition between the personal and impersonal, the transcendent and immanent, static and dynamic aspects of the Divine Nature; between the Absolute of philosophy and the “sure true Friend” of devotional religion. They have done this, not by taking these apparently incompatible concepts one after the other; but by ascending to a height of spiritual intuition at which they are, as Ruysbroeck said, “melted and merged in the Unity,” and perceived as the completing opposites of a perfect Whole. This proceeding entails for them\u2014and both Kab\u00eer and Ruysbroeck expressly acknowledge it\u2014a universe of three orders: Becoming, Being, and that which is “More than Being,” i.e., God. [Footnote: Nos. VII and XLIX.] God is here felt to be not the final abstraction, but the one actuality. He inspires, supports, indeed inhabits, both the durational, conditioned, finite world of Becoming and the unconditioned, non-successional, infinite world of Being; yet utterly transcends them both. He is the omnipresent Reality, the “All-pervading” within Whom “the worlds are being told like beads.” In His personal aspect He is the “beloved Fakir,” teaching and companioning each soul. Considered as Immanent Spirit, He is “the Mind within the mind.” But all these are at best partial aspects of His nature, mutually corrective: as the Persons in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity\u2014to which this theological diagram bears a striking resemblance\u2014represent different and compensating experiences of the Divine Unity within which they are resumed. As Ruysbroeck discerned a plane of reality upon which “we can speak no more of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but only of One Being, the very substance of the Divine Persons”; so Kab\u00eer says that “beyond both the limited and the limitless is He, the Pure Being.” [Footnote: No. VII.]<\/p>\n
Brahma, then, is the Ineffable Fact compared with which “the distinction of the Conditioned from the Unconditioned is but a word”: at once the utterly transcendent One of Absolutist philosophy, and the personal Lover of the individual soul\u2014”common to all and special to each,” as one Christian mystic has it. The need felt by Kab\u00eer for both these ways of describing Reality is a proof of the richness and balance of his spiritual experience; which neither cosmic nor anthropomorphic symbols, taken alone, could express. More absolute than the Absolute, more personal than the human mind, Brahma therefore exceeds whilst He includes all the concepts of philosophy, all the passionate intuitions of the heart. He is the Great Affirmation, the font of energy, the source of life and love, the unique satisfaction of desire. His creative word is the Om<\/i> or “Everlasting Yea.” The negative philosophy which strips from the Divine Nature all Its attributes and defining Him only by that which He is not\u2014reduces Him to an “Emptiness,” is abhorrent to this most vital of poets.\u2014Brahma, he says, “may never be found in abstractions.” He is the One Love who Pervades the world., discerned in His fullness only by the eyes of love; and those who know Him thus share, though they may never tell, the joyous and ineffable secret of the universe. [Footnote: Nos. VII, XXVI, LXXVI, XC.]<\/p>\n
Now Kab\u00eer, achieving this synthesis between the personal and cosmic aspects of the Divine Nature, eludes the three great dangers which threaten mystical religion.<\/p>\n
First, he escapes the excessive emotionalism, the tendency to an exclusively anthropomorphic devotion, which results from an unrestricted cult of Divine Personality, especially under an incarnational form; seen in India in the exaggerations of Krishna worship, in Europe in the sentimental extravagances of certain Christian saints.<\/p>\n
Next, he is protected from the soul-destroying conclusions of pure monism, inevitable if its logical implications are pressed home: that is, the identity of substance between God and the soul, with its corollary of the total absorption of that soul in the Being of God as the goal of the spiritual life. For the thorough-going monist the soul, in so far as it is real, is substantially identical with God; and the true object of existence is the making patent of this latent identity, the realization which finds expression in the Ved\u00e2ntist formula “That art thou.” But Kab\u00eer says that Brahma and the creature are “ever distinct, yet ever united”; that the wise man knows the spiritual as well as the material world to “be no more than His footstool.” [Footnote: Nos. VII and IX.] The soul’s union with Him is a love union, a mutual inhabitation; that essentially dualistic relation which all mystical religion expresses, not a self-mergence which leaves no place for personality. This eternal distinction, the mysterious union-in-separateness of God and the soul, is a necessary doctrine of all sane mysticism; for no scheme which fails to find a place for it can represent more than a fragment of that soul’s intercourse with the spiritual world. Its affirmation was one of the distinguishing features of the Vaishnavite reformation preached by R\u00e2m\u00e2nuja; the principle of which had descended through R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda to Kab\u00eer.<\/p>\n
Last, the warmly human and direct apprehension of God as the supreme Object of love, the soul’s comrade, teacher, and bridegroom, which is so passionately and frequently expressed in Kab\u00eer’s poems, balances and controls those abstract tendencies which are inherent in the metaphysical side of his vision of Reality: and prevents it from degenerating into that sterile worship of intellectual formul\u00e6 which became the curse of the Ved\u00e2ntist school. For the mere intellectualist, as for the mere pietist, he has little approbation. [Footnote: Cf. especially Nos. LIX, LXVII, LXXV, XC, XCI.] Love is throughout his “absolute sole Lord”: the unique source of the more abundant life which he enjoys, and the common factor which unites the finite and infinite worlds. All is soaked in love: that love which he described in almost Johannine language as the “Form of God.” The whole of creation is the Play of the Eternal Lover; the living, changing, growing expression of Brahma’s love and joy. As these twin passions preside over the generation of human life, so “beyond the mists of pleasure and pain” Kab\u00eer finds them governing the creative acts of God. His manifestation is love; His activity is joy. Creation springs from one glad act of affirmation: the Everlasting Yea, perpetually uttered within the depths of the Divine Nature. [Footnote: Nos. XVII, XXVI, LXXVI, LXXXII.] In accordance with this concept of the universe as a Love-Game which eternally goes forward, a progressive manifestation of Brahma\u2014one of the many notions which he adopted from the common stock of Hindu religious ideas, and illuminated by his poetic genius\u2014movement, rhythm, perpetual change, forms an integral part of Kab\u00eer’s vision of Reality. Though the Eternal and Absolute is ever present to his consciousness, yet his concept of the Divine Nature is essentially dynamic. It is by the symbols of motion that he most often tries to convey it to us: as in his constant reference to dancing, or the strangely modern picture of that Eternal Swing of the Universe which is “held by the cords of love.” [Footnote: No. XVI.]<\/p>\n
It is a marked characteristic of mystical literature that the great contemplatives, in their effort to convey to us the nature of their communion with the supersensuous, are inevitably driven to employ some form of sensuous imagery: coarse and inaccurate as they know such imagery to be, even at the best. Our normal human consciousness is so completely committed to dependence on the senses, that the fruits of intuition itself are instinctively referred to them. In that intuition it seems to the mystics that all the dim cravings and partial apprehensions of sense find perfect fulfilment. Hence their constant declaration that they see<\/i> the uncreated light, they hear<\/i> the celestial melody, they taste<\/i> the sweetness of the Lord, they know an ineffable fragrance, they feel the very contact of love. “Him verily seeing and fully feeling, Him spiritually hearing and Him delectably smelling and sweetly swallowing,” as Julian of Norwich has it. In those amongst them who develop psycho-sensorial automatisms, these parallels between sense and spirit may present themselves to consciousness in the form of hallucinations: as the light seen by Suso, the music heard by Rolle, the celestial perfumes which filled St. Catherine of Siena’s cell, the physical wounds felt by St. Francis and St. Teresa. These are excessive dramatizations of the symbolism under which the mystic tends instinctively to represent his spiritual intuition to the surface consciousness. Here, in the special sense-perception which he feels to be most expressive of Reality, his peculiar idiosyncrasies come out.<\/p>\n
Now Kab\u00eer, as we might expect in one whose reactions to the spiritual order were so wide and various, uses by turn all the symbols of sense. He tells us that he has “seen without sight” the effulgence of Brahma, tasted the divine nectar, felt the ecstatic contact of Reality, smelt the fragrance of the heavenly flowers. But he was essentially a poet and musician: rhythm and harmony were to him the garments of beauty and truth. Hence in his lyrics he shows himself to be, like Richard Rolle, above all things a musical mystic. Creation, he says again and again, is full of music: it is<\/i> music. At the heart of the Universe “white music is blossoming”: love weaves the melody, whilst renunciation beats the time. It can be heard in the home as well as in the heavens; discerned by the ears of common men as well as by the trained senses of the ascetic. Moreover, the body of every man is a lyre on which Brahma, “the source of all music,” plays. Everywhere Kab\u00eer discerns the “Unstruck Music of the Infinite”\u2014that celestial melody which the angel played to St. Francis, that ghostly symphony which filled the soul of Rolle with ecstatic joy. [Footnote: Nos. XVII, XVIII, XXXIX, XLI, LIV, LXXVI, LXXXIII, LXXXIX, XCVII.] The one figure which he adopts from the Hindu Pantheon and constantly uses, is that of Krishna the Divine Flute Player. [Footnote: Nos. L, LIII, LXVIII.] He sees the supernal music, too, in its visual embodiment, as rhythmical movement: that mysterious dance of the universe before the face of Brahma, which is at once an act of worship and an expression of the infinite rapture of the Immanent God.’<\/p>\n
