KABIR

The Guest 07

Seventh Discourse from the series of 15 discourses - The Guest by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.


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 strings no one touches, and the source of all water.

If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth:
friend, listen: the god whom I love is inside.


Why should we two ever want to part?
Just as the leaf of the water rhubarb lives floating on the water,
we live as the great one and the little one.

As the owl opens his eyes all night to the moon,
we live as the great one and little one.

This love between us goes back to the first humans;
it cannot be annihilated.

Here is Kabir’s idea: as the river gives itself into the ocean,
what is inside me moves inside you.
T. S. Eliot says, in “Choruses from ‘The Rock’”:
But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before: though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where.
Men have left GOD not for other gods, they say, but for no god; and this has never happened before
That men both deny gods and worship gods, professing first Reason,
And then Money, and Power, and what they call Life, or Race, or Dialectic.
The Church disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells upturned, and what have we to do
But stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards
In an age which advances progressively backwards?
Yes, something has happened that has never happened before: for the first time in the evolution of human consciousness man stands alienated from God. Man stands separated from existence. Man stands lonely, with no companion, in great darkness, with no light to lead him, guide him. Man has never been in such despair, man has never been in such a state of homelessness.
T. S. Eliot is right: “…something has happened that has never happened before…” And why has it happened? How has it happened? It is difficult to pinpoint, but not difficult to vaguely understand. These things are not very tangible and they don’t happen in a certain moment. They happen so gradually, so slowly, that no-one ever really becomes aware of when, where, how; but a few things can be understood.
Man had always lived with nature. To live with nature is to live with God in an indirect way because nature reflects God in a thousand and one ways. The growing trees and the faraway call of the cuckoo, the wind in the pine trees and the rivers moving toward the ocean, the proud mountains standing in the sun and the starry night: it is impossible not to be reminded of some invisible hand. It is impossible not to feel this tremendous harmony. It is impossible not to see that existence is not dead but alive. The ocean heaves, breathes; the whole of existence is a growing phenomenon. It is not dead, it cannot be dead – everything is growing.
Because of this experience of growing, man has been constantly aware of some invisible, mysterious force behind everything. That force is called God. God is not a person, let me repeat, only a presence. Still now, when you go deep into the Himalayas, you again start feeling a kind of reverence, awe, wonder; again you start feeling something that was very easily available to primitive man.
Civilized man has lost something because now we live in a man-made world where it is almost impossible to find the signature of God. How can you find God on asphalt roads? They don’t grow, they don’t breathe. How can you find God in cement structures? They are not alive. How can you find God in machines, in technology? Although there is great technology, even the greatest machine cannot give you a sense of the mysterious, of the miraculous. Facing even the greatest machine you cannot feel awe, you cannot feel reverence, you cannot feel like falling on your knees and praying. And if you cannot feel like falling on your knees and praying once in a while, how can God remain a part of your being? How can you remain alert, aware of the divine?
Yes, “…something has happened that has never happened before: though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where.” It is difficult to pinpoint the exact date and time when God died, when – at least in our consciousness – God disappeared from our world. And with him, disappeared all poetry; with him, disappeared all dance; with him, disappeared all that is beautiful and sacred; with him, disappeared all which one can live and die for – now we don’t have anything worth living for or worth dying for. We are simply dragging out our existence; burdened, seeing no point in it all; just carrying on somehow because the only alternative is suicide. That too seems pointless. To live seems pointless, to die seems pointless.
Man is facing a tremendous flood of meaninglessness for the first time. Everything seems to be utterly insignificant, and the reason is simple: without God there can be no significance, without God there can be no grandeur, without God there can be no splendor. Life can have meaning only in the context of something that surpasses life. The meaning always comes from the context; now man stands without a context. Meaning comes only when you can look upward to something bigger than you, something greater than you. When you feel related to something greater, holier, your life has meaning. When you feel unrelated, uprooted, how can you feel meaning?
The first thing that has happened is that man has left nature and created an artificial world of his own. This most shattering phenomenon has disrupted him, unbridged man from God and all that God implies: meaning, significance, majesty, love, prayer, meditation, all that is valuable, precious. Man has never been such a beggar as he is today.
The irony is, man has never been so rich, so affluent, as he is today. Two things have happened together: the inner has become poorer and poorer, and the outer has become richer and richer. We have more money than any other society before, we have more medical facilities than any other society before, we have in every way more power than any other society ever had. And still no society has ever felt such meaninglessness; no society has ever felt such suicidal desire, such longing.
Secondly, we have cultivated reason too much and become lopsided. God is feeling, God is not thinking. You cannot think about God because God is not an object to think about. Science thinks, religion feels. Science functions from the head, religion from the heart. Our whole education, our whole civilization, is obsessed with the head because it has made possible all kinds of technological advances. And because we have become too obsessed with the head we think reason is everything.
What can the heart give to us? No, it cannot give you great technology, it cannot give you great industry, it cannot give you money. But it can give you joy, it can give you celebration, it can give you a tremendous feeling for beauty, for music, for poetry; it can guide you into the world of love, and ultimately into the world of prayer – but these things are not commodities. You cannot grow your bank balance through the heart; and you cannot fight great wars, and you cannot make atom bombs and hydrogen bombs, and you cannot destroy people through the heart. The heart knows only how to create and the head knows only how to destroy. The head is destructive, and our whole education has become trapped in it.
