Showing posts with label Kabir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kabir. Show all posts

Monday, January 17, 2022

hiding in this cage






hiding in this cage
of visible matter

is the invisible
lifebird

pay attention
to her

she is singing
your song



~ Kabir
english version by Rushil Rao





Sunday, June 27, 2021

plung







Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think...and think... while you are alive.
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time
before death.
 
If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?
 
The idea that the soul will rejoin with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten -
that is all fantasy.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the 
City of Death
 
If you make love with the divine now, in the next
life you will have the face of satisfied desire.
 
So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!
 
Kabir says this:  When the Guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that
does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.
 
 
 
 
Kabir
art by Juna Biagioni




Saturday, February 22, 2020

songs of Kabir









 
O How may I ever express that secret word?
O how can I say He is not like this, and He is like that?
If I say that He is within me, the universe is ashamed:
If I say that He is without me, it is falsehood.
He makes the inner and the outer worlds to be indivisibly one;
The conscious and the unconscious, both are His footstools.
He is neither manifest nor hidden, He is neither revealed nor unrevealed:
There are no words to tell that which He is.




~ Kabir

translated by Rabindranath Tagore





Saturday, February 8, 2020

you are sitting in a wagon






You are sitting in a wagon being
drawn by a horse whose
reins you
hold.

There are two inside of you
who can steer.

Though most never hand the reins to Me
so they go from place to place the
best they can, though
rarely happy.

And rarely does their whole body laugh
feeling God's poke
in the
ribs.

If you feel tired, dear,
my shoulder is soft,
I'd be glad to
steer a
while.


~ Kibir
art by Van Gogh


Friday, January 31, 2020

the guest is inside





.
The Guest is inside you, and also inside me;
you know the sprout is hidden inside the seed.
We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.
Let your arrogance go, and look around inside.

The blue sky opens out farther and farther,
the daily sense of failure goes away,
the damage I have done to myself fades,
a million suns come forward with light,
when I sit firmly in that world.

I hear bells ringing that no one has shaken,
inside "love" there is more joy than we know of,
rain pours down, although the sky is clear of clouds,
there are whole rivers of light.
The universe is shot through in all parts by a single sort of love.
How hard it is to feel that joy in all our four bodies!

Those who hope to be reasonable about it fail.
The arrogance of reason has separated us from that love.
With the word "reason" you already feel miles away.

How lucky Kabir is, that surrounded by all this joy
he sings inside his own little boat.
His poems amount to one soul meeting another.
These songs are about forgetting dying and loss.
They rise above both coming in and going out.






~ Kabir
version by Robert Bly





Monday, January 6, 2020

listen








listen

hiding in this cage
of visible matter

is the invisible
lifebird

pay attention
to her

she is singing
your song




~ Kabir
Sushil Rao translation


Monday, April 15, 2019

hidden inside the seed







The Guest is inside you, and also inside me;
you know the sprout is hidden inside the seed.
We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.
Let your arrogance go, and look around inside.

The blue sky opens out farther and farther,
the daily sense of failure goes away,
the damage I have done to myself fades,
a million suns come forward with light,
when I sit firmly in that world.

I hear bells ringing that no-one has shaken,
inside “love” there is more joy than we know of,
rain pours down, although the sky is clear of clouds,
there are whole rivers of light.
The universe is shot through in all parts by a single sort of love.
how hard it is to feel that joy in all our four bodies!

Those who hope to be reasonable about it fail.
The arrogance of reason has separated us from that love.
With the word “reason” you already feel miles away.

How lucky Kabir is, that surrounded by all this joy
he sings inside his own little boat.
His poems amount to one soul meeting another.
These songs are about forgetting dying and loss.
They rise above both coming in and going out.



 ~ Kabir
 from Ecstatic Poems, by Kabir



Friday, April 12, 2019

far off though very near






Musk lies in the musk deer’s own nave,
But roam in the forest he does – it to seek;
Alike, God pervades heart to heart,
But men of the world this don’t conceive.

In man himself the Master dwells,
But man, deluded, knows not this,
So similar to the musk deer who
Again and again the grass sniffs.
...

God exists, profuse, in each place,
So don’t think He’s less here and more there,
Those who say He’s far – He is far,
Those who know Him near – He’s near.

I knew God to be far away,
But He is ubiquitous – here and there;
Thou didst know Him to be far off,
He’s far off though very near.

 ~ Kabir

fallen out on the road







The small ruby everyone wants has fallen out on the road.
Some say its East of us, others West of us.
Some say "among primitive earth rocks," others "in the deep waters." 
Kabir's instinct told him it was inside, and what it was worth,
And he wrapped it up carefully in his heart cloth.