Yet in this wide and rapturous vision of the universe Kab\u00eer never loses touch with diurnal existence, never forgets the common life. His feet are firmly planted upon earth; his lofty and passionate apprehensions are perpetually controlled by the activity of a sane and vigorous intellect, by the alert commonsense so often found in persons of real mystical genius. The constant insistence on simplicity and directness, the hatred of all abstractions and philosophizings,[Footnote: Nos. XXVI, XXXII, LXXVI] the ruthless criticism of external religion: these are amongst his most marked characteristics. God is the Root whence all manifestations, “material” and “spiritual,” alike proceed; [Footnote: Nos. LXXV, LXXVIII, LXXX, XC.] and God is the only need of man\u2014”happiness shall be yours when you come to the Root.” [Footnote: No. LXXX.] Hence to those who keep their eye on the “one thing needful,” denominations, creeds, ceremonies, the conclusions of philosophy, the disciplines of asceticism, are matters of comparative indifference. They represent merely the different angles from which the soul may approach that simple union with Brahma which is its goal; and are useful only in so faras they contribute to this consummation. So thorough-going is Kab\u00eer’s eclecticism, that he seems by turns Ved\u00e2ntist and Vaishnavite, Pantheist and Transcendentalist, Br\u00e2hman and S\u00fbf\u00ee. In the effort to tell the truth about that ineffable apprehension, so vast and yet so near, which controls his life, he seizes and twines together\u2014as he might have woven together contrasting threads upon his loom\u2014symbols and ideas drawn from the most violent and conflicting philosophies and faiths. All are needed, if he is ever to suggest the character of that One whom the Upanishad called “the Sun-coloured Being who is beyond this Darkness”: as all the colours of the spectrum are needed if we would demonstrate the simple richness of white light. In thus adapting traditional materials to his own use he follows a method common amongst the mystics; who seldom exhibit any special love for originality of form. They will pour their wine into almost any vessel that comes to hand: generally using by preference\u2014and lifting to new levels of beauty and significance\u2014the religious or philosophic formul\u00e6 current in their own day. Thus we find that some of Kab\u00eer’s finest poems have as their subjects the commonplaces of Hindu philosophy and religion: the L\u00eel\u00e2 or Sport of God, the Ocean of Bliss, the Bird of the Soul, M\u00e2y\u00e2, the Hundred-petalled Lotus, and the “Formless Form.” Many, again, are soaked in S\u00fbf\u00ee imagery and feeling. Others use as their material the ordinary surroundings and incidents of Indian life: the temple bells, the ceremony of the lamps, marriage, suttee, pilgrimage, the characters of the seasons; all felt by him in their mystical aspect, as sacraments of the soul’s relation with Brahma. In many of these a particularly beautiful and intimate feeling for Nature is shown. [Footnote: Nos. XV, XXIII, LXVII, LXXXVII, XCVII.]<\/p>\n
In the collection of songs here translated there will be found examples which illustrate nearly every aspect of Kab\u00eer’s thought, and all the fluctuations of the mystic’s emotion: the ecstasy, the despair, the still beatitude, the eager self-devotion, the flashes of wide illumination, the moments of intimate love. His wide and deep vision of the universe, the “Eternal Sport” of creation (LXXXII), the worlds being “told like beads” within the Being of God (XIV, XVI, XVII, LXXVI), is here seen balanced by his lovely and delicate sense of intimate communion with the Divine Friend, Lover, Teacher of the soul (X, XI, XXIII, XXXV, LI, LXXXV, LXXXVI, LXXXVIII, XCII, XCIII; above all, the beautiful poem XXXIV). As these apparently paradoxical views of Reality are resolved in Br\u00e2hma, so all other opposites are reconciled in Him: bondage and liberty, love and renunciation, pleasure and pain (XVII, XXV, XL, LXXIX). Union with Him is the one thing that matters to the soul, its destiny and its need (LI, I, II, LIV, LXX, LXXIV, XCIII, XCVI); and this union, this discovery of God, is the simplest and most natural of all things, if we would but grasp it (XLI, XLVI, LVI, LXXII, LXXVI, LXXVIII, XCVII). The union, however, is brought about by love, not by knowledge or ceremonial observances (XXXVIII, LIV, LV, LIX, XCI); and the apprehension which that union confers is ineffable\u2014”neither This nor That,” as Ruysbroeck has it (IX, XLVI, LXXVI). Real worship and communion is in Spirit and in Truth (XL, XLI, LVI, LXIII, LXV, LXX), therefore idolatry is an insult to the Divine Lover (XLII, LXIX) and the devices of professional sanctity are useless apart from charity and purity of soul (LIV, LXV, LXVI). Since all things, and especially the heart of man, are God-inhabited, God-possessed (XXVI, LVI, LXXVI, LXXXIX, XCVII), He may best be found in the here-and-now: in the normal. human, bodily existence, the “mud” of material life (III, IV, VI, XXI, XXXIX, XL, XLIII, XLVIII, LXXII). “We can reach the goal without crossing the road” (LXXVI)\u2014not the cloister but the home is the proper theatre of man’s efforts: and if he cannot find God there, he need not hope for success by going farther afield. “In the home is reality.” There love and detachment, bondage and freedom, joy and pain play by turns upon the soul; and it is from their conflict that the Unstruck Music of the Infinite proceeds. Kab\u00eer says: “None but Brahma can evoke its melodies.”<\/p>\n
“This version of Kab\u00eer’s songs is chiefly the work of Mr. Rab\u00eendran\u00e2th Tagore, the trend of whose mystical genius makes him\u2014as all who read these poems will see\u2014a peculiarly sympathetic interpreter of Kab\u00eer’s vision and thought. It has been based upon the printed Hind\u00ee text with Bengali translation of Mr. Kshiti Mohan Sen; who has gathered from many sources\u2014sometimes from books and manuscripts, sometimes from the lips of wandering ascetics and minstrels\u2014a large collection of poems and hymns to which Kab\u00eer’s name is attached, and carefully sifted the authentic songs from the many spurious works now attributed to him. These painstaking labours alone have made the present undertaking possible.<\/p>\n
We have also had before us a manuscript English translation of 116 songs made by Mr. Ajit Kum\u00e2r Chakravarty from Mr. Kshiti Mohan Sen’s text, and a prose essay upon Kab\u00eer from the same hand. From these we have derived great assistance. A considerable number of readings from the translation have been adopted by us; whilst several of the facts mentioned in the essay have been incorporated into this introduction. Our most grateful thanks are due to Mr. Ajit Kumar Chakravarty for the extremely generous and unselfish manner in which he has placed his work at our disposal.<\/p>\n
The reference of the headlines of the poems is to:<\/p>\n
S\u00e2ntiniketana; Kab\u00eer by Sr\u00ee Kshitimohan Sen, 4 parts,
\nBrahmachary\u00e2srama, Bolpur, 1910-1911.<\/p>\n
For some assistance in normalizing the transliteration we are indebted to Professor J. F. Blumhardt.<\/p>\n
I. 13. mo ko kah\u00e2n dh\u00fbnro bande<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O servant, where dost thou seek Me?
\nLo! I am beside thee.
\nI am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor
\nin Kailash:
\nNeither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and
\nrenunciation.
\nIf thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt
\nmeet Me in a moment of time.
\nKab\u00eer says, “O Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath.”<\/p>\n
I. 16. Santan j\u00e2t na p\u00fbcho nirguniy\u00e2n<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0It is needless to ask of a saint the caste to which he belongs;
\nFor the priest, the warrior. the tradesman, and all the
\nthirty-six castes, alike are seeking for God.
\nIt is but folly to ask what the caste of a saint may be;
\nThe barber has sought God, the washerwoman, and the carpenter\u2014
\nEven Raidas was a seeker after God.
\nThe Rishi Swapacha was a tanner by caste.
\nHindus and Moslems alike have achieved that End, where remains no
\nmark of distinction.<\/p>\n
I. 57. s\u00e2dho bh\u00e2\u00ee, j\u00eeval h\u00ee karo \u00e2s’\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O friend! hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live,
\nunderstand whilst you live: for in life deliverance abides.
\nIf your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of
\ndeliverance in death?
\nIt is but an empty dream, that the soul shall have union with Him
\nbecause it has passed from the body:
\nIf He is found now, He is found then,
\nIf not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death.
\nIf you have union now, you shall have it hereafter.
\nBathe in the truth, know the true Guru, have faith in the true
\nName!
\nKab\u00eer says: “It is the Spirit of the quest which helps; I am the
\nslave of this Spirit of the quest.”<\/p>\n
I. 58. b\u00e2go n\u00e2 j\u00e2 re n\u00e2 j\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Do not go to the garden of flowers!
\nO Friend! go not there;
\nIn your body is the garden of flowers.
\nTake your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there
\ngaze on the Infinite Beauty.<\/p>\n
I. 63. avadh\u00fb, m\u00e2y\u00e2 taj\u00ee na j\u00e2y<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Tell me, Brother, how can I renounce Maya?
\nWhen I gave up the tying of ribbons, still I tied my garment
\nabout me:
\nWhen I gave up tying my garment, still I covered my body in its
\nfolds.
\nSo, when I give up passion, I see that anger remains;
\nAnd when I renounce anger, greed is with me still;
\nAnd when greed is vanquished, pride and vainglory remain;
\nWhen the mind is detached and casts Maya away, still it clings to
\nthe letter.
\nKab\u00eer says, “Listen to me, dear Sadhu! the true path is rarely
\nfound.”<\/p>\n
I. 83. cand\u00e2 jhalkai yahi ghat m\u00e2h\u00een<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The moon shines in my body, but my blind eyes cannot see it:
\nThe moon is within me, and so is the sun.
\nThe unstruck drum of Eternity is sounded within me; but my deaf
\nears cannot hear it.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0So long as man clamours for the I<\/i> and the Mine<\/i>,
\nhis works are as naught:
\nWhen all love of the I<\/i> and the Mine<\/i> is dead, then
\nthe work of the Lord is done.
\nFor work has no other aim than the getting of knowledge:
\nWhen that comes, then work is put away.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The flower blooms for the fruit: when the fruit comes, the flower
\nwithers.
\nThe musk is in the deer, but it seeks it not within itself: it
\nwanders in quest of grass.<\/p>\n
I. 85. S\u00e2dho, Brahm alakh lakh\u00e2y\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0When He Himself reveals Himself, Brahma brings into manifestation
\nThat which can never be seen.
\nAs the seed is in the plant, as the shade is in the tree, as the
\nvoid is in the sky, as infinite forms are in the void\u2014
\nSo from beyond the Infinite, the Infinite comes; and from the
\nInfinite the finite extends.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The creature is in Brahma, and Brahma is in the creature: they
\nare ever distinct, yet ever united.
\nHe Himself is the tree, the seed, and the germ.
\nHe Himself is the flower, the fruit, and the shade.
\nHe Himself is the sun, the light, and the lighted.
\nHe Himself is Brahma, creature, and Maya.
\nHe Himself is the manifold form, the infinite space;
\nHe is the breath, the word, and the meaning.
\nHe Himself is the limit and the limitless: and beyond both the
\nlimited and the limitless is He, the Pure Being.
\nHe is the Immanent Mind in Brahma and in the creature.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The Supreme Soul is seen within the soul,
\nThe Point is seen within the Supreme Soul,
\nAnd within the Point, the reflection is seen again.