Our universities, our colleges, our schools, are all destroying humanity. They think they are serving it, but they are simply befooling themselves. Unless man becomes balanced, unless the heart and the head both grow, man will remain in misery and the misery will go on growing. As we become more and more hung up in the head, as we become more and more oblivious to the existence of the heart, we will become more and more miserable. We are creating hell on the earth, and we will create more and more of it. Paradise belongs to the heart.
That is the third thing that has happened: the heart has been completely forgotten, nobody understands its language anymore. We understand logic, we don’t understand love. We understand mathematics, we don’t understand music. We become more and more accustomed to the ways of the world and nobody seems to have the guts to move onto the unknown paths of the heart, the unknown labyrinths of love. We have become very much attuned to the world of prose, and poetry has simply become nonexistential.
The poet is the bridge between the scientist and the mystic. And the poet has died, the bridge has disappeared. On one hand stand the scientists – very powerful, tremendously powerful, ready to destroy the whole earth, the whole of life. And on the other hand, few and far between, stand the mystics – Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, Kabir. They are utterly powerless in the sense that we understand power, but immensely powerful in a totally different sense – and we don’t know that language at all. The poet has died, that is the greatest calamity. The poet is disappearing.
And by “poet,” I mean the painter, the sculptor. All that is creative in man is becoming reduced to producing more and more commodities. The creative is losing its grip and the productive is becoming the goal of life.
God can be approached only through the creative. Why? – because he is the creator. If you want to know God, you will have to have something similar because only the same can meet the same. You will have to learn a little of the rhythm of creativity. When the musician is in a really creative mood, in a creative space, he disappears; God starts playing on the flute. Suddenly the musician’s flute is no longer in his own hands, it is in Krishna’s hands. And then the flute brings something from the beyond, something virgin, something utterly new. When the painter disappears, his hands are just the instruments of God.
God is creativity, so if you really want to enter the world of God you will have to learn the ways of creativity – but they have disappeared. Instead of creativity we value productivity; we talk about how to produce more. Production can give you things, but it cannot give you values. Production can make you rich outwardly, but it will impoverish you inwardly. Production is not creation. Production is very mediocre; any stupid person can do it, he simply needs to learn the knack of it. Creativity is intelligence. The deeper you go into creativity, the more meditative you become.
The poet has died, the poet exists no more. And what exists in the name of poetry is almost prose. What exists in the name of painting is more or less insane. You can see Picasso, Dali and others – it is pathological! Picasso was a genius, but ill, pathological. His painting was nothing but a catharsis; it helped him, it was a kind of vomiting. When you have something wrong with your stomach the vomiting relieves you. It helped Picasso; if he had been prevented from painting he would have gone mad. Painting was good for him, it saved him from becoming insane, it released his insanity onto the canvas. But what about the others who will be purchasing those paintings, hanging them in their bedrooms and looking at them? – they will start becoming ill at ease.
I am talking about a totally different sort of creativity. The Taj Mahal – just watching it on a full-moon night, great meditation is bound to arise in you. Or the temples of Khajuraho, Konarak, Puri – just meditate on them and you will be surprised, all your sexuality is transformed into love. These structures are miracles of creativity; they were not created by pathological people, they were created by those who had attained.
The great cathedrals of Europe are the longing of the earth to reach the sky. Just seeing those great creations, a great song is bound to arise in your heart, or a great silence is bound to descend on you. Man has lost the poetic urge, the creative urge – or it has been killed. We are too interested in commodities, in gadgets, in making more and more things. Production is concerned with quantity, and creation is concerned with quality. The quality has disappeared and, with the quality, God has disappeared – because God is the ultimate quality of creation.
You will have to bring the heart back. You will have to be aware of nature again. You will have to learn to watch roses, lotuses again. You will have to make contact with the trees and the rocks and the rivers. You will have to start a dialogue with the stars again. Otherwise God cannot be brought back to humanity, and without God humanity is doomed, is lost.
Yes, T. S. Eliot is right: “…something has happened that has never happened before: though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where. Men have left GOD not for other gods…”
In the past, people used to move from one god to another. It was quite usual and really very significant, it was an evolution. Naturally, the God of Moses was less sophisticated than the God of Jesus – there are thousands of years between those two enlightened beings. Moses was as enlightened as Jesus, but he had to use a language that could be understood by his people, and they were very primitive. Hence, Moses spoke in the language of law and commandments: do this, don’t do that. Law was his central emphasis.
By the time Jesus arrived man had evolved. Jesus talked about love, not about law. Love was his law. Now love is a higher value than law, certainly holier than law. Law is mundane. The God of the Jews was a jealous God – because we make our God in our own image. The God of the Jews was a very angry God, he would destroy cities for little reason. If just one person committed a sin, God could destroy the whole town. And what was the ancient concept of sin? – just disobeying a certain commandment. God was very angry, violent. But it was not really God who was violent and angry, it was the people. Their eyes were so full of violence and anger that they could not see the real God.
God is always the same, remember this. It was exactly the same when Moses was alive, it was exactly the same when Jesus was alive, it is exactly the same now, when we are alive; it will remain the same. God is always the same, but our eyes change.
Jesus could see God as love, as compassion. God was growing because man was growing; man was changing one god for another, for a higher conception of God. Man has always been changing gods, and that’s perfectly right. When we change, how can our rudimentary ideas of God remain the same? When our eyes change everything changes.
There is a very beautiful story…

