Kahe Kabir Diwana #2

Life passes, drop by drop.
It empties, day after day.
As sand slips through the hand, so the earth beneath your feet keeps sliding away.
You do not see it, because to see it a great alertness is needed.
And life goes so slowly, so imperceptibly, that you never notice that with every hour death is drawing near.
Whenever someone dies the mind thinks, death always happens to the other.
I never die; someone else dies.
The neighbor dies.
But every death brings news of your death.
What happened to the neighbor is going to happen to you as well.

Even up to the last moment, awareness does not arise.
In heedlessness, in unconsciousness; by his own hands a man brings himself to an end.
And whatever you are doing has no ultimate value.
Earn as much wealth as you like, gather as much power and prestige as you can, death wipes everything clean.
Death erases all.
All the houses you built prove to be houses of cards.
All the boats you launched prove to be boats of paper.
All sinks.

When the awareness that there is death begins to dawn, a ray of Dharma enters one’s life.
The remembrance of death is the primary doorway to Dharma.
If there were no death there would be no Dharma in the world.
Because there is death, the possibility of Dharma exists.
And so long as you go on denying death, no ray of Dharma will penetrate your life.

Understand death rightly.
For only on that foundation will a revolution happen in life.
If you were to know that this very evening you will die, do you think the day’s conduct would remain what it is when you do not know?
Would you go to your shop in the same way?
Would you exploit customers in the same manner?
Would you behave as you did yesterday?
Would your grip on money remain as tight as it was a moment ago?
Would desire arise in the mind, would lust be awakened?
Would beautiful women attract you?
Would a passing car bewitch you?
Would you feel envy seeing someone’s mansion?
No—everything would change.

If it became certain that death will come this very evening, the entire meaning of your life, its whole purpose, its entire style and manner would change.
The slightest remembrance of death will not allow you to remain what you are.

And what you are, is utterly wrong.
For from your being, nothing ripens but suffering.
Fruits do come, certainly—only the fruits of sorrow.
Fruits certainly appear, but not in accord with your hopes, nor according to your dreams.
They ripen against your hopes, exactly opposite to your dreams.

At the end of life only ashes remain in your hands.
And a melancholy, a deep anguish, that one more opportunity has been lost.
That is why people die in such sadness and pain.
Otherwise, if life had been fulfilled, if its blessedness had been known, if life had become a song—which Kabir calls sumiran, a remembrance, a continuous recollection of who I am—then death would become a festival.
For death is life’s completeness.
It is the extraction, the essence of life.
Then death will not be death; it will be entry into the Great Life.

One who lives in knowing, whose life is luminous, his death becomes Samadhi.
One who lives unknowingly, his life is also like death.
One who lives with awareness, he never really dies.
One who lives in unconsciousness, he never truly lives.
His life is only a deception.

Naturally, those among whom you were born are like this—dead.
And you are walking behind them.

Kabir says:
Peechhe laga jai tha, lok ved ke saath.

I was going on behind others.
Wherever people were heading, there I went too.
I was following them—without thinking that they are just as blind as I am.
Without considering what the end of this whole crowd is going to be, man goes along with the crowd.
There are very deep reasons; they need to be understood.

Society is the enemy of the individual.
Society wants you like sheep, not as persons.
Because with the person begins the voice of rebellion.
With the person begins awareness.
And as soon as the first ray of awareness descends the person begins to search for his own path.
Then he does not walk behind the crowd.
No matter how beautiful the royal road is, how clean and neat, how free of thorns—still he does not walk behind the backs of the many.
He begins to cut his own way.
As soon as awareness arises you are severed from society.
For the first time you are yourself.
And in being oneself there is revolt, rebellion, revolution.
Therefore no society tolerates the individual.

From the first moment of birth to the last hour of death, society tries to destroy the person, to suppress him.
It breaks you in every possible way.
Lest somewhere you become a being of Atman; for if you become one who knows the Atman, society will not be able to control you.

Up to now no society has been able to control a person rooted in the Atman.
It can keep only the dead under control.
A living person is fire.
He cannot be bound in the hand.
No fetters can hold him.
You can throw a living person into prison, but you cannot make him a prisoner.
You can put chains on him, but you cannot take away his freedom.
His freedom is inner.
It is the freedom of awareness.

Hence all societies, without exception—capitalist or socialist or communist—are enemies of the person.
And no revolution that happens within society is a real revolution; it is a deception.
Whether in France, or Russia, or China, all such revolutions are deceptions.
For revolution does nothing essential; it only replaces one social structure with another.
One slavery is replaced by another.
And naturally, the second slavery often proves stronger than the first—because it is new.

The old slavery becomes worn and torn.
It has holes through which one can slip out.
Its walls have crumbled a little; its doors are weak; the guards have become lax; the jailer is assured that everything is fine—he goes to sleep.

A new slavery is always stronger than the old.
Because the prisons are freshly built; the doors are sturdy.
And the new order knows that just as we broke the old order, another revolt could break this one.
So the new order is more efficient than the old.

In the Czar’s time, Russia had more freedom than under Stalin.
And with Chiang Kai-shek China had more liberty than under Mao.
The noose tightens.
For the so-called revolution is a device to prevent the real revolution.

There is only one real revolution: that the individual becomes free of society.

Freedom does not mean that because society has the rule, “Do not walk in the middle of the road,” you deliberately walk in the middle.
That would be foolishness, not freedom.
Freedom is not licentiousness.
License is only the reverse face of slavery.
Freedom is neither license nor bondage.
It is a supreme awakening between the two.

Such a person is not an enemy of society.
But neither is he society’s shadow.
As far as society’s secondary arrangements are concerned, he always agrees—because they have no ultimate value.