\nKab\u00eer is blest because he has this supreme vision!<\/p>\n
I. 101. is ghat antar b\u00e2g bag\u00eece<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Within this earthen vessel are bowers and groves, and within it
\nis the Creator:
\nWithin this vessel are the seven oceans and the unnumbered stars.
\nThe touchstone and the jewel-appraiser are within;
\nAnd within this vessel the Eternal soundeth, and the spring wells
\nup.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Listen to me, my Friend! My beloved Lord is within.”<\/p>\n
I. 104. ais\u00e2 lo nah\u00een tais\u00e2 lo<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O How may I ever express that secret word?
\nO how can I say He is not like this, and He is like that?
\nIf I say that He is within me, the universe is ashamed:
\nIf I say that He is without me, it is falsehood.
\nHe makes the inner and the outer worlds to be indivisibly one;
\nThe conscious and the unconscious, both are His footstools.
\nHe is neither manifest nor hidden, He is neither revealed nor
\nunrevealed:
\nThere are no words to tell that which He is.<\/p>\n
I. 121. tohi mori lagan lag\u00e2ye re phak\u00eer w\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0To Thee Thou hast drawn my love, O Fakir!
\nI was sleeping in my own chamber, and Thou didst awaken me;
\nstriking me with Thy voice, O Fakir!
\nI was drowning in the deeps of the ocean of this world, and
\nThou didst save me: upholding me with Thine arm, O Fakir!
\nOnly one word and no second\u2014and Thou hast made me tear off all
\nmy bonds, O Fakir!
\nKab\u00eer says, “Thou hast united Thy heart to my heart, O Fakir!”<\/p>\n
I. 131. nis’ din khelat rah\u00ee sakhiy\u00e2n sang<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0I played day and night with my comrades, and now I am greatly
\nafraid.
\nSo high is my Lord’s palace, my heart trembles to mount its
\nstairs: yet I must not be shy, if I would enjoy His love.
\nMy heart must cleave to my Lover; I must withdraw my veil, and
\nmeet Him with all my body:
\nMine eyes must perform the ceremony of the lamps of love.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Listen to me, friend: he understands who loves. If
\nyou feel not love’s longing for your Beloved One, it is vain
\nto adorn your body, vain to put unguent on your eyelids.”<\/p>\n
II. 24. hams\u00e2, kaho pur\u00e2tan v\u00e2t<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Tell me, O Swan, your ancient tale.
\nFrom what land do you come, O Swan? to what shore will you fly?
\nWhere would you take your rest, O Swan, and what do you seek?<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Even this morning, O Swan, awake, arise, follow me!
\nThere is a land where no doubt nor sorrow have rule: where the
\nterror of Death is no more.
\nThere the woods of spring are a-bloom, and the fragrant scent “He
\nis I” is borne on the wind:
\nThere the bee of the heart is deeply immersed, and desires no
\nother joy.<\/p>\n
II. 37. angadhiy\u00e2 dev\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O Lord Increate, who will serve Thee?
\nEvery votary offers his worship to the God of his own creation:
\neach day he receives service\u2014
\nNone seek Him, the Perfect: Brahma, the Indivisible Lord.
\nThey believe in ten Avatars; but no Avatar can be the Infinite
\nSpirit, for he suffers the results of his deeds:
\nThe Supreme One must be other than this.
\nThe Yogi, the Sanyasi, the Ascetics, are disputing one with
\nanother:
\nKab\u00eer says, “O brother! he who has seen that radiance of love,
\nhe is saved.”<\/p>\n
II. 56. dariy\u00e2 k\u00ee lahar dariy\u00e2o hai j\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The river and its waves are one
\nsurf: where is the difference between the river and its waves?
\nWhen the wave rises, it is the water; and when it falls, it is
\nthe same water again. Tell me, Sir, where is the distinction?
\nBecause it has been named as wave, shall it no longer be
\nconsidered as water?<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Within the Supreme Brahma, the worlds are being told like beads:
\nLook upon that rosary with the eyes of wisdom.<\/p>\n
II. 57. j\u00e2nh khelat vasant ritur\u00e2j<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Where Spring, the lord of the seasons, reigneth, there the
\nUnstruck Music sounds of itself,
\nThere the streams of light flow in all directions;
\nFew are the men who can cross to that shore!
\nThere, where millions of Krishnas stand with hands folded,
\nWhere millions of Vishnus bow their heads,
\nWhere millions of Brahm\u00e2s are reading the Vedas,
\nWhere millions of Shivas are lost in contemplation,
\nWhere millions of Indras dwell in the sky,
\nWhere the demi-gods and the munis are unnumbered,
\nWhere millions of Saraswatis, Goddess of Music, play on the vina\u2014
\nThere is my Lord self-revealed: and the scent of sandal and
\nflowers dwells in those deeps.<\/p>\n
II. 59. j\u00e2nh, cet acet khambh d\u00f4\u00fb<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Between the poles of the conscious and the unconscious, there has
\nthe mind made a swing:
\nThereon hang all beings and all worlds, and that swing never
\nceases its sway.
\nMillions of beings are there: the sun and the moon in their
\ncourses are there:
\nMillions of ages pass, and the swing goes on.
\nAll swing! the sky and the earth and the air and the water; and
\nthe Lord Himself taking form:
\nAnd the sight of this has made Kab\u00eer a servant.<\/p>\n
II. 61. grah candra tapan jot varat hai<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The light of the sun, the moon, and the stars shines bright:
\nThe melody of love swells forth, and the rhythm of love’s
\ndetachment beats the time.
\nDay and night, the chorus of music fills the heavens; and Kab\u00eer
\nsays
\n“My Beloved One gleams like the lightning flash in the sky.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Do you know how the moments perform their adoration?
\nWaving its row of lamps, the universe sings in worship day and
\nnight,
\nThere are the hidden banner and the secret canopy:
\nThere the sound of the unseen bells is heard.
\nKab\u00eer says: “There adoration never ceases; there the Lord of the
\nUniverse sitteth on His throne.”
\nThe whole world does its works and commits its errors: but few
\nare the lovers who know the Beloved.
\nThe devout seeker is he who mingles in his heart the double
\ncurrents of love and detachment, like the mingling of the
\nstreams of Ganges and Jumna;
\nIn his heart the sacred water flows day and night; and thus the
\nround of births and deaths is brought to an end.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Behold what wonderful rest is in the Supreme Spirit! and he
\nenjoys it, who makes himself meet for it.
\nHeld by the cords of love, the swing of the Ocean of Joy sways to
\nand fro; and a mighty sound breaks forth in song.
\nSee what a lotus blooms there without water! and Kab\u00eer says
\n“My heart’s bee drinks its nectar.”
\nWhat a wonderful lotus it is, that blooms at the heart of the
\nspinning wheel of the universe! Only a few pure souls know of
\nits true delight.
\nMusic is all around it, and there the heart partakes of the joy
\nof the Infinite Sea.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Dive thou into that Ocean of sweetness: thus let all
\nerrors of life and of death flee away.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Behold how the thirst of the five senses is quenched there! and
\nthe three forms of misery are no more!
\nKab\u00eer says: “It is the sport of the Unattainable One: look
\nwithin, and behold how the moon-beams of that Hidden One shine
\nin you.”
\nThere falls the rhythmic beat of life and death:
\nRapture wells forth, and all space is radiant with light.
\nThere the Unstruck Music is sounded; it is the music of the love
\nof the three worlds.
\nThere millions of lamps of sun and of moon are burning;
\nThere the drum beats, and the lover swings in play.
\nThere love-songs resound, and light rains in showers; and the
\nworshipper is entranced in the taste of the heavenly nectar.
\nLook upon life and death; there is no separation between them,
\nThe right hand and the left hand are one and the same.
\nKab\u00eer says: “There the wise man is speechless; for this truth may
\nnever be found in Vadas or in books.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0I have had my Seat on the Self-poised One,
\nI have drunk of the Cup of the Ineffable,
\nI have found the Key of the Mystery,
\nI have reached the Root of Union.
\nTravelling by no track, I have come to the Sorrowless Land: very
\neasily has the mercy of the great Lord come upon me.
\nThey have sung of Him as infinite and unattainable: but I in my
\nmeditations have seen Him without sight.
\nThat is indeed the sorrowless land, and none know the path that
\nleads there:
\nOnly he who is on that path has surely transcended all sorrow.
\nWonderful is that land of rest, to which no merit can win;
\nIt is the wise who has seen it, it is the wise who has sung of
\nit.
\nThis is the Ultimate Word: but can any express its marvellous
\nsavour?
\nHe who has savoured it once, he knows what joy it can give.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Knowing it, the ignorant man becomes wise, and the
\nwise man becomes speechless and silent,
\nThe worshipper is utterly inebriated,
\nHis wisdom and his detachment are made perfect;
\nHe drinks from the cup of the inbreathings and the outbreathings
\nof love.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0There the whole sky is filled with sound, and there that music is
\nmade without fingers and without strings;
\nThere the game of pleasure and pain does not cease.
\nKab\u00eer says: “If you merge your life in the Ocean of Life, you
\nwill find your life in the Supreme Land of Bliss.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0What a frenzy of ecstasy there is in every hour! and the
\nworshipper is pressing out and drinking the essence of the
\nhours: he lives in the life of Brahma.
\nI speak truth, for I have accepted truth in life; I am now
\nattached to truth, I have swept all tinsel away.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Thus is the worshipper set free from fear; thus have
\nall errors of life and of death left him.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0There the sky is filled with music:
\nThere it rains nectar:
\nThere the harp-strings jingle, and there the drums beat.
\nWhat a secret splendour is there, in the mansion of the sky!
\nThere no mention is made of the rising and the setting of the
\nsun;
\nIn the ocean of manifestation, which is the light of love, day
\nand night are felt to be one.
\nJoy for ever, no sorrow,\u2014no struggle!
\nThere have I seen joy filled to the brim, perfection of joy;
\nNo place for error is there.
\nKab\u00eer says: “There have I witnessed the sport of One Bliss!”<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0I have known in my body the sport of the universe: I have escaped
\nfrom the error of this world..
\nThe inward and the outward are become as one sky, the Infinite
\nand the finite are united: I am drunken with the sight of this
\nAll!