There was a great saint, Ramdas. Thousands of years after Rama walked on the earth, Ramdas was reciting his story again – after thousands of years. The way he used to tell the story of Rama was so enchanting, so magnetic, so charismatic, that Hanuman, an absolute devotee of Rama – he had seen everything with his own eyes – used to come to listen to Ramdas. He would sit in the crowd, in disguise of course, and enjoy it very much.
Sometimes it happens that when you were involved in something, the action itself, you cannot get a perspective on it, you can’t see the whole thing. You were involved in it, you were doing your own thing, and there were a thousand and one things going on; you could not watch all of it.
The life of Rama was over now, completed. Ramdas was telling his disciples the story, and Hanuman was very happy, utterly glad to come and listen. Many things he had only heard of through rumors, and now he was hearing them again from an authentic source.
But one day a problem arose. Ramdas was describing when Ramana stole Rama’s wife, Sita. Ramana kept her on Sri Lanka in a beautiful garden full of white flowers. Ramdas was telling that part of the story – when Ramana kept Sita in a beautiful garden full of white flowers.
Now Hanuman had visited Sita in the garden and had not seen a single white flower – he had seen red flowers. So he stood up. He forgot that he should not interfere, that he was not expected to be there at all. He stood up and said, “Excuse me, everything else is okay, but there was not a single white flower: this you have got wrong. All the flowers were red, blood red. Change it.
Ramdas said, “Who are you to correct me? Sit quietly.”
In anger, Hanuman threw his blanket off. He was a monkey god, so he appeared out of the blanket with his tail and everything. He said, “You ask me who I am? I am the Hanuman you are talking about. I am the man who went to the garden. You never went, you were never there – and after thousands of years you are telling the story? You have got some nerve! You are telling me to keep quiet? I cannot keep quiet! Change the story – the flowers were red, absolutely red.”
But Ramdas said, “Don’t be stupid. In the first place, you are not meant to be here. In the second place, you may have been in the garden, but I cannot change the story. I know for sure that the flowers were white.”
This was too much. Hanuman was an eye-witness, and five thousand years later this man was just making up the story. He seemed to be very stubborn: he was saying, “Be silent! Don’t be monkeyish! I know who you are – just keep quiet.” Not only that, this man was calling Hanuman stupid.
Hanuman said, “I cannot allow this. You will have to come with me, I will take you to Rama. Only Rama can decide now – and this has to be decided.”
So Hanuman took Ramdas on his shoulders, flew back to heaven, went to Rama, and said angrily, “Look at this man! After five thousand years he is making up this story. Tell him to change it. I love his stories, he is a beautiful storyteller and I have not objected to anything else where I was not an eye-witness, but he is not ready to listen to me about things I was involved in. He goes on insisting the flowers were white, and they were all red. Not only that, he is calling me stupid, and telling me, ‘Be quiet, don’t disturb me and don’t interfere.’ I say again: the flowers were red. What do you say?”
Rama said, “Hanuman, Ramdas is right – the flowers were white. Because my wife had been stolen, you were so angry your eyes were full of blood. Hence, you saw the flowers as red. You should not interfere. When a person like Ramdas says something, it cannot be changed. It is not a question of time; for a man like Ramdas there is no time. Five thousand or fifty thousand years, it doesn’t make any difference; he has entered eternity, all time has disappeared. When he is telling the story he is not only telling the story, he is seeing it too; it is not something of the past. For him there is no question of time.”
Now this was really too much! Hanuman said, “You also were not there. You didn’t go into the garden, so who are you? I was there! This is unfair! You are being partial, unjust. Ask Sita, she was there – and I hope she will not be unfair.”
Sita started laughing and said, “Hanuman, simply apologize – the flowers were white. You were just so angry that you could not see them; you were so bloodthirsty you imposed your anger on the flowers. Just apologize to Ramdas. In the first place you need not go to listen, and if you do, then make a point of keeping hidden and not interfering; nothing can be changed. Whatsoever Ramdas is saying is right because he has a more aloof, distant witnessing than you can ever have – you were too involved.