On the road in India the rule is: keep left; in America: keep right.
What difference does it make—left or right?
One thing is certain: all must keep to the same side so that the road functions.
Left will do, right will do.
But if some go left and others go right, the road won’t work—there will be obstacles.
These are secondary rules.
They are not eternal laws, nor moral truths, nor do they bear God’s signature.
They are conveniences of society.

A free person does not obstruct society’s convenience; he cooperates.
But he is not ready to lose his soul for society’s convenience.
Where it is a matter of left or right, he agrees completely.
But where society insists, “Surrender your soul,” there he refuses.

And yet society suffers no hindrance from this.
Because the soul is not traffic on the road.
There you are utterly alone; there is no “other.”
So no social regulation is required there.
But society feels threatened.
The threat is this: a person of Atman cannot be suppressed.
He cannot be forced to bend.

And a person of Atman is contagious—this is an even greater danger.
For as soon as someone becomes a person of Atman, the air around him begins to vibrate with personhood, with divinity.
Others also begin to become persons of Atman.
And if many people leave the highway to find their own paths and foot-trails, the power of the highway breaks.
Society becomes weak.
Because a person of Atman is fundamentally anarchic—not licentious, but he loves no governance.

So Kabir says that when now I have become Hari himself, before whom shall I bow?
A person of Atman one day finds: I am the Paramatman.
Now how to bow, where to bow, why bow?

Not because he is egoistic; no—one becomes a person of Atman only when the ego has dissolved.
But now there is no one left before whom to bow; not even the one who bows remains; not even the head remains—everything is lost.
Thus neither the state likes a person of Atman, nor do your so-called religions like him—for he will leave temple and mosque.

Where to bang my head?
What will come of knocking the head before man-made idols?
They are nets of slavery that society has spread everywhere.
The prison is society’s; what you call temple is also society’s prison.
The one you call policeman is society’s servant; the one you call priest is as much society’s servant.
Both are police.
One keeps control over your body; the other keeps control over your soul—lest you escape.

And as I said, from the very first moment of birth society’s interference begins—to kill you.
The child is not yet born and society is already present.
As soon as the child is born, the latest scientific research says that across the world midwives, doctors, nurses cut the umbilical cord instantly.
The latest findings say: to cut the cord instantly is to make him weak for life—forever.
He will never become truly strong; his energy will always flow feebly.

The reason is this: in the mother’s womb the child does not breathe for himself.
Through the umbilical cord connected to the navel, the mother breathes for him.
On the mother’s breath the child lives; his heart beats, but he does not breathe himself.
Breath—oxygen, air, prana—goes in through the navel.
That is the arrangement in the womb, for he lives as an organ of the mother.

As soon as the child comes out of the womb, he cannot breathe at once.
The new mechanism will take a little time to start.
Within, a great transformation has to occur.
Till now he breathed through the navel; now he will breathe through the nose.
A new arrangement begins.
It takes five to seven minutes.
But we cut the cord instantly, while the child is still breathing through the mother via the cord.
In five to seven minutes the transformation will happen: the child will start breathing, his heart will begin to throb—then cut the cord.
Because now he has begun to receive his own energy.
Not much time is needed, only a few minutes—but society has no patience.

In the biggest hospitals, under the most skilled doctors, the same thing happens that the untrained village midwife does.
Only the style of cutting has changed.
The midwife cuts clumsily, without precise instruments.
The doctor cuts with great skill, with full equipment.
But both do the same act.

The moment you cut the cord the infant’s whole life-system trembles and panics.
That is why the child cries, screams.
He is forced into a new breathing system in fear and haste.
And the first breath taken in panic, in fear, in trembling—fear will enter life through it forever.
Because breath is life.
Fear has been associated with the very first breath; now throughout life this man will be afraid.

One could wait five minutes.
After five minutes the vibration in the cord stops by itself.
For five minutes the pulse continues, breath continues.
In those minutes the cord naturally closes; by nature its pulsation ceases; its warmth and energy are gone—the mechanism has changed.

Now you can cut it.
Now you are cutting a dead thing.
Five minutes earlier you cut the living.
You gave the child the first shock, and the infant is very tender, supremely delicate.
For nine months he has known no pain, no suffering; he was coming out straight from heaven, from Eden’s garden—and you gave him his first jolt.
Psychologists say, it is this very shock that has made the whole world weak.

The doctor is in a hurry.
He may say, “Twenty-five more deliveries are due today.”
There is rush, impatience; his own mind is tense.
And he does not know what he is doing.
By now it has become part of the unconscious: child is born, cut the cord.
From the first hour of birth fear is implanted.
Now anyone can frighten you.
Anything can scare you.
The policeman’s baton will frighten you; the priest’s voice—“You’ll go to hell”—will frighten you.
Any temptation will seduce you, because temptation is just fear’s other face.

And this social arrangement continues till the very last breath.
Even if you wish to live you are not free; there is interference.
Even if you wish to die there is interference.
You do not have the freedom to die.

In Europe and America, where medicine has developed greatly, millions lie in hospitals who wish to die.
They petition governments: we want to die.
Some have reached near a hundred.
Life has been lived; what was to be known has been known; what was to be wandered has been wandered; there is nothing left to see, nothing to know; no zest remains in living.

But doctors are not permitted to assist anyone to die.
Not only that, they are ordered to keep a man alive as long as possible.
So people hang in hospitals—legs tied, hands tied, oxygen tubes attached; glucose drips; neither real awareness remains, nor anything like life.
They want to die, because now it is only pain.
But no law in the world grants permission to die.
Even the freedom to die is not given.

So in the West a new movement has begun: the movement for the freedom of self-death—euthanasia.
That those who wish to die, no one has the right to stop them; no one should.
Life is mine; if I wish to die… But there is no permission.