~ Kabir
from More Than True - The Wisdom of Fairy Tales by Robert Bly

 

 

Sunday, October 7, 2018

where?




Where are you searching for me, friend?
Look! Here am I right within you.
Not in temple, nor in mosque,
Not in Kaaba, nor Kailas,
But here right within you am I. 



~ Kabir


Wednesday, July 26, 2017

the unknown flute









I know the sound of the ecstatic flute,
but I don't know whose flute it is.

A lamp burns and has neither wick nor oil.

A lily pad blossoms and is not attached to the bottom! 

When one flower opens, ordinarily dozens open.

The moon bird's head is filled with nothing but thoughts of the moon,
and when the next rain will come is all that the rain bird thinks of.

How is it we spend our entire life loving? 



~ Kabir 

Saturday, June 7, 2014

the "I" creature and the moon






There’s a moon in my body, but I can't see it!
A moon and a sun.
A drum never touched by hands, beating, and I can’t hear it! 

As long as a human being worries about when he will die,
and what he has that is his, all of his works are zero.

When affection for the I-creature and what it owns is dead,
then the work of the Teacher is over.

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

The apple blossom exists to create fruit; when that
comes, the petal falls.

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



~ Kabir



Saturday, April 14, 2012

arrogance of reason





The guest is inside you, and also inside me;
you know the sprout is hidden inside the seed.
We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.
Let your arrogance go, and look around inside.

The blue sky opens out farther and farther,
the daily sense of failure goes away,
the damage I have done to myself fades,
a million suns come forward with light,
when I sit firmly in that world.

I hear bells ringing that no one has shaken,
inside "love" there is more joy than we know of,
rain pours down, although the sky is clear of clouds,
there are whole rivers of light.
The universe is shot through in all parts by a single sort of love.
How hard it is to feel that joy in all our four bodies!

Those who hope to be reasonable about it fail.
The arrogance of reason has separated us from that love.
With the word "reason" you already feel miles away.



 
~ Kabir
from The Kabir book: Forty-four of the ecstatic poems of Kabir



Saturday, March 31, 2012

affection for the I-creature






There's a moon in my body, but I can't see it! 
A moon and a sun. 
A drum never touched by hands, beating, 
and I can't hear it.

As long as a human being worries about when he will die, 
and what he has that is his, 
all of his works are zero. 

When affection for the I-creature and what it owns is dead, 
then the work of the Teacher is over. 

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

The apple blossom exists to create fruit; 
when that comes, the petal falls. 

The musk is inside the deer, 
but the deer does not look for it: 

It wanders around looking for grass. 







~ Kabir
photo by kathleen connally



Tuesday, September 6, 2011

knowing nothing






.
Knowing nothing shuts the iron gates;
the new love opens them.

The sound of the gates opening wakes the beautiful woman asleep.

Kabir says:   Fantastic!  Don't let a chance like this go by!






~ Kabir
version by Robert Bly



Friday, November 12, 2010

stand firm









.
I said to the wanting-creature inside me:
What is this river you want to cross?
There are no travelers on the river-road, and no road.
Do you see anyone moving about on that bank, or nesting?
.
There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman.
There is no tow rope either, and no one to pull it.
There is no ground, no sky, no time, no bank, no ford!
.
And there is no body, and no mind!
Do you believe there is some place that will make the
soul less thirsty?
In that great absence you will find nothing.
.
Be strong then, and enter into your own body;
there you have a solid place for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don't go off somewhere else!
.
Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of
imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are. 
.
~ Kabir
thanks to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

deep inside the flower







.

I know of a place not ruled by flatness 
Or constant risings depressions, 
 those alive are not afraid to die. 
There wild flowers come up through the leafy floor, 
 the fragrance of "I am he" floats on the wind. 
...There the love bee stays deep inside the flower 
and cares for no other thing.



~ Kabir



Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Are you looking for me?


.
.
Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat. 
My shoulder is against yours.
.
You will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms, 
nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:
.
not 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 -- you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
.
He is the breath inside the breath.
.
~ Kabir
.

Friday, February 5, 2010

"There is nothing of value in here."

.
I was
looking for that shop
where the shopkeeper would say,
"There is nothing of value in here."
I found it and did
not leave.
The richness of not wanting
wrote these
poems.
.
~ Kibir
.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

The clay jug



...
Inside this clay jug there are canyons and pine mountains,
and the maker of canyons and pine mountains!
All seven oceans are inside, and hundreds of millions of stars.
The acid that tests gold is there, and the one who judges jewels.
And the music from the stirings that no one touches, and the
source of all water.
...
It you want the truth, I will tell you the truth:
Friend, listen:  the God whom I love is inside.
...
~ Kabir


~ click title to hear reading.