\nThis Light of Thine fulfils the universe: the lamp of love that
\nburns on the salver of knowledge.
\nKab\u00eer says: “There error cannot enter, and the conflict of life
\nand death is felt no more.”<\/p>\n
II. 77. maddh \u00e2kas’ \u00e2p jah\u00e2n baithe<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The middle region of the sky, wherein the spirit dwelleth, is
\nradiant with the music of light;
\nThere, where the pure and white music blossoms, my Lord takes His
\ndelight.
\nIn the wondrous effulgence of each hair of His body, the
\nbrightness of millions of suns and of moons is lost.
\nOn that shore there is a city, where the rain of nectar pours and
\npours, and never ceases.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Come, O Dharmadas! and see my great Lord’s Durbar.”<\/p>\n
II. 20. param\u00e2tam guru nikat vir\u00e2jatn<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O my heart! the Supreme Spirit, the great Master, is near you:
\nwake, oh wake!
\nRun to the feet of your Beloved: for your Lord stands near to your
\nhead.
\nYou have slept for unnumbered ages; this morning will you not
\nwake?<\/p>\n
II. 22. man tu p\u00e2r utar k\u00e2nh jaiho<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0To what shore would you cross, O my heart? there is no traveller
\nbefore you, there is no road:
\nWhere is the movement, where is the rest, on that shore?
\nThere is no water; no boat, no boatman, is there;
\nThere is not so much as a rope to tow the boat, nor a man to draw
\nit.
\nNo earth, no sky, no time, no thing, is there: no shore, no ford!
\nThere, there is neither body nor mind: and where is the place
\nthat shall still the thirst of the soul? You shall find naught
\nin that emptiness.
\nBe strong, and enter into your own body: for there your foothold
\nis firm. Consider it well, O my heart! go not elsewhere,
\nKab\u00eer says: “Put all imaginations away, and stand fast in that
\nwhich you are.”<\/p>\n
II. 33. ghar ghar d\u00eepak barai<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Lamps burn in every house, O blind one! and you cannot see them.
\nOne day your eyes shall suddenly be opened, and you shall see:
\nand the fetters of death will fall from you.
\nThere is nothing to say or to hear, there is nothing to do: it is
\nhe who is living, yet dead, who shall never die again.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Because he lives in solitude, therefore the Yogi says that his
\nhome is far away.
\nYour Lord is near: yet you are climbing the palm-tree to seek
\nHim.
\nThe Br\u00e2hman priest goes from house to house and initiates people
\ninto faith:
\nAlas! the true fountain of life is beside you., and you have set
\nup a stone to worship.
\nKab\u00eer says: “I may never express how sweet my Lord is. Yoga and
\nthe telling of beads, virtue and vice\u2014these are naught to Him.”<\/p>\n
II. 38. S\u00e2dho, so satgur mohi bh\u00e2wai<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O brother, my heart yearns for that true Guru, who fills the cup
\nof true love, and drinks of it himself, and offers it then to
\nme.
\nHe removes the veil from the eyes, and gives the true Vision of
\nBrahma:
\nHe reveals the worlds in Him, and makes me to hear the Unstruck
\nMusic:
\nHe shows joy and sorrow to be one:
\nHe fills all utterance with love.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Verily he has no fear, who has such a Guru to lead
\nhim to the shelter of safety!”<\/p>\n
II. 40. tinwir s\u00e2\u00f1jh k\u00e2 gahir\u00e2 \u00e2wai<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The shadows of evening fall thick and deep, and the darkness of
\nlove envelops the body and the mind.
\nOpen the window to the west, and be lost in the sky of love;
\nDrink the sweet honey that steeps the petals of the lotus of the
\nheart.
\nReceive the waves in your body: what splendour is in the region
\nof the sea!
\nHark! the sounds of conches and bells are rising.
\nKab\u00eer says: “O brother, behold! the Lord is in this vessel of my
\nbody.”<\/p>\n
II. 48. jis se rahani ap\u00e2r jagat men<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0More than all else do I cherish at heart that love which makes me
\nto live a limitless life in this world.
\nIt is like the lotus, which lives in the water and blooms in the
\nwater: yet the water cannot touch its petals, they open beyond
\nits reach.
\nIt is like a wife, who enters the fire at the bidding of love.
\nShe burns and lets others grieve, yet never dishonours love.
\nThis ocean of the world is hard to cross: its waters are very
\ndeep. Kab\u00eer says: “Listen to me, O Sadhu! few there are who
\nhave reached its end.”<\/p>\n
II. 45. Hari ne apn\u00e2 \u00e2p chip\u00e2y\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0My Lord hides Himself, and my Lord wonderfully reveals Himself:
\nMy Lord has encompassed me with hardness, and my Lord has cast
\ndown my limitations.
\nMy Lord brings to me words of sorrow and words of joy, and He
\nHimself heals their strife.
\nI will offer my body and mind to my Lord: I will give up my life,
\nbut never can I forget my Lord!<\/p>\n
II. 75. \u00f4nk\u00e2r siwae k\u00f4\u00ee sirjai<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0All things are created by the Om;
\nThe love-form is His body.
\nHe is without form, without quality, without decay:
\nSeek thou union with Him!
\nBut that formless God takes a thousand forms in the eyes of His
\ncreatures:
\nHe is pure and indestructible,
\nHis form is infinite and fathomless,
\nHe dances in rapture, and waves of form arise from His dance.
\nThe body and the mind cannot contain themselves, when they are
\ntouched by His great joy.
\nHe is immersed in all consciousness, all joys, and all sorrows;
\nHe has no beginning and no end;
\nHe holds all within His bliss.<\/p>\n
II. 81. satgur s\u00f4\u00ee day\u00e2 kar d\u00eenh\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0It is the mercy of my true Guru that has made me to know the
\nunknown;
\nI have learned from Him how to walk without feet, to see without
\neyes, to hear without ears, to drink without mouth, to fly
\nwithout wings;
\nI have brought my love and my meditation into the land where
\nthere is no sun and moon, nor day and night.
\nWithout eating, I have tasted of the sweetness of nectar; and
\nwithout water, I have quenched my thirst.
\nWhere there is the response of delight, there is the fullness of
\njoy. Before whom can that joy be uttered?
\nKab\u00eer says: “The Guru is great beyond words, and great is the
\ngood fortune of the disciple.”<\/p>\n
II. 85. nirgun \u00e2ge sargun n\u00e2cai<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Before the Unconditioned, the Conditioned dances: “Thou and I are
\none!” this trumpet proclaims.
\nThe Guru comes, and bows down before the disciple:
\nThis is the greatest of wonders.<\/p>\n
II. 87. Kab\u00eer kab se bhaye vair\u00e2g\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Gorakhnath asks Kab\u00eer:
\n“Tell me, O Kab\u00eer, when did your vocation begin? Where did your
\nlove have its rise?”
\nKab\u00eer answers:
\n“When He whose forms are manifold had not begun His play: when
\nthere was no Guru, and no disciple: when the world was not
\nspread out: when the Supreme One was alone\u2014
\nThen I became an ascetic; then, O Gorakh, my love was drawn to
\nBrahma.
\nBrahma did not hold the crown on his head; the god Vishnu was not
\nanointed as king; the power of Shiva was still unborn; when I
\nwas instructed in Yoga.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0I became suddenly revealed in Benares, and R\u00e2m\u00e2nanda illumined
\nme;
\nI brought with me the thirst for the Infinite, and I have come
\nfor the meeting with Him.
\nIn simplicity will I unite with the Simple One; my love will
\nsurge up.
\nO Gorakh, march thou with His music!”<\/p>\n
II. 95. y\u00e2 tarvar men ek pakher\u00fb<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0On this tree is a bird: it dances in the joy of life.
\nNone knows where it is: and who knows what the burden of its
\nmusic may be?
\nWhere the branches throw a deep shade, there does it have its
\nnest: and it comes in the evening and flies away in the morning,
\nand says not a word of that which it means.
\nNone tell me of this bird that sings within me.
\nIt is neither coloured nor colourless: it has neither form nor
\noutline:
\nIt sits in the shadow of love.
\nIt dwells within the Unattainable, the Infinite, and the Eternal;
\nand no one marks when it comes and goes.
\nKab\u00eer says: “O brother Sadhu! deep is the mystery. Let wise men
\nseek to know where rests that bird.”<\/p>\n
II. 100. nis` din s\u00e2lai gh\u00e2w<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0A sore pain troubles me day and night, and I cannot sleep;
\nI long for the meeting with my Beloved, and my father’s house
\ngives me pleasure no more.
\nThe gates of the sky are opened, the temple is revealed:
\nI meet my husband, and leave at His feet the offering of my body
\nand my mind.<\/p>\n
II. 103. n\u00e2co re mero man, matta hoy<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Dance, my heart! dance to-day with joy.
\nThe strains of love fill the days and the nights with music, and
\nthe world is listening to its melodies:
\nMad with joy, life and death dance to the rhythm of this music.
\nThe hills and the sea and the earth dance. The world of man
\ndances in laughter and tears.
\nWhy put on the robe of the monk, and live aloof from the world in
\nlonely pride?
\nBehold! my heart dances in the delight of a hundred arts; and
\nthe Creator is well pleased.<\/p>\n
II. 105. man mast hu\u00e2 tab kyon bole<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Where is the need of words, when love has made drunken the heart?
\nI have wrapped the diamond in my cloak; why open it again and
\nagain?
\nWhen its load was light, the pan of the balance went up: now it
\nis full, where is the need for weighing?
\nThe swan has taken its flight to the lake beyond the mountains;
\nwhy should it search for the pools and ditches any more?
\nYour Lord dwells within you: why need your outward eyes be
\nopened?
\nKab\u00eer says: “Listen, my brother! my Lord, who ravishes my eyes,
\nhas united Himself with me.”<\/p>\n
II. 110. mohi tohi l\u00e2g\u00ee kaise chute<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0How could the love between Thee and me sever?
\nAs the leaf of the lotus abides on the water: so thou art my
\nLord, and I am Thy servant.
\nAs the night-bird Chakor gazes all night at the moon: so Thou art
\nmy Lord and I am Thy servant.
\nFrom the beginning until the ending of time, there is love
\nbetween Thee and me; and how shall such love be extinguished?