If you are caught trying to kill yourself, the government will kill you.
But you are not free.
It is amusing: if I go and jump from a mountain and am caught, the state will hang me because I attempted a crime.
I was doing the same act, but it contained freedom.
You are not allowed that.
If the government kills you, it is right; if you do it, it is wrong.

Because if you are given the freedom to die, soon you will also ask for the freedom to live.
The two are conjoined.
Both freedoms cannot be granted to you.

The moment the child is born society’s entire effort is that he imitates society, follows it, walks behind it.
Always look ahead to see if there is a back to follow; if no back is visible, stop—danger; the path is wrong.
So long as backs are visible ahead, the way must be right.

These words of Kabir are very unique.
Kabir says:
Peechhe laga jai tha, lok ved ke saath.

Lok means the people; ved means scripture.
I was going behind both.
I could see only backs.
Behind were the pushes; in front were backs.
A crowd is moving, a big crowd—four billion on earth.
An immense, terrifying current is moving.
Who will care for your small ripple?
Huge waves are rising and racing ahead—and you, too, are running behind.
You think that as long as backs are visible, all is well.

I have heard: one night Mulla Nasruddin, more drunk than usual, left the tavern.
He could hardly see where to go.
With great difficulty the tavern boys got him to his car.
After half an hour’s struggle he somehow managed to get the key into the lock.
Then, by old habit, even started the car.
But the question arose: go where?
Where is home?
Which town is this?
Profound philosophical questions arose.
There was only one way out: follow somebody.
Where to go—who knows?
From where are we coming—who knows?
Who am I—who knows?
Where is my home—who knows?
This is man’s whole anxiety.
The simple device is: follow somebody.

He got behind a car.
Happy—now all is well.
We are going somewhere.
And not slowly—very fast.
He was delighted.
What else is needed?
Speed is needed.
We will certainly reach—because we are going so fast.

And what had to happen, happened.
In the end he crashed into the car.
He shouted: “What’s the matter?
Why didn’t you signal you were stopping?”
The man ahead stuck his head out and said, “Do I need to signal when I’m parking in my own garage?”

Peechhe laga jai tha, lok ved ke saath.

Such is your pace.
You follow someone not because the one you follow knows, but only because you do not know where to go.
And when you do not know, how will you arrive by following anyone?
Consider too that the one ahead is also following someone else.

You obey your father.
Your father obeyed his father.
His father obeyed his father.
Travel backwards a little—you will find everybody following someone.
And who ever arrives anywhere?

Only a few in this world ever arrive.
They are those who follow no one.
A Buddha arrives because he does not follow people.
Better not to go at all, better to sit down.
Better to decide clearly whether there is even a need to go.
Let the goal be clear—then it is a short journey to the destination.

When the destination itself is unknown, when even your own address is unknown—who am I?—when it is not clear whether to go or not to go, where to go, then however long you walk following someone, your journey will prove like the ox around the oil-press—walking much, arriving nowhere.
You will walk much, for you can go on circling as long as you like.
You will be tired every evening, and in the morning you will again join lok and ved.

Lok—the living crowd present; ved—the crowd that has gone, the dead.
Two crowds have encircled you.
The living have seized you, and those who are dead also have their hands on your neck.
Ved means: those who are no more—their words are harassing you; you clutch them to your chest.
“Surely they must have known, surely they must have realized.”

But how can you see a scene with someone else’s eyes?
And the food another has eaten cannot satisfy your hunger.
And however much one may talk of water, has anyone’s thirst ever been quenched by that?
Someone might even write for you the exact formula for water—H2O; you could wander all your life carrying that paper, yet your throat will not be moistened by it.
Even if you dissolve the formula in water and drink it, your thirst will not be quenched.
H2O is ved.
Those who knew wrote sutras.
But no sutra can contain their knowing; no word can reveal Truth.

This is the difference between the Satguru and the ved.
The ved are the words of the realized ones, but the realized one is gone.
Only empty words remain—as if the snake has gone and its sloughed skin lies there.
As if the Buddha has gone and his footprints remain on the sand—and you are resting your head on those footprints.

One must be cautious of the living crowd—and cautious also of the crowd that is no more.
In fact, the grip of those who are no more is deeper, for you cannot even see them; even if you want to escape, where will you go?
They are not outside, they are within you.

A Hindu, as soon as he is born, is put into the worship of the ved.
A Muslim from birth begins reciting the Quran.
A Jain memorizes Mahavira from childhood.

These lines drawn on the earth become lines on your soul.
Because of them you can never become empty, never become shunya; because of them you cannot attain meditation.
And the irony is that all these scriptures talk about meditation, about shunya.
You too begin to talk about shunya and meditation.
But it remains talk—and out of talk comes only more talk.
You yourself remain blank.

Your life will be enriched only when your ved is born within you—not borrowed.
That ved we call the real ved, which will be born out of your meditation.
Surely, the day your own ved is born, if you read the ancient ved you will understand: right.
You will become a witness.

Understand this carefully—it is delicate.
From the ved you will not get knowledge.
But if knowledge arises in your own meditation, you will bear witness to the ved: they are right.
You too have known the same.
You have known what the rishis declared.
But by memorizing what the rishis said, no one ever attains knowledge.
Attaining knowledge, the conviction comes that what the rishis said is right.
Then all scriptures are true.

And see the difference.
If you memorize the ved, then the Quran will remain wrong—it cannot be right for you know nothing of Truth; you only know words.
The ved uses one set of words, the Quran another; there will be no agreement in words.
The Bible uses a different vocabulary, the Talmud yet another—there will be no concord.
You will think the ved is right and all else is wrong.
Mahavira right—then Krishna wrong.
Krishna right—then Buddha wrong.

