KABIR

KABIR DOHE (SUFI POEMS)

• If you don't break your ropes while you're alive do you think ghosts will do it after?

• I do not quote from the scriptures; I simply see what I see.

• Look at you, you madman!  Screaming you are thirsty and dying in a desert, when all around you there is nothing but water!

• Do not go to the garden of flowers! O friend! go not there;In your body is the garden of flowers.Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there gaze on the infinite beauty.

• There is nothing but water in the holy pools. I know, I have been swimming there. 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 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.

• Student, tell me, what is God? He is the breath inside the breath.

• I said to my longing heart, what is this river you want to cross? There are no travelers before you, there is no road. Do you see anyone moving or resting on that bank?

• Don't open your diamonds in a vegetable market. Tie them in bundle and keep them in your heart, and go your own way.

• The purpose of labor is to learn; when you know it, the labor is over.

• Just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things,and stand firm in that which you are.

• The musk is inside the deer, but the deer does not look for it, it wanders around looking for grass.

• There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman. There is not even a rope to tow the boat, and no one to pull it. There is no earth, no sky, no time, no thing, no shore, no ford!

• I went looking for Him and lost myself; The drop merged with the Sea -Who can find it now? Looking and looking for Him I lost myself; The Sea merged with the drop -Who can find it now ?

• Are you looking for me ? I(God) am in the next seat. My shoulder is against yours. You will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrines, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals: nor in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables. When you really look for me, you will see me instantly.

• Hey brother, why do you want me to talk? Talk and talk and the real things get lost. Talk and talk and things get out of hand. Why not stop talking and think? If you meet someone good, listen a little, speak; If you meet someone bad, clench up like a fist. Talking with a wise man is a great reward. Talking with a fool? A waste. Kabir says,- A pot makes noise if it's half full, But fill it to the brim -no sound.

• So long as man clamors for the "I" and the"Mine", his works are as naught: When all love of the "I" and the "Mine" is dead, then the work of the Lord is done.

• I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. You don't grasp the fact that what is most alive of all is inside your own house and so you walk from one holy city to the next with a confused look! Kabir will tell you the truth: go wherever you like, to Calcutta or Tibet; if you can't find where your soul is hidden, for you the world will never be real!

• Kabira in the market place, wishes welfare of all, Neither friendship nor enmity with anyone at all.

• Eons have passed whirling rosary, restless remains the mind.  Give up the beads of rosary and rotate the beads of mind - When "I" was then Hari was not, Now Hari "is" and "I" am not. All the darkness mitigated, When I saw the light within. 

• Music without words means leaving behind the mind.  And leaving behind the mind is meditation. Meditation returns you to the source. And the source of all is sound.    

• Look! Here am I right within you. Not in a temple, nor in a mosque, not in Kaaba nor Kailas, But here, right within you am I.

• O friend! hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live, understand whilst you live: for in life deliverance abides. If your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of deliverance in death? It is but an empty dream, that the soul shall have union with Him because it has passed from the body; If He is found now, He is found then, If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death. If you have union now, you shall have it hereafter.

• Many have died; you also will die. The drum of death is being beaten. The world has fallen in love with a dream. Only sayings of the wise will remain.

• The moon shines in my body, but my blind eyes cannot see it; the moon is within me, and so is the sun. The unstruck drum of Eternity is sounded within me; but my deaf ears cannot hear it.

• The river and its waves are one surf: where is the difference between the river and its waves? When the wave rises, it is the water; and when it falls, it is the same water again. Tell me, Sir, where is the distinction? Because it has been named as wave, shall it no longer be considered as water?

• A drop Melting into the sea, Everyone can see. But the sea absorbed In a drop - A rare one can follow! 

• A piece of salt entered the ocean to find its depth. It dissolved and turned into salty water; who will return to tell the depth.