\nKab\u00eer says: “As the river enters into the ocean, so my heart
\ntouches Thee.”<\/p>\n
II. 113. v\u00e2lam, \u00e2wo ham\u00e2re geh re<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0My body and my mind are grieved for the want of Thee;
\nO my Beloved! come to my house.
\nWhen people say I am Thy bride, I am ashamed; for I have not
\ntouched Thy heart with my heart.
\nThen what is this love of mine? I have no taste for food, I have
\nno sleep; my heart is ever restless within doors and without.
\nAs water is to the thirsty, so is the lover to the bride. Who is
\nthere that will carry my news to my Beloved?
\nKab\u00eer is restless: he is dying for sight of Him.<\/p>\n
II. 126. j\u00e2g piy\u00e2r\u00ee, ab k\u00e2n sowai<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O friend, awake, and sleep no more!
\nThe night is over and gone, would you lose your day also?
\nOthers, who have wakened, have received jewels;
\nO foolish woman! you have lost all whilst you slept.
\nYour lover is wise, and you are foolish, O woman!
\nYou never prepared the bed of your husband:
\nO mad one! you passed your time in silly play.
\nYour youth was passed in vain, for you did not know your Lord;
\nWake, wake! See! your bed is empty: He left you in the night.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Only she wakes, whose heart is pierced with the
\narrow of His music.”<\/p>\n
I. 36. s\u00fbr park\u00e2s’, tanh rain kah\u00e2n p\u00e2\u00efye<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Where is the night, when the sun is shining? If it is night,
\nthen the sun withdraws its light. Where knowledge is, can
\nignorance endure?
\nIf there be ignorance, then knowledge must die.
\nIf there be lust, how can love be there? Where there is love,
\nthere is no lust.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Lay hold on your sword, and join in the fight. Fight, O my
\nbrother, as long as life lasts.
\nStrike off your enemy’s head, and there make an end of him
\nquickly: then come, and bow your head at your King’s Durbar.
\nHe who is brave, never forsakes the battle: he who flies from it
\nis no true fighter.
\nIn the field of this body a great war goes forward, against
\npassion, anger, pride, and greed:
\nIt is in the kingdom of truth, contentment and purity, that this
\nbattle is raging; and the sword that rings forth most loudly is
\nthe sword of His Name.
\nKab\u00eer says: “When a brave knight takes the field, a host of
\ncowards is put to flight.
\nIt is a hard fight and a weary one, this fight of the
\ntruth-seeker: for the vow of the truth-seeker is more hard than
\nthat of the warrior, or of the widowed wife who would follow her
\nhusband.
\nFor the warrior fights for a few hours, and the widow’s struggle
\nwith death is soon ended:
\nBut the truth-seeker’s battle goes on day and night, as long as
\nlife lasts it never ceases.”<\/p>\n
I. 50. bhram k\u00e2 t\u00e2l\u00e2 lag\u00e2 mahal re<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The lock of error shuts the gate, open it with the key of love:
\nThus, by opening the door, thou shalt wake the Beloved.
\nKab\u00eer says: “O brother! do not pass by such good fortune as
\nthis.”<\/p>\n
I. 59. s\u00e2dho, yah tan th\u00e2th tanvure ka<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O friend! this body is His lyre; He tightens its strings, and
\ndraws from it the melody of Brahma.
\nIf the strings snap and the keys slacken, then to dust must this
\ninstrument of dust return:
\nKab\u00eer says: “None but Brahma can evoke its melodies.”<\/p>\n
I. 65. avadh\u00fb bh\u00fble ko ghar l\u00e2we<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0He is dear to me indeed who can call back the wanderer to his
\nhome. In the home is the true union, in the home is enjoyment
\nof life: why should I forsake my home and wander in the forest?
\nIf Brahma helps me to realize truth, verily I will find both
\nbondage and deliverance in home.
\nHe is dear to me indeed who has power to dive deep into Brahma;
\nwhose mind loses itself with ease in His contemplation.
\nHe is dear to me who knows Brahma, and can dwell on His supreme
\ntruth in meditation; and who can play the melody of the
\nInfinite by uniting love and renunciation in life.
\nKab\u00eer says: “The home is the abiding place; in the home is
\nreality; the home helps to attain Him Who is real. So stay
\nwhere you are, and all things shall come to you in time.”<\/p>\n
I. 76. santo, sahaj sam\u00e2dh bhal\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O sadhu! the simple union is the best. Since the day when I met
\nwith my Lord, there has been no end to the sport of our love.
\nI shut not my eyes, I close not my ears, I do not mortify my
\nbody;
\nI see with eyes open and smile, and behold His beauty everywhere:
\nI utter His Name, and whatever I see, it reminds me of Him;
\nwhatever I do., it becomes His worship.
\nThe rising and the setting are one to me; all contradictions are
\nsolved.
\nWherever I go, I move round Him,
\nAll I achieve is His service:
\nWhen I lie down, I lie prostrate at His feet.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0He is the only adorable one to me: I have none other.
\nMy tongue has left off impure words, it sings His glory day and
\nnight:
\nWhether I rise or sit down, I can never forget Him; for the
\nrhythm of His music beats in my ears.
\nKab\u00eer says: “My heart is frenzied, and I disclose in my soul what
\nis hidden. I am immersed in that one great bliss which
\ntranscends all pleasure and pain.”<\/p>\n
I. 79. t\u00eerath men to sab p\u00e2n\u00ee hai<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0There is nothing but water at the holy bathing places; and I know
\nthat they are useless, for I have bathed in them.
\nThe images are all lifeless, they cannot speak; I know, for I
\nhave cried aloud to them.
\nThe Purana and the Koran are mere words; lifting up the curtain,
\nI have seen.
\nKab\u00eer gives utterance to the words of experience; and he knows
\nvery well that all other things are untrue.<\/p>\n
I. 82. p\u00e2n\u00ee vic m\u00een piy\u00e2s\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty:
\nYou do not see that the Real is in your home, and you wander from
\nforest to forest listlessly!
\nHere is the truth! Go where you will, to Benares or to Mathura;
\nif you do not find your soul, the world is unreal to you.<\/p>\n
I. 93. gagan math gaib nis\u00e2n gade<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The Hidden Banner is planted in the temple of the sky; there the
\nblue canopy decked with the moon and set with bright jewels is
\nspread.
\nThere the light of the sun and the moon is shining: still your
\nmind to silence before that splendour.
\nKab\u00eer says: “He who has drunk of this nectar, wanders like one
\nwho is mad.”<\/p>\n
I. 97. s\u00e2dho, ko hai k\u00e2nh se \u00e2yo<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Who are you, and whence do you come?
\nWhere dwells that Supreme Spirit, and how does He have His sport
\nwith all created things?
\nThe fire is in the wood; but who awakens it suddenly? Then it
\nturns to ashes, and where goes the force of the fire?
\nThe true guru teaches that He has neither limit nor infinitude.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Brahma suits His language to the understanding of
\nHis hearer.”<\/p>\n
I. 98. s\u00e2dho, sahajai k\u00e2y\u00e2 s’odho<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O sadhu! purify your body in the simple way.
\nAs the seed is within the banyan tree, and within the seed are
\nthe flowers, the fruits, and the shade:
\nSo the germ is within the body, and within that germ is the body
\nagain.
\nThe fire, the air, the water, the earth, and the aether; you
\ncannot have these outside of Him.
\nO, Kazi, O Pundit, consider it well: what is there that is not in
\nthe soul?
\nThe water-filled pitcher is placed upon water, it has water
\nwithin and without.
\nIt should not be given a name, lest it call forth the error of
\ndualism.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Listen to the Word, the Truth, which is your
\nessence. He speaks the Word to Himself; and He Himself is the
\nCreator.”<\/p>\n
I. 102. tarvar ek m\u00fbl vin th\u00e2d\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0There is a strange tree, which stands without roots and bears
\nfruits without blossoming;
\nIt has no branches and no leaves, it is lotus all over.
\nTwo birds sing there; one is the Guru, and the other the
\ndisciple:
\nThe disciple chooses the manifold fruits of life and tastes them,
\nand the Guru beholds him in joy.
\nWhat Kab\u00eer says is hard to understand: “The bird is beyond
\nseeking, yet it is most clearly visible. The Formless is in
\nthe midst of all forms. I sing the glory of forms.”<\/p>\n
I. 107. calat mans\u00e2 acal k\u00eenh\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0I have stilled my restless mind, and my heart is radiant: for in
\nThatness I have seen beyond That-ness. In company I have seen
\nthe Comrade Himself.
\nLiving in bondage, I have set myself free: I have broken away
\nfrom the clutch of all narrowness.
\nKab\u00eer says: “I have attained the unattainable, and my heart is
\ncoloured with the colour of love.”<\/p>\n
I. 105. jo d\u00eesai, so to hai n\u00e2h\u00een<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0That which you see is not: and for that which is, you have no
\nwords.
\nUnless you see, you believe not: what is told you you cannot
\naccept.
\nHe who is discerning knows by the word; and the ignorant stands
\ngaping.
\nSome contemplate the Formless, and others meditate on form: but
\nthe wise man knows that Brahma is beyond both.
\nThat beauty of His is not seen of the eye: that metre of His is
\nnot heard of the ear.
\nKab\u00eer says: “He who has found both love and renunciation never
\ndescends to death.”<\/p>\n
I. 126. mural\u00ee bajat akhand sad\u00e2ye<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The flute of the Infinite is played without ceasing, and its
\nsound is love:
\nWhen love renounces all limits, it reaches truth.
\nHow widely the fragrance spreads! It has no end, nothing stands
\nin its way.
\nThe form of this melody is bright like a million suns:
\nincomparably sounds the vina, the vina of the notes of truth.<\/p>\n
I. 129. sakhiyo, ham h\u00fbn bh\u00e2\u00ee v\u00e2lam\u00e2s’\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Dear friend, I am eager to meet my Beloved! My youth has
\nflowered, and the pain of separation from Him troubles my
\nbreast.
\nI am wandering yet in the alleys of knowledge without purpose,
\nbut I have received His news in these alleys of knowledge.
\nI have a letter from my Beloved: in this letter is an unutterable
\nmessage, and now my fear of death is done away.
