Kabir

“ In the midst of the chamber the harp of joy is gently and sweetly played; and where is the need of going without to hear it?
If you have not drunk of the nectar of that One Love, what boots it though you should purge yourself of all stains?
The Kazi is searching the words of the Koran, and instructing others: but if his heart be not steeped in that love, what does it avail, though he be a teacher of men? ”

“ I speak truth, for I have accepted truth in life; I am now
attached to truth, I have swept all tinsel away.
Kabîr says: "Thus is the worshipper set free from fear; thus have
all errors of life and of death left him."
There the sky is filled with music:
There it rains nectar:
There the harp-strings jingle, and there the drums beat.
What a secret splendour is there, in the mansion of the sky!
There no mention is made of the rising and the setting of the
sun;
In the ocean of manifestation, which is the light of love, day
and night are felt to be one. ”

“ When He Himself reveals Himself, Brahma brings into manifestation That which can never be seen.
As the seed is in the plant, as the shade is in the tree, as the void is in the sky, as infinite forms are in the void -
So from beyond the Infinite, the Infinite comes; and from the Infinite the finite extends.
The creature is in Brahma, and Brahma is in the creature: they are ever distinct, yet ever united. ”

“ Do you know how the moments perform their adoration?
Waving its row of lamps, the universe sings in worship day and
night,
There are the hidden banner and the secret canopy:
There the sound of the unseen bells is heard.
Kabîr says: "There adoration never ceases; there the Lord of the
Universe sitteth on His throne."
The whole world does its works and commits its errors: but few
are the lovers who know the Beloved.
The devout seeker is he who mingles in his heart the double
currents of love and detachment, like the mingling of the
streams of Ganges and Jumna ”

“ There is a land where no doubt nor sorrow have rule: where the terror of Death is no more.
There the woods of spring are a-bloom, and the fragrant scent "He is I" is borne on the wind:
There the bee of the heart is deeply immersed, and desires no other joy. ”

“ Gorakhnath asks Kabir:
"Tell me, O Kabir, when did your vocation begin? Where did your love have its rise?"
Kabir answers:
"When He whose forms are manifold had not begun His play: when there was no Guru, and no disciple: when the world was not spread out: when the Supreme One was alone –
Then I became an ascetic; then, O Gorakh, my love was drawn to Brahma.
Brahma did not hold the crown on his head; the god Vishnu was not anointed as king; the power of Shiva was still unborn; when I was instructed in Yoga. ”

“ 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—as he might have woven together contrasting threads upon his loom—symbols 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. ”

“ Now Kabīr, 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 music. ”

“ He is the real Sadhu, who can reveal the form of the Formless to the vision of these eyes:
Who teaches the simple way of attaining Him, that is other than rites or ceremonies:
Who does not make you close the doors, and hold the breath, and renounce the world:
Who makes you perceive the Supreme Spirit wherever the mind attaches itself:
Who teaches you to be still in the midst of all your activities. ”

“ 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 Kabīr 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 ”

“ Kabir ponders and says: "He who has neither caste nor country, who is formless and without quality, fills all space"
The Creator brought into being the Game of Joy: and from the word Om the Creation sprang.
The earth is His joy; His joy is the sky;
His joy is the flashing of the sun and the moon;
His joy is the beginning, the middle, and the end;
His joy is eyes, darkness, and light.
Oceans and waves are His joy: His joy the Sarasvati, the Jumna, and the Ganges.
The Guru is One: and life and death, union and separation, are all His plays of joy! ”

“ In the home is the true union, in the home is enjoyment
of life: why should I forsake my home and wander in the forest?
If Brahma helps me to realize truth, verily I will find both
bondage and deliverance in home.
He is dear to me indeed who has power to dive deep into Brahma;
whose mind loses itself with ease in His contemplation.
He is dear to me who knows Brahma, and can dwell on His supreme
truth in meditation; and who can play the melody of the
Infinite by uniting love and renunciation in life.
Kabîr says: "The home is the abiding place; in the home is
reality ”

“ There one loses one's self at His feet,
There one is immersed in the joy of the seeking: plunged in the deeps of love as the fish in the water.
The lover is never slow in offering his head for his Lord's service. ”