For you it is impossible that all are right.
Hence you remain bound by scriptures.
The day your own ved is born—your own Quran awakens within—you will find your own song of life arising: your Gita will be born; that is the Bhagavadgita.
Only when your God starts singing within is it Bhagavadgita.
Then you will suddenly see: not only the ved are right, the Quran too is utterly right; the Bible, the Talmud—all are right together.

Truth is so vast it can contain all words.
So vast that all scriptures unite in it, become one in it.
Truth is like an ocean—into it all rivers flow.
Not only the Ganga flows there; the Sindhu too flows there.
Not only the Ganga reaches the ocean; the Godavari also reaches it.
Leave aside great rivers; even small nameless streams reach there—the nameless also arrive.
All waters reach the source from where they came; all attain their original form—sooner or later.
One who knows Truth knows the truth of all scriptures.

Kabir says:
Peechhe laga jai tha, lok ved ke saath.

I was going behind the visible people; and behind the invisible crowd of the past—their scriptures, concepts, words, beliefs—I was stuffed with them; I was going behind them too.

Aage then Sadguru mila, deepak diya haath.

This is a very subtle utterance.
Kabir says: until now I was going behind people’s backs.
A Master is not met like that.
The Master meets from the front.
Face-to-face he meets.

Whenever the Master meets, he meets face-to-face.
And no Satguru makes you walk behind him.
If someone makes you walk behind, know he is not a Satguru; he is again lok and ved.
A Satguru meets from the front.
There is a famous Sufi story.

A Sufi fakir went on pilgrimage to the Hajj.
He was old; the disciples thought it good to bring a donkey for him to ride.
In those lands people travel by donkey.
They brought a donkey.
To their amazement, when the Master sat on it, he sat facing backward—his back to the donkey’s head, his face toward the tail.
The disciples could say nothing—what to say?
The Master was revered; whatever he did was always right—there must be a secret.
But it looked very odd.

They set out.
As they entered the village people began to laugh; a crowd gathered; street urchins threw stones and pebbles; people poured out of their houses; quite a scene.
At last the disciples felt very uneasy.
They too walked with their heads down: the Master on a donkey, seated backwards.
Our disgrace is happening too.
They jeered at the disciples: “Whom are you following?
Have you gone mad?
Is this a pilgrimage?”
They had seen many pilgrimages—but why is your Master sitting backwards?

Finally the disciples said to the Master: “Please reveal—there must be a secret, but we are in great difficulty.”

The Master said: “If I sit facing forward, my back will be toward you—and never in the world has a Master’s back been toward his disciples.
If you walk behind me while I sit facing forward, my back will be toward you—and that can perhaps be tolerated.
I considered all options: if you walk ahead and I sit facing forward, then your back will be toward me; if even the Master’s back toward disciples is not pardonable, then the disciples’ back toward the Master would be an unpardonable sin.
So there is one simple device: that I sit backward and you walk behind me—we remain face-to-face.”

The story is delightful, full of mystery.

Kabir says: Aage then Sadguru mila.
The Master always meets from the front.
He will look into your eyes.
He will speak heart to heart.
He will be in front of you; he will bring you in front of him.
This meeting is direct, face-to-face—a saksatkar, a seeing.

The Master does not make anyone imitate.
He does not say, “Become like me.”
You cannot be.
In trying to become someone else you will be lost.
No one can be like anyone else.
God never creates two persons alike.
His creativity is infinite; every day he finds new ways.
Just as two men’s fingerprints are never the same, so too their souls are not the same.

Personhood—an original, unique personhood—is each one’s treasure.

You are simply as you are.
No one like you has ever been, is, or will be.
God does not believe in repetition.
Repetition is done by those whose creative capacity is exhausted.
God is vast—he has not run dry that he must make another Buddha, another Rama, and hand him a bow again.
That would be only if God had run out—if no new idea came to his mind, if his genius were empty; then he would begin to ruminate, to repeat the old.
But that day God would be dead.
His being alive means: his creativity is alive.

I have heard: a friend of Picasso purchased a painting.
Picasso’s paintings sold for lakhs.
He bought it for about five lakhs—an expensive painting.
Before buying he wanted to make sure it was authentic—Picasso’s original—not a copy, not by someone else.
He had no doubt, because he remembered clearly visiting Picasso when this painting was being made; he had seen Picasso painting it.
But memory can deceive; perhaps someone else copied it perfectly.
So he went to ask Picasso.

He said: “I am buying this painting; it is a matter of five lakhs.
Shall I buy it?
Is it authentic—made by you?
It is not a copy?”
Picasso looked and said, “No, it is not authentic; do not get entangled.”
The friend was amazed: “You astonish me—because I saw you paint it.”
Picasso said, “Although I painted it, it is not authentic.”
The friend was even more puzzled: “Then what does authentic mean?”
Picasso said, “Authentic means original.
This is a copy of one of my old paintings—even though I made it; so in one sense it is authentic—that I made it—but it is not new.
Therefore I do not want to sign it.”

Even a painting by Picasso may not be original, because Picasso is limited, human—he cannot create a new painting every day.
Whether Picasso repeats himself or someone else repeats him, what difference does it make?
Repetition is repetition.

God is alive because he has not run out—he has not made another Rama, another Krishna, another Buddha, another Mahavira; he has made nothing twice.
He creates new each day.
In this ever-new, ever-ancient creation of life, you are not born to be like anyone else.
Do not go on that path, even by mistake.
You are born to be yourself.

The Master does not make you imitate him.
He stands by you, supports you, so that you become yourself.
This is the sign of the Satguru versus the false master.

