Thou art lord, and I servant,
As the Chakora is servant of the moonlight
And watches it all the night long.
The love between thee and me is from beginning to ending,
How can it end in time?
Saith Kabir: As the river is immersed in the ocean,
My mind is immersed in thee.
VIII
Rishi Narad, that hast walked upon the winding path of the air,
That has walked there playing the Vina and singing thy song to Hari,
Rishi Narad, the beloved is not afar off,
I wake not, save in his waking,
I sleep not, save in his slumber.
IX
O receiver of my heart,
Do thou come into my house,
My mind and body
Are but a pain, in thy absence.
When they say that I am your mistress
The shame of it is upon me.
If heart lie not upon heart,
How is the heart of love there?
The rice has no savor, the night is passed and is sleepless.
In the house and in the way of the forest my mind and
thought have no rest.
Love-cup to the maid: water-cup to famished of thirst,
is there one, bearer of fortune, to make clear my heart to my beloved?
Kabir is at the end of his patience
And dies without sight of his beloved.
X
O bearer of love, give voice to the well-omened song.
The great lord is come to my house.
After employing my body in his love
I shall employ my mind.
The five mysteries will be enlightened with love.
The receiver of my heart, today is the guest in my house,
I am grown mad with my youth.
The pool of my body will be the place of pilgrimage.
Near by will Brahman chant Vedas,
The mind will be fused with my lover.
O opportune, and well-omened,
The three and thirty tunes of curious sound here with the
sound of Ananda.
The paired lovers of the universe are assembled.
Saith Kabir: This day I set out for my marriage
With a bridegroom who is deathless.
In the quarter of my body there is music in process,
Thirty and six raginis are bound up into the burthen.
The bridegroom hath April play with me.
As Krishna with Radha, playing at the spring festival of Harilila,
I play at the spraying of colors, I and my beloved.
The whole universe is curious today.
Love and the rain of love are come hither with their showers.
:EP
The gardener’s wife
Cuts short the brief life
Of the flowers and offers them
To a lifeless stone idol
That a sculptor carved,
Feet on its chest,
Chisel in hand.
Had the idol been alive,
It would have
Lashed out at the sculptor.
It would have seen through the priest
Who grabs all the food
The faithful bring,
Leaving the scraps to the idol.
Not one, not two,
But everyone’s a sucker,
Says Kabir. Not me.
:AKM
Kabir has dismantled
His loom
And on his body he has inscribed
Rama’s name.
His mother
Is too distraught to speak.
How, she keeps asking,
Will he make ends meet?
He wants to tell her
He can’t thread the shuttle,
Not anymore, now that Rama’s
Love is the thread in his hand.
But Mother, says Kabir,
Listen. The lord
Of three worlds is our protector.
He won’t let us starve.
:AKM
Easy friend,
What’s the big fuss about?
Once dead,
The body that was stuffed with
Kilos of sweets
Is carried out to be burnt,
And the head on which
A bright turban was tied
Is rolled by crows in the dust.
A man with a stick
Will poke the cold ashes
For your bones.
But I’m wasting my time,
Says Kabir,
Even death’s bludgeon
About to crush your head
Won’t wake you up.
:AKM
Think twice before you keep
The bad company
Of someone like me.
The bitter neem that keeps
The bad company
Of a sandalwood tree
Begins to smell like sandalwood.
The piece of iron that keeps
The bad company
Of the philosopher’s stone
Turns into gold.
Waters that drain
Into the Ganges
Become the Ganges.
And those who keep
The bad company
Of Rama, says Kabir,
End up
A bit like Rama.
:AKM
Except that it robs you of who you are,
What can you say about speech?
Inconceivable to live without
And impossible to live with,
Speech diminishes you.
Speak with a wise man, there’ll be
Much to learn; speak with a fool,
All you get is prattle.
Strike a half-empty pot, and it’ll make
A loud sound; strike one that is full,
Says Kabir, and hear the silence.
:AKM
Brother, I’ve seen some
Astonishing sights:
A lion keeping watch
Over pasturing cows;
A mother delivered
After her son was;
A guru prostrated
Before his disciple;
Fish spawning
On treetops;
A cat carrying away
A dog;
A gunnysack
Driving a bullock cart;
A buffalo gone out to graze,
Sitting on a horse;
A tree with its branches in the earth,
Its roots in the sky;
A tree with flowering roots.