“ When I gave up the tying of ribbons, still I tied my garment
about me:
When I gave up tying my garment, still I covered my body in its
folds.
So, when I give up passion, I see that anger remains;
And when I renounce anger, greed is with me still;
And when greed is vanquished, pride and vainglory remain;
When the mind is detached and casts Maya away, still it clings to
the letter.
Kabîr says, "Listen to me, dear Sadhu! the true path is rarely
found." ”

“ One day your eyes shall suddenly be opened, and you shall see: and the fetters of death will fall from you.
There is nothing to say or to hear, there is nothing to do: it is he who is living, yet dead, who shall never die again.
Because he lives in solitude, therefore the Yogi says that his home is far away.
Your Lord is near: yet you are climbing the palm-tree to seek Him.
The Brahman priest goes from house to house and initiates people into faith:
Alas! the true fountain of life is beside you, and you have set up a stone to worship. ”

“ Mine eyes must perform the ceremony of the lamps of love.
Kabir says: “Listen to me, friend: he understands who loves. If you feel not love’s longing for your Beloved One, it is vain to adorn your body, vain to put unguent on your eyelids.” ”

“ The householder leaves his house when he hears it, The ascetic comes back to love when he hears it,
The Six Philosophies expound it,
The Spirit of Renunciation points to that Word,
From that Word the world-form has sprung,
That Word reveals all. ”

“ The need felt by Kabîr 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. ”

“ I long for the meeting with my Beloved, and my father's house gives me pleasure no more.
The gates of the sky are opened, the temple is revealed:
I meet my husband, and leave at His feet the offering of my body and my mind. ”

“ The lotus blossoms without a root;
Flowers bloom in clusters;
The moon-bird is devoted to the moon;
With all its heart the rain-bird longs for the shower of rain;
But upon whose love does the Lover concentrate His entire life? ”

“ The distinction of the Conditioned from the Unconditioned is but a word:
The Unconditioned is the seed, the Conditioned is the flower and the fruit.
Knowledge is the branch, and the Name is the root. ”

“ The rain-bird wails in thirst for the rain: almost she dies of her longing, yet she would have none other water than the rain.
Drawn by the love of music, the deer moves forward: she dies as she listens to the music, yet she shrinks not in fear. ”

“ 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 upon 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 - the proper theatre of man's quest - in order to find that One Reality Who has "spread His form of love throughout all the world." ”

“ Hating mere bodily austerities, he was no ascetic, but a married man, the father of a family a circumstance which Hindu legends of the monastic type vainly attempt to conceal or explain - and it was from out of the heart of the common life that he sang his rapturous lyrics of divine love. ”

“ Kabir 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. [9] In accordance with this concept of the universe as a Love-Game which eternally goes forward, a progressive manifestation of Brahma – one of the many notions which he adopted from the common stock of Hindu religious ideas, and illuminated by his poetic genius - movement, rhythm, perpetual change, forms an integral part of Kabir's vision of Reality. ”

“ Ah, could my mind and eyes be one! Could my love but reach to my Lover! Could but the fiery heat of my heart be cooled!
Kabir says: "When you unite love with the Lover, then you have love's perfection." ”

“ I am wandering yet in the alleys of knowledge without purpose, but I have received His news in these alleys of knowledge.
I have a letter from my Beloved: in this letter is an unutterable message, and now my fear of death is done away.
Kabir says: "O my loving friend! I have got for my gift the Deathless One." ”

“ Kabir belongs to that small group of supreme mystics - amongst whom St. Augustine, Ruysbroeck, and the Sufi poet Jalalu'ddln Rumi are perhaps the chief - who 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; ”

“ It is neither coloured nor colourless: it has neither form nor outline:
It sits in the shadow of love.
It dwells within the Unattainable, the Infinite, and the Eternal; and no one marks when it comes and goes.
Kabir says: "O brother Sadhu! deep is the mystery. ”

“ He who is discerning knows by the word; and the ignorant stands gaping.
Some contemplate the Formless, and others meditate on form: but the wise man knows that Brahma is beyond both.
That beauty of His is not seen of the eye: that metre of His is not heard of the ear.
Kabir says: "He who has found both love and renunciation never descends to death." ”