Satguru means: he will support you to be you; to become that for which you were born; to fulfill your destiny.
He will not mold you; he will not impose upon you.
He will cooperate in the blossoming of what is hidden within you.
He will stand by you in every way—but he will not impose anything on you.
And the day you blossom in your own genius—unique—that day he rejoices.
If you become a copy, a carbon copy, no one is as sad as a Satguru—he missed; you again did foolishness; you again followed lok and ved.

Aage then Sadguru mila…
The Master meets always from the front.
…deepak diya haath.
And the Master gave a lamp.
This too is very subtle.

Suppose a blind man comes to me and says, “Explain to me the map of the town.
I am blind—explain the lanes, the paths, the way to the ashram so that I do not wander or forget.”
Explain as much as you like; the blind man may memorize slowly; he may grope his way and arrive; with practice he may not even need to grope or ask; he may walk straight to the ashram—and yet he remains blind.
And in another city the map will not help; if he is dropped at another place even in this city, he will not reach the ashram—his coming is mechanical.

Is it right to give the blind man a map—or is it right to treat his eyes?
If his eyes are healed no map is needed.
Drop him anywhere, he will come.
In another city too his eyes will serve.
And the city of life changes every day, every moment.
Morning it is one thing, evening another.
You are not in one place.
The stream of life keeps changing.
You cannot step into the same river twice.
Only eyes can be of use in life.

The false master gives you doctrines; the Satguru gives you a lamp.
The Satguru gives you light so that wherever you are, you can see.
The false master gives you principles—like the blind man’s stick; so you can grope and find your way.
But what comparison is there between a stick and eyes?

From scripture you receive a stick, so you can grope a little and find the path.
In trouble you consult the scripture for what to do.
The Satguru gives you eyes, a lamp within.
He awakens you—gives awakening, gives discrimination, gives awareness; he does not give doctrines.
Because awareness needs no doctrine.
If you ask me what to do and what not to do, I will tell you nothing—because any “do” and “don’t” becomes dead.
If I say, “Do this,” tomorrow the situation will change, and you will be in difficulty.
If I say, “Don’t do this,” the situation will change.

Suppose I say, “Speak the truth.”
I have given you a ved.
Is there any doctrine greater than truth?
I have said, “Speak the truth.”
But you do not see the truth—your inner light has not awakened; you will speak truth in the wrong place; where it should not be spoken you will speak it, and where it should be spoken you will not.
You will use even truth in the way that unconsciousness uses it.
I gave you a stick to grope your way; you may crack someone’s skull with it—it is the same stick.

You will speak truth where it becomes fatal for someone, and you will say: “The doctrine supports me.”
If someone’s life can be saved by your telling a small lie, a man of awareness will lie—and save the life.
You will tell the truth—and be responsible for his murder.

It is not lie and truth that are valuable—awareness is valuable.
What to do and what not to do is not valuable—what to be is valuable.
The quality of your consciousness—that is the value.
If that consciousness is right, then even your lie will be more precious than someone else’s truth.
If your consciousness is dark, unconscious, dead, asleep, blind, then even your truth will be worse than a lie.

It is not a question of lie or truth, but of your awakening.
Life is complex.
What is true today becomes false tomorrow.
What was right a moment ago may not be relevant a moment later.
Everything is changing.
Life is not a straight road—it is a great puzzle.
Only if you are aware will you come out of the puzzle; if you are unconscious, however many doctrines you have, they will become chains on your feet—not wings for your life.

Hence Kabir says: deepak diya haath.
He did not tell me what to do or not to do.
He did not say, “Chant this; do this tapas.”
He did not say, “Perform this ritual, this yajna; go to the temple, go to the mosque.”
He did not say, “Take vows and fasts.”
He simply put a lamp in my hand.
He gave me only the lamp of meditation—the light of Samadhi.

And the Master met from the front.
Only face-to-face can a lamp be given.
When eye meets eye, when life meets life, when an unlit lamp comes close to a lit lamp—so close, face-to-face—that the flame can leap across and the unlit lamp bursts into flame.

Aage then Sadguru mila, deepak diya haath.
Bhagati bhajan Harinam hai, dooja dukh apaar.

In that light it was seen—this the Master did not say—that devotion, bhajan, Harinam is the way; he only gave the light.
He shook me and broke my sleep.
He awakened me: “Morning has come—how long will you sleep?
Arise.”
He sprinkled a little water in my eyes.
Or brought a cup of tea and made me sip: “Wake up, morning has come; you have slept enough—lifetimes.”
“Open your eyes—the sun has risen.”

In those open eyes it was seen:
Devotion—bhagati; bhajan—Harinam; and all else is suffering.

Understand: bhakti is the purest form of love.
Love has three tiers.

The first—which ninety-nine out of a hundred know—is kama: lust.
Its meaning: to take from the other, not to give.
Desire takes, does not give.
It demands, it does not respond.
It is exploitation.
If it has to pretend to give, it does so; if it must display giving, it does, because otherwise it will not get.
So your love is pretence.
In truth you do not want to give; you want to take.

People come to me and say, “Nobody loves me.”
I ask them, “That is not the question; the question is: do you love anyone?”
They have never thought of it.
They say, “We never considered this.”
You take it for granted that you love; the difficulty is that the other does not love you.
Wives come to me: husbands do not love.
Husbands come: wives do not love.

Lust asks; it does not want to give.
It is miserly.
It accumulates and does not share.
Exploitation.

And when two persons are both lustful, trouble is inevitable.
Both are beggars, both asking; neither has the courage to give.
Both try to deceive that, “I am giving,” but how long will the deception last?
Therefore the life of those joined by lust becomes inevitably miserable.
There cannot be happiness; the possibility simply is not there.