That’s how it has been. When Moses talked about God, he talked about a God which the Jews of his time could understand. When Jesus talked about God of course, three thousand years had passed, man had grown, come of age; it was possible to talk about love. Some people at least could understand him – some, but not many. Hence he was crucified because many could not yet understand.
In the past, people were changing their gods. One of the Indian incarnations of God is Parasuram – he killed millions of people, his whole life was that of a killer. Another incarnation of God is Buddha – he was absolutely nonviolent; he would not kill even an ant. Between the time of Parasuram and Buddha much water flowed down the Ganges. Buddha brought a new concept of God, a new vision; it is the same God, but Buddha gives you new eyes.
In the past people were changing gods, but in the present day something else has happened: “Men have left GOD not for other gods they say, but for no god…” Man has not left God for other gods – that would be okay – he has dropped the whole idea of God, the whole idea of a divine presence in existence, the whole idea of any meaning, the whole idea that existence is alive, conscious. And now we are standing empty, and we are feeling empty.
But man cannot remain empty; it is difficult to remain empty. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, so is the case with man’s inner nature – “…men both deny gods and worship gods…” So there came a new phenomenon: man created his own gods.
He didn’t worship God the Father, the Holy Ghost and Jesus Christ anymore; he changed that old trinity. He worshipped a new trinity: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin. Now this is very ordinary – to worship Karl Marx or Engels or Lenin is to worship something very ordinary. And remember, whatsoever you worship you will become because deep down your worship is your longing.
“…professing first Reason…” Because man cannot remain empty for long, he first replaced the emptiness with reason. Reason became God, the head became God. So anything proved by reason was truth, anything not proved by reason was untruth. Now this is nonsense: reason is limited, it cannot prove many things. For example, it cannot prove the beauty of a rose, but the beauty exists; reason is impotent to prove it. Reason cannot prove the existence of love, but love exists; reason is inadequate to prove it. If you ask reason about music it will say it is only noise; it may be arranged in such a way that it gives an illusion of melody, but there is no melody, only noise; reason is blind, it cannot see the melody. Yes, reason has certain qualities, but only certain qualities; the whole of existence is not available to it.
And then money became God. Millions of people worship money as God. You will be surprised to know that this country, India, which goes on bragging about its spirituality, bragging that it is destined to lead the whole of humanity toward spirituality, worships money more than any other country – actually worships it! There is a festival, the Festival of Lights, Diwali, when people worship money – they actually worship notes, coins: money is God. In other countries they may not be actually worshipping, but unconsciously the worship is there.
And power has become a god. The politician has become the most important person in the world. The dirtiest politician is thought to be something superhuman. We have denied God, but how can we deny our emptiness? We have rejected God, and we have to stuff something into the empty space, so we stuff it with political power, with money, with reason, with race, with dialectics – if you cannot find anything else, then dialectical materialism, the philosophy of communism, fascism, Nazism.
Man cannot live without religion. Man cannot live without God. If the true God is not available, man is bound to create homemade gods. “The Church disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells upturned, and what have we to do but stand with empty hands and palms turned upward in an age which advances progressively backward?” Yes, T. S. Eliot is right.
With this background, try to understand Kabir’s sutras. They are of tremendous beauty.
Inside this clay jug there are canyons and pine mountains, and the maker of canyons and pine mountains!
The original is:
Is ghat antar bag-bagiche, isee men sirjanhara,
is ghat antar sat samundar, isee men nau lakh tara.
Kabir says if you drop the mind, if even for a single moment you become pure consciousness, the difference between the inside and the outside will disappear. Then the inside will be the outside and the outside will be the inside, because the only thing that separates you from the outer is the glass wall of your thoughts. Once this is not there a miracle happens: you find the whole of existence inside you. You become so vast.
Is ghat antar bag-bagiche… Then all the gardens and all the roses and all the lotuses are within you.
…isee men sirjanhara… And it is not only that the roses are in you and the stars are in you – the one who created them is also within you.
…is ghat antar sat samundar… The seven seas are within you.
…isee men nau lakh tara. And millions of stars are within you. Once the mind is dropped, the inner and outer meet, merge into each other and become one. This small body is not as small as you think, it is a temple of God.
Inside this clay jug… If you look at it from the outside it is nothing but clay, it is nothing but dust. Omar Khayyam says, “Dust unto dust” – but man is not only dust, although the idea has been very persistent. Do you know that the word human comes from humus? Humus means dust, earth, clay. The word adam comes from the same root; adam means earth. If you look from the outside, man is made of clay; if you look at him scientifically he is clay.
It is like looking at poetry scientifically: you will find words but not poetry. Poetry is something between the words, in the gaps and between the lines, in the intervals. You need a totally different kind of sensitivity to understand poetry. Just the words are not poetry; the words are language, grammar. And what are words? – just different combinations of the alphabet. Where is the poetry? If you dissect the poetry – even the greatest poetry, of a Kalidas, Milton or Rabindranath – if you dissect it, what will you find? Only words! And if you dissect the words, then just the alphabet.
It happened…