This verse, says Kabir,
Is your key to the universe.
If you can figure it out.
:AKM
Sākhīs*
Why is the doe thin
by the green
pool? One deer,
a hundred thousand
hunters. How to escape
the spear?
. . . . . . . . . . .
Kabir’s house is at the top
of a narrow, slippery track.
An ant’s foot
won’t fit.
So, villain,
why load your bullock?
. . . . . . . . . . .
Gorakh was yoga’s connoisseur.
They didn’t cremate
his body.
Still his meat rotted and mixed
with dust. For nothing
he polished his body.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Into the looking-glass cavern
the dog goes running.
Seeing his own reflection,
he dies barking.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Homage to the milk
that yields butter.
In half a couplet of Kab
ir’s
the life
of the four Vedas.
. . . . . . . . . . .
On this riverbank, saints or thieves?
You’ll know as soon as they talk.
The character deep within
comes out by the road of the mouth.
. . . . . . . . . . .
In the wood where lions
don’t tread
and birds don’t fly,
Kabir ranges
in empty meditation.
:LH & SS
The true guru went out hunting,
a red bow in his hand.
Many fools escaped,
Now and then, a true seeker was hit.
. . . . . . . . . . .
When I was here, God was gone.
Now God is here, I’m gone.
The lane of love is very narrow.
Two can’t go in.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Slowly, slowly, oh mind,
everything happens slowly.
The gardener pours hundreds of jars
of water
but fruit comes
only in season.
:LH
When you die, what do you do with your body?
Once the breath stops
you have to put it away.
There are several ways to deal
with spoiled flesh.
Some burn it, some bury it
in the ground.
Hindus prefer cremation,
Turks burial.
But in the end, one way or another,
both have to leave home.
Death spreads the karmic net
like a fisherman snaring fish.
What is a man without Ram?
Kabir says, you’ll be sorry later
when you go from this house
to that one.
:LH & SS
Saints, I see the world is mad.
If I tell the truth they rush to beat me,
if I lie they trust me.
I’ve seen the pious Hindus, rule-followers,
early morning bath-takers—
killing souls, they worship rocks.
They know nothing.
I’ve seen plenty of Muslim teachers, holy men
reading their holy books
and teaching their pupils techniques.
They know just as much.
And posturing yogis, hypocrites,
hearts crammed with pride,
praying to brass, to stones, reeling
with pride in their pilgrimage,
fixing their caps and their prayer-beads,
painting their brow-marks and arm-marks,
braying their hymns and their couplets,
reeling. They never heard of soul.
The Hindu says Ram is the Beloved,
the Turk says Rahim.
Then they kill each other.
No one knows the secret.
They buzz their mantras from house to house,
puffed with pride.
The pupils drown along with their gurus.
In the end they’re sorry.
Kabir says, listen saints:
they’re all deluded!
Whatever I say, nobody gets it.
It’s too simple.
:LH & SS
She went with her husband to the in-laws’ house
but didn’t sleep with him,
didn’t enjoy him.
Her youth slipped away like a dream.
Four met and fixed the marriage date,
five came and fixed the canopy,
girlfriends sang the wedding songs
and rubbed on her brow the yellow paste
of joy and sorrow.
Through many forms her mind turned
as she circled the fire.
The knot was tied, the pledge was made,
the married women poured the water.
Yet with her husband on the wedding square
she became a widow.
She left her marriage without the groom.
On the road the father-in-law explained.
Kabir says, I’m off to my real marriage now.
I’ll play the trumpet
when I cross with my lord.
:LH & SS
Friend, wake up! Why do you go on sleeping?
The night is over—do you want to lose the day
the same way?
Other women who managed to get up early have
already found an elephant or a jewel. . . .
So much was lost already while you slept. . . .
and that was so unnecessary!
The one who loves you understood, but you did not.
You forgot to make a place in your bed next to you.
Instead you spent your life playing.
In your twenties you did not grow
because you did not know who your Lord was.
Wake up! Wake up! There’s no one in your bed—
He left you during the night.
Kabir says: The only woman awake is the woman
who has heard the flute!
:RB
To whom shall I go to learn about the one I love?
Kabir says: “When you’re trying to find a hardwood forest,
it seems wise to know what a tree is.
If you want to find the Lord, please forget about abstract nouns.”
:RB
I played for ten years with the girls my own age,
but now I am suddenly in fear.