The energy called love has three forms.
First: kama—where you ask and are a beggar.
Even when you give a little, it is like putting a bit of dough on the hook—to catch the fish.
It is not to fill the fish’s belly.
It is not to feed the fish, but without dough the hook won’t pierce; the fish will come for the dough and get caught in the hook.
If you give, you give only so much that the dough is there and the other is trapped in your net.
But the fun is, the other too is a fisherman; he too has dough on his hook.
And when both hooks are caught in both mouths, you call it marriage—both have deceived each other.

Hence anger persists lifelong—lifelong the pain that the other deceived me; but the same pain is the other’s.
How can flowers of joy bloom from such anger?
Impossible.
You sow neem and expect mangoes—this will not be.

The second form is prema, love: to give as much as you take.
A straight, clean exchange.
Lust is exploitation; love is not.
It gives as it receives.
The account is clear.
Therefore lovers do not attain ecstasy, but they do attain peace.
The lustful attain no peace—only restlessness, anxiety, torment.
Lovers may not know bliss, but they do know peace.
There is balance in life—what is given is received; what is received is given; accounts are squared.

Between lovers there is no quarrel; there is a deep friendship.
No residues remain.
No anger, because what was given was obtained.
No remorse.
Nothing to take, nothing to give—the account is clean.
So lovers are clean and clear.

This often happens between friends; that is why friendship is calm.
Between husband and wife it happens rarely, because lust is stronger there.
But if two lovers are husband and wife, they become friends; the relationship of husband-wife dissolves; a friendship arises where there is no sorrow, no regret, no thought that someone has deceived someone.

The third form is bhakti—devotion—in which only the devotee gives.
He does not even speak of receiving.
Bhakti is exactly the opposite of kama; between kama and bhakti lies love.
The lustful is miserable; the devotee is blissful; lovers are peaceful.

Understand this well.
Bhakti is the opposite pole of kama.
There the devotee gives—gives all.
He holds nothing back.
This is what we call surrender.
He does not even keep the giver—he gives him too.

And he asks for nothing—not even Vaikuntha, not heaven.
If a desire arises, bhakti instantly falls; it becomes kama.
If he gives only as much as God gives, it is not bhakti, but love.
Bhakti is only when the devotee pours himself out, wholly.

It is not that the devotee does not receive; he receives more than anyone else—only he receives.
But he has no demand—not even a hidden one.
He simply pours himself out.
He gives himself completely.
And as a consequence, the whole of God pours into him—but that is the consequence, not the desire.
He never longed for it.

Therefore the devotee always says, “It is by God’s compassion I received—by grace.
I never asked; he gave.
I was unworthy, yet he filled me; he completed my vessel.
I was not qualified; what was my worth?
He accepted me—that was enough; had he refused, where could I appeal?
I had no claim.”
The devotee gives himself—totally, completely.
And to the extent he gives himself, to that extent the whole of the Divine showers upon him.
He attains much—he attains the infinite—all that is worth attaining in this existence: all that is beautiful, true, auspicious—is his.
He becomes the summit of existence.

Bhagati bhajan Harinam hai…
And bhajan is the expression of the devotee’s grace—his overflowing.
Bhajan does not mean endlessly muttering “Ram Ram.”
You can do Ram Ram out of desire—you do.
Then you are trying to make with God the same relationship of kama.
You are asking.
You keep account: “I have taken God’s Name a million times.”

I stayed in a house.
The owner must have been a bit mad—he had filled the whole house with copybooks, writing “Ram Ram, Ram Ram.”
For years he had been writing.
He kept account of how many crores of Names he had written.
Before God he will stand with pride: “What are your intentions now?
I have written so many crores—what is the fruit?”
In his eyes the demand for fruit is evident.
Otherwise these copybooks could be given to children—so many school children lack copybooks.
When I suggested, he was offended: “Are you an atheist?
I am writing the Name of Ram.”

No—the repetition of Ram Ram has no meaning.
Bhajan is a deep process.
Kabir will explain ahead, then you will understand.

Aur na koi sun sake, kai saai ke chit.

If another can hear it, it is not bhajan.
What kind of bhajan is that which others can hear?
Then you are doing it to be heard by others.
Either your innermost knows, or the Divine knows; it is between the two.
A third cannot hear—cannot.
It is so subtle—it is a state of feeling.
Bhajan is a feeling—anubhava—not an arrangement of words and sounds.
Bhajan is grace.
You are so brimming that even your walking has a dance in it, a fragrance, a glow.
Full, you walk.

Have you seen someone walking who has fallen in love?
Yesterday he walked the same road to the same office with the same legs—but now something has changed.
There is some new energy in the feet, some dance has entered.
No ankle-bells tied, yet they tinkle within.
He walks—he seems to fly; the pull of the earth does not touch him.
He has found something—a woman smiled a little.
Yesterday he too passed this way, but then you would have seen on his head a pile of files; on his chest the whole office—he used to drag himself.
Today there is a humming; even if the lips are not moving, you can see the hum on his face.
He looks bathed.
Every day he bathed, yet dust seemed stuck on him.
Today the hair is combed; the clothes are neat.
Today something has happened—his heart is a little full; a flash of love has come.

What then to say of the devotee, who has had a glimpse of the Divine—who has surrendered and in that surrender has been filled by the Divine—who has effaced himself and attained God?
His rising, his sitting, his walking, his speaking and not speaking, his sleeping and waking—everything is bhajan.
Bhajan is an exultation of being.
Seeing him, you can say: he has attained.
His life is a day-and-night festival.
You will not find doubt in his eyes, nor the shadow of melancholy, sorrow, anxiety.
You will not see on his face the burden of the past, its memories; nor the web of future fantasies.
No shadow of past, no shadow of future—this moment is enough.
Aptakama—fulfilled.
Everything attained—much more than desired; what was sought for lifetimes has been given unasked.
He had always tried to save himself—and nothing was gained.
Today he drowned himself—and everything came into his hands.