\nKab\u00eer says: “O my loving friend! I have got for my gift the
\nDeathless One.”<\/p>\n
I. 130. s\u00e2\u00een vin dard kareje hoy<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0When I am parted from my Beloved, my heart is full of misery: I
\nhave no comfort in the day, I have no sleep in the night. To
\nwhom shall I tell my sorrow?
\nThe night is dark; the hours slip by. Because my Lord is absent,
\nI start up and tremble with fear.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Listen, my friend! there is no other satisfaction,
\nsave in the encounter with the Beloved.”<\/p>\n
I. 122. kaum mural\u00ee s’abd s’un \u00e2nand bhayo<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0What is that flute whose music thrills me with joy?
\nThe flame burns without a lamp;
\nThe lotus blossoms without a root;
\nFlowers bloom in clusters;
\nThe moon-bird is devoted to the moon;
\nWith all its heart the rain-bird longs for the shower of rain;
\nBut upon whose love does the Lover concentrate His entire life?<\/p>\n
I. 112. s’unt\u00e2 nah\u00ee dhun k\u00ee khabar<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Have you not heard the tune which the Unstruck Music is playing?
\nIn the midst of the chamber the harp of joy is gently and
\nsweetly played; and where is the need of going without to hear
\nit?
\nIf you have not drunk of the nectar of that One Love, what boots
\nit though you should purge yourself of all stains?
\nThe Kazi is searching the words of the Koran, and instructing
\nothers: but if his heart be not steeped in that love, what does
\nit avail, though he be a teacher of men?
\nThe Yogi dyes his garments with red: but if he knows naught of
\nthat colour of love, what does it avail though his garments be
\ntinted?
\nKab\u00eer says: “Whether I be in the temple or the balcony, in the
\ncamp or in the flower garden, I tell you truly that every
\nmoment my Lord is taking His delight in me.”<\/p>\n
I. 73. bhakti k\u00e2 m\u00e2rag jh\u00een\u00e2 re<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Subtle is the path of love!
\nTherein there is no asking and no not-asking,
\nThere one loses one’s self at His feet,
\nThere one is immersed in the joy of the seeking: plunged in the
\ndeeps of love as the fish in the water.
\nThe lover is never slow in offering his head for his Lord’s
\nservice.
\nKab\u00eer declares the secret of this love.<\/p>\n
I. 68. bh\u00e2i k\u00f4\u00ee satguru sant kah\u00e2wa\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0He is the real Sadhu, who can reveal the form of the Formless to
\nthe vision of these eyes:
\nWho teaches the simple way of attaining Him, that is other than
\nrites or ceremonies:
\nWho does not make you close the doors, and hold the breath, and
\nrenounce the world:
\nWho makes you perceive the Supreme Spirit wherever the mind
\nattaches itself:
\nWho teaches you to be still in the midst of all your activities.
\nEver immersed in bliss, having no fear in his mind, he keeps the
\nspirit of union in the midst of all enjoyments.
\nThe infinite dwelling of the Infinite Being is everywhere: in
\nearth, water, sky, and air:
\nFirm as the thunderbolt, the seat of the seeker is established
\nabove the void.
\nHe who is within is without: I see Him and none else.<\/p>\n
I. 66. s\u00e2dho, s’abd s\u00e2dhn\u00e2 k\u00eejai<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Receive that Word from which the Universe springeth!
\nThat word is the Guru; I have heard it, and become the disciple.
\nHow many are there who know the meaning of that word?<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O Sadhu! practise that Word!
\nThe Vedas and the Puranas proclaim it,
\nThe world is established in it,
\nThe Rishis and devotees speak of it:
\nBut none knows the mystery of the Word.
\nThe householder leaves his house when he hears it,
\nThe ascetic comes back to love when he hears it,
\nThe Six Philosophies expound it,
\nThe Spirit of Renunciation points to that Word,
\nFrom that Word the world-form has sprung,
\nThat Word reveals all.
\nKab\u00eer says: “But who knows whence the Word cometh?<\/p>\n
I. 63. p\u00eele py\u00e2l\u00e2, ho matw\u00e2l\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Empty the Cup! O be drunken!
\nDrink the divine nectar of His Name!
\nKab\u00eer says: “Listen to me, dear Sadhu!
\nFrom the sole of the foot to the crown of the head this mind is
\nfilled with poison.”<\/p>\n
I. 52. khasm na c\u00eenhai b\u00e2wari<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O man, if thou dost not know thine own Lord, whereof art thou so
\nproud?
\nPut thy cleverness away: mere words shall never unite thee to
\nHim.
\nDo not deceive thyself with the witness of the Scriptures:
\nLove is something other than this, and he who has sought it truly
\nhas found it.<\/p>\n
I. 56. sukh sindh k\u00ee sair k\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The savour of wandering in the ocean of deathless life has rid me
\nof all my asking:
\nAs the tree is in the seed, so all diseases are in this asking.<\/p>\n
I. 48. sukh s\u00e2gar men \u00e2\u00eeke<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0When at last you are come to the ocean of happiness, do not go
\nback thirsty.
\nWake, foolish man! for Death stalks you. Here is pure water
\nbefore you; drink it at every breath.
\nDo not follow the mirage on foot, but thirst for the nectar;
\nDhruva, Prahlad, and Shukadeva have drunk of it, and also Raidas
\nhas tasted it:
\nThe saints are drunk with love, their thirst is for love.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Listen to me, brother! The nest of fear is broken.
\nNot for a moment have you come face to face with the world:
\nYou are weaving your bondage of falsehood, your words are full of
\ndeception:
\nWith the load of desires which you. hold on your head, how can
\nyou be light?”
\nKab\u00eer says: “Keep within you truth, detachment, and love.”<\/p>\n
I. 35. sat\u00ee ko kaun s’ikh\u00e2wt\u00e2 hai<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Who has ever taught the widowed wife to burn herself on the pyre
\nof her dead husband?
\nAnd who has ever taught love to find bliss in renunciation?<\/p>\n
I. 39. are man, dh\u00eeraj k\u00e2he na dharai<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Why so impatient, my heart?
\nHe who watches over birds, beasts, and insects,
\nHe who cared for you whilst you were yet in your mother’s womb,
\nShall He not care for you now that you are come forth?
\nOh my heart, how could you turn from the smile of your Lord and
\nwander so far from Him?
\nYou have left Your Beloved and are thinking of others: and this
\nis why all your work is in vain.<\/p>\n
I. 117. s\u00e2\u00een se lagan kathin hai, bh\u00e2\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Now hard it is to meet my Lord!
\nThe rain-bird wails in thirst for the rain: almost she dies of
\nher longing, yet she would have none other water than the
\nrain.
\nDrawn by the love of music, the deer moves forward: she dies as
\nshe listens to the music, yet she shrinks not in fear.
\nThe widowed wife sits by the body of her dead husband: she is not
\nafraid of the fire.
\nPut away all fear for this poor body.<\/p>\n
I. 22. jab main bh\u00fbl\u00e2, re bh\u00e2\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O brother! when I was forgetful, my true Guru showed me the Way.
\nThen I left off all rites and ceremonies, I bathed no more in the
\nholy water:
\nThen I learned that it was I alone who was mad, and the whole
\nworld beside me was sane; and I had disturbed these wise people.
\nFrom that time forth I knew no more how to roll in the dust in
\nobeisance:
\nI do not ring the temple bell:
\nI do not set the idol on its throne:
\nI do not worship the image with flowers.
\nIt is not the austerities that mortify the flesh which are
\npleasing to the Lord,
\nWhen you leave off your clothes and kill your senses, you do not
\nplease the Lord:
\nThe man who is kind and who practises righteousness, who remains
\npassive amidst the affairs of the world, who considers all
\ncreatures on earth as his own self,
\nHe attains the Immortal Being, the true God is ever with him.
\nKab\u00eer says: “He attains the true Name whose words are pure, and
\nwho is free from pride and conceit.”<\/p>\n
I. 20. man na rang\u00e2ye<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The Yogi dyes his garments, instead of dyeing his mind in the
\ncolours of love:
\nHe sits within the temple of the Lord, leaving Brahma to worship
\na stone.
\nHe pierces holes in his ears, he has a great beard and matted
\nlocks, he looks like a goat:
\nHe goes forth into the wilderness, killing all his desires, and
\nturns himself into an eunuch:
\nHe shaves his head and dyes his garments; he reads the G\u00eet\u00e2 and
\nbecomes a mighty talker.
\nKab\u00eer says: “You are going to the doors of death, bound hand and
\nfoot!”<\/p>\n
I. 9. n\u00e2 j\u00e2ne s\u00e2hab kais\u00e2 hai<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0I do not know what manner of God is mine.
\nThe Mullah cries aloud to Him: and why? Is your Lord deaf? The
\nsubtle anklets that ring on the feet of an insect when it moves
\nare heard of Him.
\nTell your beads, paint your forehead with the mark of your God,
\nand wear matted locks long and showy: but a deadly weapon is in
\nyour heart, and how shall you have God?<\/p>\n
III. 102. ham se rah\u00e2 na j\u00e2y<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0I hear the melody of His flute, and I cannot contain myself:
\nThe flower blooms, though it is not spring; and already the bee
\nhas received its invitation.
\nThe sky roars and the lightning flashes, the waves arise in my
\nheart,
\nThe rain falls; and my heart longs for my Lord.
\nWhere the rhythm of the world rises and falls, thither my heart
\nhas reached:
\nThere the hidden banners are fluttering in the air.
\nKab\u00eer says: “My heart is dying, though it lives.”<\/p>\n
III. 2. jo khod\u00e2 masjid vasat hai<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0If God be within the mosque, then to whom does this world belong?
\nIf Ram be within the image which you find upon your pilgrimage,
\nthen who is there to know what happens without?
\nHari is in the East: Allah is in the West. Look within your
\nheart, for there you will find both Karim and Ram;
\nAll the men and women of the world are His living forms.
\nKab\u00eer is the child of Allah and of Ram: He is my Guru, He is my
\nPir.<\/p>\n
III. 9. s’\u00eel santosh sad\u00e2 samadrishti<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0He who is meek and contented., he who has an equal vision, whose
\nmind is filled with the fullness of acceptance and of rest;
\nHe who has seen Him and touched Him, he is freed from all fear
\nand trouble.