I am on the way up some stairs—they are high.
Yet I have to give up my fears
if I want to take part in this love.
I have to let go the protective clothes
and meet him with the whole length of my body.
My eyes will have to be the love-candles this time.
Kabir says: Men and women in love will understand
this poem.
If what you feel for the Holy One is not desire,
then what’s the use of dressing with such care,
and spending so much time making your eyelids
dark?
:RB
There is nothing but water in the holy pools.
I know, I have been swimming in them.
All the gods sculpted of wood or ivory can’t say a word.
I know, I have been crying out to them.
The Sacred Books of the East are nothing but words.
I looked through their covers one day sideways.
What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived
through.
If you have not lived through something, it is not
true.
:RB
Kabir
KABIR WAS BORN in the city of Varanasi (Benares) in 1398 to a family of Muslim weavers. Beyond this detail, little about his life can be verified. Facts lie buried in a huge body of legend that has accrued around Kabir, tales that reveal a poet of uncompromising honesty, a singer so confrontational that he stands unique in history, a man who displays a wily, trickster personality. He is a “coyote” of poetry, ruthlessly unpredictable, full of shivery ambiguity, who skewers every deluded notion about life or death. In his wake he left a set of teachings, or an attitude toward the world, claimed by Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, and poets. Several religious sects use his poetry for scripture. His admirers can stand at odds with each other but all agree on his formidable stature.
Kabir’s teacher is reputed to have been the celebrated Hindu yogin Ramanand. As a young man Kabir sought Ramanand out, hoping to take the older man as his guru. But Ramanand could not accept Kabir as a student; a Muslim would have violated Hindu rules of purity or propriety by his presence. So Kabir set a trap. He rose in the predawn dark one morning, and hustled down to a spot he knew Ramanand walked past every day on his way to early ablutions and
prayers by the Ganges River. In Varanasi you approach the river by descending its ancient ghats, great granite steps and platforms that drop steeply from the city’s narrow winding streets to the waters. Some platforms serve for cremation; others are frequented by worshippers, pilgrims, yoga practitioners, scholars, boatmen, children, dogs, and in modern times tourists. The devout descend them mornings before dawn.
Kabir lay on the steps in the darkness, directly in the course Ramanand took. Stepping down the angular stones, the great teacher stumbled over Kabir in the misty, leaden twilight. In shock or fear he cried out his personal mantra: “Ram, Ram. Ram, Ram.” Standing up, Kabir declared that Ramanand had just transmitted a powerful, personal mantra to him. By longstanding tradition, Ramanand was now required to accept Kabir as a student.
Most of what passes for fact about Kabir’s life comes from his poems. One sākhī suggests he could have been illiterate.
I don’t touch ink or paper,
this hand never grasped a pen.
The greatness of the four ages
Kabir tells with his mouth alone.
(LH & SS translation)
Another sākhī makes it clear that his razor-toothed poems drew hostility, probably from both Brahmans and Muslims:
If I speak out I’m beaten.
When the veil’s up, no one sees.
The dog hides under the haystack.
Why talk and make enemies?
(LH & SS translation)
One stanza draws speculation: “I speak the language of the East. People of the West don’t comprehend me.” This could say something about his dialect—which scholars can’t quite make out—or does it refer to a symbolic or initiatory language? Secret languages, tongues hidden within tongues or words veiled in words, have a long history in India. Texts and oral teachings of Tantra will cultivate the reflection, the echo, the cipher; symbols and riddles show up in the religious sects of the era; Kabir could have trained in one or more of these traditions. A term that circulated in his day, ulaṭbāṃsī, means “upside-down speech”: a language deliberately coded. Most of the poems speak with reckless honesty, though. Nobody needs a code book to get
I’ve burnt my own
house down
the torch is in my hands—
now I’ll burn down the house
of anyone
who wants to follow me.
(AS translation)
As with many North Indian poets, Kabir’s work comes to the modern world in two ways. First it exists as oral poetry, sung in the streets, temples, bazaars, and fields, as well as on the concert hall stage. We also receive it as written texts. Three main literary traditions have conserved his poems: the Guru Granth of the Sikhs in the Punjab, the Pancavani of the Dadu Panth from Rajasthan, and the Kabir Panth of Eastern India, for whom a Kabir collection called the Bijak is scripture.
Love and The Turning Seasons Page 7