Bhajan is a state of feeling.

Aur na koi sun sake, kai saai ke chit.

Only the Divine will recognize it—or the devotee’s heart that hums and dances.
This thrill, this heartbeat, is not just blood and breath in the lungs; deep in the heart a new state has taken birth.

Bhagati bhajan Harinam hai, dooja dukh apaar.

Now the devotee knows: all else is suffering.
Losing oneself is bliss; saving oneself is sorrow.
Kama—all forms of desire, whether for wealth, body, fame, position—is suffering.
Akam—desireless—is joy.

And when will you become desireless?
So long as you are, you cannot be desireless.
You are an empty bowl—how can you be without desire?
You are a beggar—how can you be desireless?
Surrender yourself at the feet of the Emperor.
The moment you surrender, you become desireless—and day and night bhajan begins to resound in your life.

Kabir has said, “I do not go to circumambulate the temple—utthun baithun so parikrama: my rising and sitting are my circumambulation.”
I do not go anywhere else now—whatever I do is his worship and adoration.
I am not in between; he breathes through me; he hungers; he thirsts; drinking water he is satisfied.
I am not in the middle.
Such is the state of bhajan.

Mansa vacha karmana, Kabir sumarin saar.

Therefore Kabir says: with mind, with speech, with action—with all states of life—let his remembrance happen; in every moment let only he be remembered.
If hunger comes, it comes to him—it is remembrance.
Let thirst come to him.
Drink water—let his satisfaction be.

The entire essence of life comes into a single word: sumiran—remembrance.
But do not think remembrance means sitting and repeating “Ram Ram.”
You can repeat “Ram Ram” endlessly.
Kabir says: “The tongue chants Ram, but the mind roams in all four directions.”
The tongue, mechanical, goes on; what value has that?
If someone is liberated by it, it will be the tongue—not you.
You have never remembered.
Remembrance should be so deep that the very life of your life is immersed in it.
The tongue is too outward, a part of the body—no, the tongue will not do.

Will it do if remembrance is in the mind?
The mind is not very deep either.
And the very mind with which you remember is the mind with which you have desired, lusted, coveted wealth, collected rubbish.
In that unclean vessel will you place the nectar of the Divine?
In that corrupt mind in which until now you have stored poison, will you now expect the ambrosia?
Do not expect nectar in a poisoned cup.

No—mind will not do.
You will have to go deeper—to where your virgin self is.
For bhajan is a virgin happening—pure, untouched by any desire; where neither greed nor anger ever arose; where your being is, in the innermost sanctum; in the deepest temple within you; where you are as you were before birth, as you will be after death—there bhajan rises, there feeling arises.

So bhajan will not be caught in words nor in acts.

Jesus said: “Let not your right hand know what your left hand does.”
Such a deep occurrence—if it were on the surface, the left hand would see the right.
Jesus said: “If the husband gives, the wife should not know.”
She lives with you twenty-four hours—she should not know; it should not be known.

But you make such a noise that not only the wife, even the neighbors know.
You put up loudspeakers.
You are expanding religion throughout the neighborhood!
And no one can object, for who can object to religion?
Even at midnight you can start chanting Hare Ram on loudspeakers; no one can say anything—freedom of religion!
You are ruining people’s sleep; you are making them enemies of religion.
They are cursing you and your Hare Ram, but they cannot do anything because it is a religious act.
And you, “out of compassion,” are bearing the expense of loudspeakers.

No—the desire is that others know you are no ordinary man, a great bhakta, a great practitioner.
You are advertising yourself.
Otherwise even your own hand should not come to know; in truth, when the feeling is very deep even your mind should not know what is happening.

Yet: Mansa vacha karmana, Kabir sumarin saar.
In your mind, in your speech, in your action, everywhere his imprint will begin to appear.
One with eyes will see it.
The blind will not—but one with eyes will see that your action is now soaked in another rasa, dyed in another color; a new rainbow has arisen in your words; from your being a sweetness spreads, a delicate fragrance arises around you.
But only one who has the taste will recognize it; in a world of the blind, perhaps no one will—and there is no need that they should.

Mera man sumare Ram ku, mera man Ram hi aahi.
Ab man Ram hi bhai rahya, sis navaven kaahi.

Remembering, remembering, I became Ram himself.
Even the rememberer is no more.
Distance has dissolved; duality has ended.
Now only he is.
…Before whom shall I bow my head?
To which temple shall I go to bang it?
Which scripture shall I read?

From the life of the supreme devotee, what you call religion vanishes—just as dew disappears with the rising sun; as dust falls from the body after a bath.
Therefore you will not be able to recognize the supremely religious—he will look almost irreligious to you, because your definition of religion is ritual: go daily to the temple, perform worship, ring bells, arrange a Satyanarayan katha, make noise in the neighborhood, arrange Ram Lila or Ras Lila.
Your definition is ritual.
The truly religious will seem almost atheistic.

It is no wonder Hindus called Mahavira an atheist, called Buddha an atheist.
It is natural, because both broke all ritual.
Buddha did not even, by mistake, take God’s Name once—what is there to name?

The great Western historian H. G. Wells wrote of Gautam Buddha: “There has never been such a god-like man—and so godless.”
This is the definition of the religious man.
He is god-like—and without God.

What you call religion is hypocrisy.
It is not religion; it is deception.
There will be no deception in the life of the truly religious, hence by your definitions he will seem irreligious.

The Jews killed Jesus because he seemed irreligious.
What was his irreligion?
The greatest irreligion was that people saw Jesus sometimes stay in the houses of drunkards, in the homes of prostitutes.
The village priests caught him: “We have never seen such signs of a religious man—the untouchables whom one should not even look at—prostitutes and drunkards and thieves—you have been seen staying in their houses too.
What kind of religious man are you?”