\nTo him the perpetual thought of God is like sandal paste smeared
\non the body, to him nothing else is delight:
\nHis work and his rest are filled with music: he sheds abroad the
\nradiance of love.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Touch His feet, who is one and indivisible,
\nimmutable and peaceful; who fills all vessels to the brim with
\njoy, and whose form is love.”<\/p>\n
III. 13. s\u00e2dh sangat p\u00eetam<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Go thou to the company of the good, where the Beloved One has His
\ndwelling place:
\nTake all thy thoughts and love and instruction from thence.
\nLet that assembly be burnt to ashes where His Name is not spoken!
\nTell me, how couldst thou hold a wedding-feast, if the bridegroom
\nhimself were not there?
\nWaver no more, think only of the Beloved;
\nSet not thy heart on the worship of other gods, there is no worth
\nin the worship of other masters.
\nKab\u00eer deliberates and says: “Thus thou shalt never find the
\nBeloved!”<\/p>\n
III. 26. tor h\u00eer\u00e2 hir\u00e2ilw\u00e2 k\u00eecad men<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The jewel is lost in the mud, and all are seeking for it;
\nSome look for it in the east, and some in the west; some in the
\nwater and some amongst stones.
\nBut the servant Kab\u00eer has appraised it at its true value, and has
\nwrapped it with care in the end of the mantle of his heart.<\/p>\n
III. 26. \u00e2yau din gaune k\u00e2 ho<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The palanquin came to take me away to my husband’s home, and it
\nsent through my heart a thrill of joy;
\nBut the bearers have brought me into the lonely forest, where I
\nhave no one of my own.
\nO bearers, I entreat you by your feet, wait but a moment longer:
\nlet me go back to my kinsmen and friends, and take my leave of
\nthem.
\nThe servant Kab\u00eer sings: “O Sadhu! finish your buying and
\nselling, have done with your good and your bad: for there are
\nno markets and no shops in the land to which you go.”<\/p>\n
III. 30. are dil, prem nagar k\u00e4 ant na p\u00e2y\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O my heart! you have not known all the secrets of this city of
\nlove: in ignorance you came, and in ignorance you return.
\nO my friend, what have you done with this life? You have taken
\non your head the burden heavy with stones, and who is to
\nlighten it for you?
\nYour Friend stands on the other shore, but you never think in
\nyour mind how you may meet with Him:
\nThe boat is broken, and yet you sit ever upon the bank; and thus
\nyou are beaten to no purpose by the waves.
\nThe servant Kab\u00eer asks you to consider; who is there that shall
\nbefriend you at the last?
\nYou are alone, you have no companion: you will suffer the
\nconsequences of your own deeds.<\/p>\n
III. 55. ved kahe sargun ke \u00e2ge<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The Vedas say that the Unconditioned stands beyond the world of
\nConditions.
\nO woman, what does it avail thee to dispute whether He is beyond
\nall or in all?
\nSee thou everything as thine own dwelling place: the mist of
\npleasure and pain can never spread there.
\nThere Brahma is revealed day and night: there light is His
\ngarment, light is His seat, light rests on thy head.
\nKab\u00eer says: “The Master, who is true, He is all light.”<\/p>\n
III. 48. t\u00fb surat nain nih\u00e2r<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Open your eyes of love, and see Him who pervades this world I
\nconsider it well, and know that this is your own country.
\nWhen you meet the true Guru, He will awaken your heart;
\nHe will tell you the secret of love and detachment, and then you
\nwill know indeed that He transcends this universe.
\nThis world is the City of Truth, its maze of paths enchants the
\nheart:
\nWe can reach the goal without crossing the road, such is the
\nsport unending.
\nWhere the ring of manifold joys ever dances about Him, there is
\nthe sport of Eternal Bliss.
\nWhen we know this, then all our receiving and renouncing is
\nover;
\nThenceforth the heat of having shall never scorch us more.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0He is the Ultimate Rest unbounded:
\nHe has spread His form of love throughout all the world.
\nFrom that Ray which is Truth, streams of new forms are
\nperpetually springing: and He pervades those forms.
\nAll the gardens and groves and bowers are abounding with blossom;
\nand the air breaks forth into ripples of joy.
\nThere the swan plays a wonderful game,
\nThere the Unstruck Music eddies around the Infinite One;
\nThere in the midst the Throne of the Unheld is shining, whereon
\nthe great Being sits\u2014
\nMillions of suns are shamed by the radiance of a single hair of
\nHis body.
\nOn the harp of the road what true melodies are being sounded!
\nand its notes pierce the heart:
\nThere the Eternal Fountain is playing its endless life-streams of
\nbirth and death.
\nThey call Him Emptiness who is the Truth of truths, in Whom all
\ntruths are stored!<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0There within Him creation goes forward, which is beyond all
\nphilosophy; for philosophy cannot attain to Him:
\nThere is an endless world, O my Brother! and there is the
\nNameless Being, of whom naught can be said.
\nOnly he knows it who has reached that region: it is other than
\nall that is heard and said.
\nNo form, no body, no length, no breadth is seen there: how can I
\ntell you that which it is?
\nHe comes to the Path of the Infinite on whom the grace of the
\nLord descends: he is freed from births and deaths who attains
\nto Him.
\nKab\u00eer says: “It cannot be told by the words of the mouth, it
\ncannot be written on paper:
\nIt is like a dumb person who tastes a sweet thing\u2014how shall it
\nbe explained?”<\/p>\n
III. 60. cal hams\u00e2 w\u00e2 des’ jah\u00e2n<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O my heart! let us go to that country where dwells the Beloved,
\nthe ravisher of my heart!
\nThere Love is filling her pitcher from the well, yet she has no
\nrope wherewith to draw water;
\nThere the clouds do not cover the sky, yet the rain falls down in
\ngentle showers:
\nO bodiless one! do not sit on your doorstep; go forth and bathe
\nyourself in that rain!
\nThere it is ever moonlight and never dark; and who speaks of one
\nsun only? that land is illuminate with the rays of a million
\nsuns.<\/p>\n
III. 63. kahain Kab\u00eer, s’uno ho s\u00e2dho<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Kab\u00eer says: “O Sadhu! hear my deathless words. If you want your
\nown good, examine and consider them well.
\nYou have estranged yourself from the Creator, of whom you have
\nsprung: you have lost your reason, you have bought death.
\nAll doctrines and all teachings are sprung from Him, from Him
\nthey grow: know this for certain, and have no fear.
\nHear from me the tidings of this great truth!
\nWhose name do you sing, and on whom do you meditate? O, come
\nforth from this entanglement!
\nHe dwells at the heart of all things, so why take refuge in empty
\ndesolation?
\nIf you place the Guru at a distance from you, then it is but the
\ndistance that you honour:
\nIf indeed the Master be far away, then who is it else that is
\ncreating this world?
\nWhen you think that He is not here, then you wander further and
\nfurther away, and seek Him in vain with tears.
\nWhere He is far off, there He is unattainable: where He is near,
\nHe is very bliss.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Lest His servant should suffer pain He pervades him
\nthrough and through.”
\nKnow yourself then, O Kab\u00eer; for He is in you from head to foot.
\nSing with gladness, and keep your seat unmoved within your heart.<\/p>\n
III. 66. n\u00e2 main dharm\u00ee nah\u00een adharm\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0I am neither pious nor ungodly, I live neither by law nor by
\nsense,
\nI am neither a speaker nor hearer, I am neither a servant nor
\nmaster, I am neither bond nor free,
\nI am neither detached nor attached.
\nI am far from none: I am near to none.
\nI shall go neither to hell nor to heaven.
\nI do all works; yet I am apart from all works.
\nFew comprehend my meaning: he who can comprehend it, he sits
\nunmoved.
\nKab\u00eer seeks neither to establish nor to destroy.<\/p>\n
III. 69. satta n\u00e2m hai sab ten ny\u00e2r\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The true Name is like none other name!
\nThe distinction of the Conditioned from the Unconditioned is but
\na word:
\nThe Unconditioned is the seed, the Conditioned is the flower and
\nthe fruit.
\nKnowledge is the branch, and the Name is the root.
\nLook, and see where the root is: happiness shall be yours when
\nyou come to the root.
\nThe root will lead you to the branch, the leaf, the flower, and
\nthe fruit:
\nIt is the encounter with the Lord, it is the attainment of bliss,
\nit is the reconciliation of the Conditioned and the
\nUnconditioned.<\/p>\n
III. 74. pratham ek jo \u00e2pai \u00e2p<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0In the beginning was He alone, sufficient unto Himself: the
\nformless, colourless, and unconditioned Being.
\nThen was there neither beginning, middle, nor end;
\nThen were no eyes, no darkness, no light;
\nThen were no ground, air, nor sky; no fire, water, nor earth; no
\nrivers like the Ganges and the Jumna, no seas, oceans, and waves.
\nThen was neither vice nor virtue; scriptures there were not, as
\nthe Vedas and Puranas, nor as the Koran.
\nKab\u00eer ponders in his mind and says, “Then was there no activity:
\nthe Supreme Being remained merged in the unknown depths of His
\nown self.”
\nThe Guru neither eats nor drinks, neither lives nor dies:
\nNeither has He form, line, colour, nor vesture.
\nHe who has neither caste nor clan nor anything else\u2014how may I
\ndescribe His glory?
\nHe has neither form nor formlessness,
\nHe has no name,
\nHe has neither colour nor colourlessness,
\nHe has no dwelling-place.<\/p>\n
III. 76. kahain Kab\u00eer vic\u00e2r ke<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Kab\u00eer ponders and says: “He who has neither caste nor country,
\nwho is formless and without quality, fills all space.”
\nThe Creator brought into being the Game of Joy: and from the word
\nOm the Creation sprang.
\nThe earth is His joy; His joy is the sky;
\nHis joy is the flashing of the sun and the moon;
\nHis joy is the beginning, the middle, and the end;
\nHis joy is eyes, darkness, and light.
\nOceans and waves are His joy: His joy the Sarasvati, the Jumna,
\nand the Ganges.
\nThe Guru is One: and life and death., union and separation, are
\nall His plays of joy!
\nHis play the land and water, the whole universe!
\nHis play the earth and the sky!
\nIn play is the Creation spread out, in play it is established.