A great spiritual preacher invited Mark Twain to one of his sermons. They were friends, but Mark Twain had never gone to listen to him. And the preacher wanted him to listen; he wanted him to know the art of his preaching, he wanted to be appreciated. He insisted again and again, and one day Mark Twain went with him. The preacher had prepared his best sermon. He talked beautifully, he made people as if drunk. But he was very much puzzled and embarrassed too because Mark Twain was just sitting in front of him absolutely unimpressed, uninfluenced.
The sermon finished, and they were going back home. But, not even for a few moments could the preacher gather the courage to ask Mark Twain what he was thinking. And Mark Twain didn’t say a single word.
Finally, when they were getting down from the carriage, the preacher gathered enough courage and said, “At least you owe me a few words. How did you like my sermon? Even if you did not like it, you can say so. But don’t keep so silent – it hurts.”
Mark Twain said, “There was no question of liking it or disliking it. You are a thief. Only last night I was reading something in which is written every single word that you uttered this morning. You are a thief and nothing else.”
The priest was shocked. He said, “That is impossible, I haven’t stolen from anywhere. Show me the book.”
And Mark Twain said, “Tomorrow morning I will send the book to you.”
And do you know what happened? The next morning Mark Twain sent him a big dictionary, and he wrote, “Do you see: every single word that you spoke is in this book.”

Poetry is not just words, poetry is something totally different. The words only create the space for the poetry to become visible. The words only create a context for the poetry to descend from the beyond.
Man’s body is not just clay, it is clay plus God. If you look from the outside it is clay, but if you start looking from the inside it is the whole universe.
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 strings no one touches, and the source of all water.
The original is far more beautiful, and the reason is the same as I have been saying. The original is poetry, and it is very difficult to translate poetry from one language to another. Prose can be translated easily. Poetry cannot be translated, never adequately. Something is missing because each language has its own nuances, its own flavor; you cannot bring that flavor and nuance to another language.
The original is:
Is ghat antar paras moti, isee men parkhanhara,
is ghat antar anahad garje, isee men uthat fuhara,

kahat Kabir suno bhai sadho, isee men sai hamara.
A paras, touchstone, is a specific symbol in Eastern alchemy. In the West, alchemists have been searching down the ages for the secret of transforming base metals into higher metals, into gold; searching for ways and means, chemical ways to transform the lower into the higher, the nonprecious into the precious. In the East also, there has been the same search, but there they have a different metaphor for it. They call it a paras. A paras is a stone, a miracle stone. If any base metal is touched by the paras it immediately becomes gold. No other chemistry, no other chemical processes are needed, just the touch of the paras. It is a metaphor: in fact it stands for the master. Just the touch of the master, just the touch of his energy, immediately transforms the ignorant into the wise one, immediately transforms darkness into light, death into immortality. Paras is a metaphor for the master.
Is ghat antar paras moti… Within you exists the miracle stone. If you know how to use it everything will become gold, everything will be transformed into diamonds.
…isee men parkhanhara… And the one who can recognize this miracle stone is also present in you. You are not to ask anybody else. Your own witnessing self, your own pure consciousness, is the one who knows already where the precious stone is hidden in you. You just have to discard the garbage of the mind, the garbage that has been given to you by society. You just have to be alone in yourself. When the mind drops all the contents given by society, the witness arises in you.
…is ghat antar anakad garje… And deep within you there is music which is not created by anybody, which is not created by any hand, which is not produced on any instrument. There is a special name for it: it is called anahat.
When you play on a guitar it is called ahat because you strike the strings with your fingers; Ahat means striking. The musician is struggling to create music on the instrument, it is created out of conflict, there is a little aggression in it, there is struggle, there is a kind of fight. In the innermost recess of your being there is neither instrument nor musician, but music is there – without the musician and without the instrument.
Zen people call it “the sound of one hand clapping.” The Christian mystics call it “the soundless sound.” It is silence, and yet it is musical silence.
Again, the words of T. S. Eliot are significant:
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor toward; at the still point where the dance is.
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered…. Except for the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
“…the still point…” There is a point within you where nothing ever moves – no movement from or to, no stirring, no sound created by any instrument. Nobody is there, just stillness, but that stillness is the dance and that stillness is the music. It is called anahat.
…is ghat antar anahad garje, isee men uthat fuhara… And the moment you have heard that music, a great fountain bursts forth, of joy, of bliss. You become a rejoicing, you become a dance yourself, you become a song yourself. Then your life is religious. Not like the so-called saints – sad, serious and ugly. The really religious person is one whose inner wells have started flowing, who has become a fountain of joy, of song and dance and celebration.
And the music from the strings no one touches, and the source of all water.

If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth:
friend, listen: the god whom I love is inside.
Kabir says: If you want the truth… Truth cannot be imposed upon you, it cannot be forced upon you. Unless you desire and long for it, unless you spread your hands, unless you are ready to receive it with great longing and intensity, unless longing becomes a fire in you, it cannot be given to you. No master can give it to you, but you can take it. If you have fire enough, it will be transferred to you. It is a transmission beyond scriptures.
If you want the truth – Kabir says – I will tell you the truth… I am ready to tell you, I am ready to share my truth, my experience with you. But, friend, you will have to listen. Just hearing won’t do, you will have to listen.
Listening is totally different from hearing. Hearing, anybody who is not deaf can do. Listening is a rare art, one of the last arts. Listening means not only hearing with the ears, but hearing from the heart in utter silence, in absolute peace, with no resistance. One has to be vulnerable to listen, and one has to be deep in love to listen. One has to be in utter surrender to listen.
…friend, listen: the god whom I love is inside. Kabir says, I have found him within myself. I searched for him everywhere, and all the searching was nothing but frustration. Then I looked within and he was there, laughing, smiling at all my stupid searching. It was so ridiculous: I was searching for the one who is already present within me.
…kahat Kabir suno bhai sadho, isee men sai hamara. In this ordinary body of clay, God resides. Hence, don’t be against the body; notwithstanding what your foolish saints go on saying to you, don’t be against the body. Love it, respect it, it is the temple of God. It may be clay in the eyes of the scientist, but in the eyes of the mystic, God has chosen it to be his abode.
Why should we two ever want to part?

Mohi-tohi lagi kaise chute…
The original says: we have fallen in such love that now it cannot be broken. We have fallen into each other so deeply that we cannot be separated. No sword can cut us apart, it is impossible.
Mohi-tohi lagi kaise chute… Now even if somebody wants to separate us and tries to, it is impossible. Even you cannot separate us. I am no more, only you are. Who can you separate from whom?
Why should we two ever want to part? The translation misses, it misses the point. It is not a question of Why should we two ever want to part? No, even if we want to, there is no possibility of parting. The mystic, once he knows that God is within, has gone beyond the point of parting. There is no possibility of any divorce anymore. He is really married. And the marriage is not just a formality, the marriage is like a welding. He is welded with God – not only wedded but welded. He has become one, just like the river disappears into the ocean – how can you separate it? Just as the milk becomes one with the water – how can you separate it?
Just as the leaf of the water rhubarb lives floating on the water,
we live as the great one and little one.