\nThe whole world, says Kab\u00eer, rests in His play, yet still the
\nPlayer remains unknown.<\/p>\n
III. 84. jh\u00ee jh\u00ee jantar b\u00e2jai<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The harp gives forth murmurous music; and the dance goes on
\nwithout hands and feet.
\nIt is played without fingers, it is heard without ears: for He is
\nthe ear, and He is the listener.
\nThe gate is locked, but within there is fragrance: and there the
\nmeeting is seen of none.
\nThe wise shall understand it.<\/p>\n
III. 89. mor phak\u00eerw\u00e2 m\u00e2ngi j\u00e2y<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The Beggar goes a-begging, but
\nI could not even catch sight of Him:
\nAnd what shall I beg of the Beggar He gives without my asking.
\nKab\u00eer says: “I am His own: now let that befall which may befall!”<\/p>\n
III. 90. naihar se jiyar\u00e2 ph\u00e2t re<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0My heart cries aloud for the house of my lover; the open road and
\nthe shelter of a roof are all one to her who has lost the city
\nof her husband.
\nMy heart finds no joy in anything: my mind and my body are
\ndistraught.
\nHis palace has a million gates, but there is a vast ocean between
\nit and me:
\nHow shall I cross it, O friend? for endless is the outstretching
\nof the path.
\nHow wondrously this lyre is wrought! When its strings are
\nrightly strung, it maddens the heart: but when the keys are
\nbroken and the strings are loosened, none regard it more.
\nI tell my parents with laughter that I must go to my Lord in the
\nmorning;<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0They are angry, for they do not want me to go, and they say: “She
\nthinks she has gained such dominion over her husband that she
\ncan have whatsoever she wishes; and therefore she is impatient
\nto go to him.”
\nDear friend, lift my veil lightly now; for this is the night of
\nlove.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Listen to me! My heart is eager to meet my lover: I
\nlie sleepless upon my bed. Remember me early in the morning!”<\/p>\n
III. 96. j\u00eev mahal men S’iv pahunw\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Serve your God, who has come into this temple of life!
\nDo not act the part of a madman, for the night is thickening
\nfast.
\nHe has awaited me for countless ages, for love of me He has
\nlost His heart:
\nYet I did not know the bliss that was so near to me, for my love
\nwas not yet awake.
\nBut now, my Lover has made known to me the meaning of the note
\nthat struck my ear:
\nNow, my good fortune is come.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Behold! how great is my good fortune! I have
\nreceived the unending caress of my Beloved!”<\/p>\n
I. 71. gagan ghat\u00e2 ghahar\u00e2n\u00ee, s\u00e2dho<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Clouds thicken in the sky! O, listen to the deep voice of their
\nroaring;
\nThe rain comes from the east with its monotonous murmur.
\nTake care of the fences and boundaries of your fields, lest the
\nrains overflow them;
\nPrepare the soil of deliverance, and let the creepers of love and
\nrenunciation be soaked in this shower.
\nIt is the prudent farmer who will bring his harvest home; he
\nshall fill both his vessels, and feed both the wise men and the
\nsaints.<\/p>\n
III. 118. \u00e2j din ke main jaun balih\u00e2r\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0This day is dear to me above all other days, for to-day the
\nBeloved Lord is a guest in my house;
\nMy chamber and my courtyard are beautiful with His presence.
\nMy longings sing His Name, and they are become lost in His great
\nbeauty:
\nI wash His feet, and I look upon His Face; and I lay before Him
\nas an offering my body, my mind, and all that I have.
\nWhat a day of gladness is that day in which my Beloved, who is my
\ntreasure, comes to my house!
\nAll evils fly from my heart when I see my Lord.
\n“My love has touched Him; my heart is longing for the Name which
\nis Truth.”
\nThus sings Kab\u00eer, the servant of all servants.<\/p>\n
I. 100. k\u00f4i s’unt\u00e2 hai j\u00f1\u00e2n\u00ee r\u00e2g gagan men<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Is there any wise man who will listen to that solemn music which
\narises in the sky?
\nFor He, the Source of all music, makes all vessels full fraught,
\nand rests in fullness Himself.
\nHe who is in the body is ever athirst, for he pursues that which
\nis in part:
\nBut ever there wells forth deeper and deeper the sound “He is
\nthis\u2014this is He”; fusing love and renunciation into one.
\nKab\u00eer says: “O brother! that is the Primal Word.”<\/p>\n
I. 108. main k\u00e2 se b\u00fbjhaun<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0To whom shall I go to learn about my Beloved?
\nKab\u00eer says: “As you never may find the forest if you ignore the
\ntree, so He may never be found in abstractions.”<\/p>\n
III. 12. samskirit bh\u00e2sh\u00e2 padhi l\u00eenh\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0I have learned the Sanskrit language, so let all men call me
\nwise:
\nBut where is the use of this, when I am floating adrift, and
\nparched with thirst, and burning with the heat of desire?
\nTo no purpose do you bear on your head this load of pride and
\nvanity.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Lay it down in the dust, and go forth to meet the
\nBeloved. Address Him as your Lord.”<\/p>\n
III. 110. carkh\u00e2 calai surat virahin k\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The woman who is parted from her lover spins at the spinning
\nwheel.
\nThe city of the body arises in its beauty; and within it the
\npalace of the mind has been built.
\nThe wheel of love revolves in the sky, and the seat is made of
\nthe jewels of knowledge:
\nWhat subtle threads the woman weaves, and makes them fine with
\nlove and reverence!
\nKab\u00eer says: “I am weaving the garland of day and night. When my
\nLover comes and touches me with His feet, I shall offer Him my
\ntears.”<\/p>\n
III. 111. kot\u00een bh\u00e2nu candra t\u00e2r\u00e2gan<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Beneath the great umbrella of my King millions of suns and moons
\nand stars are shining!
\nHe is the Mind within my mind: He is the Eye within mine eye.
\nAh, could my mind and eyes be one! Could my love but reach to my
\nLover! Could but the fiery heat of my heart be cooled!
\nKab\u00eer says: “When you unite love with the Lover, then you have
\nlove’s perfection.”<\/p>\n
I. 92. avadh\u00fb begam des’ ham\u00e2r\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O sadhu! my land is a sorrowless land.
\nI cry aloud to all, to the king and the beggar, the emperor and
\nthe fakir\u2014
\nWhosoever seeks for shelter in the Highest, let all come and
\nsettle in my land!
\nLet the weary come and lay his burdens here!<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0So live here, my brother, that you may cross with ease to that
\nother shore.
\nIt is a land without earth or sky, without moon or stars;
\nFor only the radiance of Truth shines in my Lord’s Durbar.
\nKab\u00eer says: “O beloved brother! naught is essential save Truth.”<\/p>\n
I. 109. s\u00e2\u00een ke sangat s\u00e2sur \u00e2\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Came with my Lord to my Lord’s home: but I lived not with Him and
\nI tasted Him not, and my youth passed away like a dream.
\nOn my wedding night my women-friends sang in chorus, and I was
\nanointed with the unguents of pleasure and pain:
\nBut when the ceremony was over, I left my Lord and came away, and
\nmy kinsman tried to console me upon the road.
\nKab\u00eer says, “I shall go to my Lord’s house with my love at my
\nside; then shall I sound the trumpet of triumph!”<\/p>\n
I. 75. samajh dekh man m\u00eet piyarw\u00e2<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0O friend, dear heart of mine, think well! if you love indeed,
\nthen why do you sleep?
\nIf you have found Him, then give yourself utterly, and take Him
\nto you.
\nWhy do you loose Him again and again?
\nIf the deep sleep of rest has come to your eyes, why waste your
\ntime making the bed and arranging the pillows?
\nKab\u00eer says: “I tell you the ways of love! Even though the head
\nitself must be given, why should you weep over it?”<\/p>\n
II. 90. s\u00e2hab ham men, s\u00e2hab tum men<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The Lord is in me, the Lord is in you, as life is in every seed.
\nO servant! put false pride away, and seek for Him within you.
\nA million suns are ablaze with light,
\nThe sea of blue spreads in the sky,
\nThe fever of life is stilled, and all stains are washed away;
\nwhen I sit in the midst of that world.
\nHark to the unstruck bells and drums! Take your delight in love!
\nRains pour down without water, and the rivers are streams of
\nlight.
\nOne Love it is that pervades the whole world, few there are who
\nknow it fully:
\nThey are blind who hope to see it by the light of reason, that
\nreason which is the cause of separation\u2014
\nThe House of Reason is very far away!
\nHow blessed is Kab\u00eer, that amidst this great joy he sings within
\nhis own vessel.
\nIt is the music of the meeting of soul with soul;
\nIt is the music of the forgetting of sorrows;
\nIt is the music that transcends all coming in and all going
\nforth.<\/p>\n
II. 98. ritu ph\u00e2gun niyar\u00e2n\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0The month of March draws near: ah, who will unite me to my Lover?
\nHow shall I find words for the beauty of my Beloved? For He is
\nmerged in all beauty.
\nHis colour is in all the pictures of the world, and it bewitches
\nthe body and the mind.
\nThose who know this, know what is this unutterable play of the
\nSpring.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Listen to me, brother’ there are not many who have
\nfound this out.”<\/p>\n
II. 111. N\u00e2rad, py\u00e2r so antar n\u00e2h\u00ee<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Oh Narad! I know that my Lover cannot be far:
\nWhen my Lover wakes, I wake; when He sleeps, I sleep.
\nHe is destroyed at the root who gives pain to my Beloved.
\nWhere they sing His praise, there I live;
\nWhen He moves, I walk before Him: my heart yearns for my Beloved.
\nThe infinite pilgrimage lies at His feet, a million devotees are
\nseated there.
\nKab\u00eer says: “The Lover Himself reveals the glory of true love.”<\/p>\n
II. 122. k\u00f4\u00ee prem k\u00ee peng jhul\u00e2o re<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Hang up the swing of love to-day! Hang the body and the mind
\nbetween the arms of the Beloved, in the ecstasy of love’s joy:
\nBring the tearful streams of the rainy clouds to your eyes, and
\ncover your heart with the shadow of darkness:
\nBring your face nearer to His ear, and speak of the deepest
\nlongings of your heart.
\nKab\u00eer says: “Listen to me, brother! bring the vision of the
\nBeloved in your heart.”<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t