…jaise kamalpatra jal basa,
aise tum sahib ham dasa…
The lotus leaf has been a symbol of great importance. Down the ages, it is impossible to find a mystic who has never talked about it – all the buddhas have talked about it. They had to talk about it because it represents something so significant that it cannot be ignored. It represents the very essence of sannyas.
There is one thing of great importance about the lotus leaf: it lives in water, it floats on water, but the water cannot touch it. During the night dewdrops gather on the lotus leaf but they remain separate – just like pearls, separate; they cannot touch the lotus leaf. The lotus leaf remains untouched in the water; it remains in the water and yet aloof, distant, faraway. That’s how the mystic lives, how the sannyasin has to live: in the world and yet not of the world.
Jaise kamalpatra jal basa, aise tum sahib ham dasa… Kabir says, I am living in this world, but this world is not my master. You are my master. I am living in this world because this is what you want me to do; I am simply following your orders. I am living in this world because I am just a slave to your love, I am just a shadow of you. I have no interest in the world: I am not after money, I am not after power, I am not after prestige. But if you want me to be in the marketplace, then it is perfectly okay. If you want me anywhere, I am ready to go there.
There is a story in Buddha’s life…

One day one of Buddha’s sannyasins was passing along a street where he had gone to beg. The most beautiful woman of that town, the prostitute of the town, fell in love with this monk. She came out of her house and asked the monk to come and stay with her. The rainy season was coming soon, so the prostitute said, “Why don’t you stay with me during the rainy season?”
Because monks have to stay somewhere.
“During the rainy season,” the prostitute said, “for four months, monks don’t move. You will have to stay somewhere, you will have to find some shelter – why not with me?”
He said, “That’s perfectly okay. I will just have to ask my master, ask his permission. If he says yes, tomorrow morning I will be at your door.”
The prostitute could not believe the way the monk said it so simply, as if there was no problem. He said, “I have to stay somewhere. I was going to ask somebody to give me shelter for the four months, and this from you is a gift. I just have to ask my master, ‘Can I stay with her?’ That is the way, it is just a formal request. I have to tell him that a certain woman has requested that I stay with her.”
The other monks heard about it, and of course they were jealous. This was too much, it was impossible to tolerate. But they waited. They waited because they thought Buddha would absolutely say no, would categorically say no. A sannyasin, and staying with a prostitute?
But when the monk asked Buddha, Buddha looked at the monk and said, “Perfectly right. You can stay with her.”
Now the other monks stood up and said, “This is not fair. Don’t you see the risk? This is a young man, and that woman is almost a magician. Even great kings are entrapped by her, and this young man is almost innocent. She is not interested in giving him shelter, she has become lustful toward his beautiful body. And you say yes?”
Buddha said, “Wait. We will decide who is right after four months. Let him go and stay with the woman.”
Those four months seemed very long for the other monks. It was really difficult to wait, but they knew Buddha was going to be proved wrong. Living with that woman for four months? She could not leave the monk alone, she would seduce him – it was absolutely certain.
After four months the monk came back and touched Buddha’s feet. The others said, “Now tell us the truth – what happened?”
The monk said, “Just wait a few minutes because the woman herself is coming and it will be better for you to hear it from the horse’s mouth.”
And the woman came and touched Buddha’s feet, and she asked to be initiated into sannyas.
Buddha asked, “Why?”
She said, “I tried to seduce him, but I failed. He seduced me. He seduced me into sannyas. For four months I tried every possible way, but he remained like a lotus leaf. I would dance naked around him and he would meditate. I have never failed in my life, this is the first time. For the first time I am impressed by a man; for the first time I have encountered a man. Up to now I have seen only slaves. They may have been great kings, but they all touched the dust on my feet. This is the only man I have seen who remained like a lotus leaf.
“I tried every possible way: good food, a beautiful room, a beautiful bed, beautiful clothes, every possible comfort for him – and he would never say no – but I failed. I could not distract him. And he used to laugh at me. I would dance my most cherished dances and I would start throwing my clothes off, waiting that some lust might arise in his eyes – but it never did. He would laugh and giggle, and he would say, ‘What are you doing? It is too cold, you will catch cold.’ He has transformed me. Now I would like to become the same, a lotus leaf.”

Jaise kamalpatra jal basa, aise tum sahib ham dasa… You are my master, I am your shadow; wherever you go, I go. If you take me into the world, it is perfectly okay. If you take me out of the world, it is perfectly okay. I can only say yes. Every dance is your dance. Who am I to say no? This is the ultimate meaning of sannyas: not renunciation but rejoicing.

It is said, by John in the Acts, that on the last night, when Jesus was departing from his disciples:
…[Jesus] gathered all of us together and said: Before I am delivered up unto them let us sing a hymn to the Father, and so go forth to that which lieth before us. He bade us therefore make as it were a ring, holding one another’s hands, and himself standing in the midst he said: Answer Amen unto me…

Glory be to thee, Father.
And we, going about in a ring, answered him: Amen.
Glory be to thee, Word: Glory be to thee, Grace. Amen.
Glory be to thee, Spirit: Glory be to thee, Holy One. Amen.
We praise thee, O Father; we give thanks to thee,
O Light, wherein darkness dwelleth not. Amen.
The word amen means, “Yes God, yes. If you want us to die, yes. If crucifixion is your will, yes. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”
That’s what Kabir is saying. He is saying, I am just a shadow to you. Wherever you go I will go. I have no desire of my own. How can I have any desire of my own? I am not, you are.
As the owl opens his eyes all night to the moon,
we live as the great one and little one.

…jaise chakor takat nis chanda,
aise tum sahib ham banda…
Chakor is a poetic metaphor. The chakor is a waterbird, not exactly an owl; you can call it a water-owl. It is not found in the West, hence there is no word for it in the English language. The chakor is a bird which is fascinated by the moon. When the full moon is in the sky he cannot sleep for the whole night. He goes on looking at the moon, for the whole night he is focused on the moon. This may not be exactly true, it may be just poetically true. Maybe the chakor has some other reason – maybe his neck is made in such a way that he cannot look anywhere else.
But he has become a significant poetic metaphor: that is the way the lover looks at the beloved, the devotee looks at the deity, the disciple looks at the master. Jaise chakor takat nis chanda… Just like the chakor which goes on looking at the moon the whole night. …aise tum sahib ham banda… Just like that I go on looking at you.
In fact when you have recognized him within you, wherever you look you look at him because he is everywhere.
This love between us goes back to the first humans:
it cannot be annihilated.

…mohi-tohi adi-ant ban ayi,
ab kaise lagan durai…
Kabir says, this love has been going on from the very beginning, and it is going to go on to the very end. There is no possibility of it being annihilated; it is the eternal love.
God is the eternal goal. Consciously or unconsciously, we are searching for him. And the day we stop searching for him we become miserable, our life becomes darkened, we lose the star that was keeping us moving. Our life becomes stagnant, there is no flow any longer. And when there is no God there is no glow either.
Here is Kabir’s idea: as the river gives itself into the ocean,
what is inside me moves inside you.

…kahe Kabir hamara man laga,
jaise sarita sindh samai.
Just as the river moves into the ocean and becomes the ocean, so has something exactly like that happened within me. …kahe Kabir hamara man laga, jaise sarita sindh samai. My own being has disappeared, my own private existence is no more. I have become just a part of you, a part of the total. I have become an organic unity with you.
And the moment you become an organic unity with God, your life becomes an orgasmic joy – joy and joy and joy. Your whole life becomes a sheer blissfulness from this end to the other end.
Sydney Carter says:
They cut me down and I leap up high;
I am the life that’ll never, never die.
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.

I danced in the morning when the world was begun,
And I danced in the stars and the moon and the sun,
And I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth;
At Bethlehem I had my birth.
Dance then wherever you may be;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.

And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be.
I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he….
The invitation from God is constantly there:
And I’ll lead you all wherever you may be,
I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he.
Those who are ready to accept the invitation, those who are ready to open the door when God knocks, those who are ready to let him in, their lives become a dance, a dance of utter beauty.
You also can rejoice – but you can miss if you are stubborn, if you are closed, if you are not available. You are free to be miserable, remember. Misery is your own choice: you have chosen it, hence you are miserable. You can drop it instantly, right now, this very moment, herenow – just a shift of gestalt. Don’t be a separate entity. You are not, in fact – it is only an illusion that you think that you are separate. You don’t have to lose anything but your illusion of separation, and the dance begins.
And unless the dance begins, life remains futile. God is always ready, inviting, calling you forth: “Come. Come follow me. Come, be in the dance with me. Come, let me dance in you. Come, like a river comes to the ocean.”
…kahe Kabir hamara man laga, jaise sarita sindh samai. I have disappeared just like the river disappears into the ocean. And the day I disappeared was the greatest day. The day I died was the beginning of real life.
One has to be ready to die, only then does eternal life become available. It is yours, just for the asking. Gather courage, and don’t go on missing the dance of life.
Enough for today.

Spread the love