Jesus said, “If the Divine can live in the heart of a prostitute, why can I not stay in her house?
And if the Divine has not abandoned the thief, who am I to abandon him?”

This is a religious man—but he falls outside your rituals.
Your religious man will not even look at a thief; he organizes hell for thieves and prostitutes.
Among the Jews the custom was: God worked six days and rested on the seventh; therefore on the seventh day no one should work.
They closed all work.

On the seventh day Jesus came near the temple.
A blind man came and pleaded, “I have heard if you touch me my eyes will be healed.”
Jesus touched him and his eyes were healed.
The priests said, “This is an irreligious act.”

Think—giving eyes to a blind man becomes irreligious, because scripture says: on the seventh day all acts must cease.

The priests asked: “You have sinned; on the seventh day all work must stop.”

Jesus asked, “Do you eat on the seventh day or not?
Do you blink or not?
Do you breathe or not?
And if God rested on the seventh day—rest is also something to be done; it too is an act.
And if by the breaking of your rule a man’s eyes are opened, is the rule for man—or man for the rule?
I ask you: is it right that this blind man should see—or right that I, calling myself religious, refuse to do anything on the seventh day?
What guarantee is there that I will live tomorrow—and that he will live tomorrow?
Do you guarantee that tomorrow both of us will be here—my healing and his getting healed?”

No—the man of religion does not cling to rules.
He lives by awareness.
He is not a blind man groping with a stick; he has light.

Ab man Ram hi bhai rahya, sis navaven kaahi.

Sab rag tant rabab tan, virah bajave nitt.
Aur na koi sun sake, kai saai ke chit.

All the veins of the body have become strings of a veena.
Kabir says: the whole body has become a veena and a single song resounds day and night—virah, the song of Divine longing.

And no one else can hear it—only the Beloved, only the Lord’s heart.

Prayer is the relationship between you and your God.
Society has nothing to do with it.
Worship is an utterly intimate relationship between you and the Divine.

When you are in love with someone you seek privacy.
You do not want to enact the rasa of love in the marketplace.
You close the doors; you even blow out the light so that privacy becomes total; so that in that intimacy there is no interference; so that the lovers remain utterly alone.

With the Divine there is the greatest love of all.
It is a relationship between you and him.
It has nothing to do with the world—no connection with the crowd.
It is utterly secret—where there is only you and he.
And Kabir says: my whole body has become a rabab, a veena—sab rag tant; every nerve, every fiber has become a string—and a single melody plays day and night: virah, the song of longing.

This needs to be understood.

The more one attains the Divine, the more the veena of virah begins to sound.
This may seem difficult to you.
You will think: when God is not attained there should be longing; once attained, what longing?
It will seem complex.

But until you have known the Divine you cannot know longing.
Longing is the experience of one who has known union.
How will you know virah?
How will you weep for the Divine?
How will tears well up when you have no intimacy, no encounter—not even for a moment—with him?
God is utterly unknown, almost non-existent for you.
How will your whole body become a veena, your nerves strings, and the song of longing arise?
Only after union is longing possible.

Hence only the devotee knows virah.
Then even being in the body for a moment, being in this world for a moment, feels like a distance.
He has surrendered; he is filled with God.
But the journey of the body still remains—for a while.
The message has come; the address found; the path to home is known.
A little distance remains.

Perhaps you have felt this: on a journey when you come very near the destination, the little distance remaining feels greater than the distance at the first step.
When the goal is just in front—now, now—then even a moment’s gap is agonizing.
When the destination is in sight, the slightest separation hurts.

The devotee has given all, but he is still in the body.
Therefore Buddha made two distinctions of liberation—as has always been done in India.
A liberated person is called jivan-mukta—liberated while living.
It means: he is still alive, still in the body, and is free—within all bonds are broken, but the journey of the body is continuing.
Perhaps some time will pass; when the body falls, union will be complete.
A hair-breadth remains.

Imagine a pitcher full of water placed on the bank away from the river.
The devotee is such a pitcher now that it has come into the river—water outside, water inside.
Only a thin wall of clay remains.
Clay too is porous—water seeps in and out—but still, the wall is there.
That hair-breadth is virah.
Day and night, moment to moment, there is only the longing: when will even this fall?

Kabir says: “When will I die, when will I be effaced that complete supreme bliss may be attained—kab mitihun, kab pahihun pooran parmanand?”
A tiny lack remains, a hair’s distance.
No great wall—just clay; porous clay.
Yet it is.

Remember: until you have tasted, you will not know longing.
Without the taste of union you cannot know the taste of separation.
You are living, but the thirst has not arisen that fills you with virah, the fire of longing.
You are like children who have not yet fallen in love.

The devotee is like a lover.
He has found his Radha—but there is distance.
Lovers know virah; one who has not loved cannot know it.
He who has not tasted that rasa cannot know the lack of it.

If you watch supreme lovers you will see: the closer they come, the greater the longing—for however close they come, they cannot become utterly one.
Some distance remains.
Bodies meet, but minds are separate.
Sometimes in deep sexual union even minds meet—but still consciousnesses are separate.

In love, complete union is not possible; in bhakti alone it is.
But for the devotee, a few days of bodily journey remain—related to past lives; the body has its web of karma which must be completed.
It will be completed.

So Buddha said: one nirvana is attained while living; the other, the great nirvana, when the body falls.
Hindus say: jivan-mukti and moksha.
Jains say: kevala-jnana and kevalya.
Knowledge has happened; preparation is complete; only the boat’s arrival is awaited.
But one must wait a little on the shore; the waiting becomes more intense as the moment approaches.

You have seen people waiting at the station?
While the train is late they read the paper, gossip, sip tea, roam here and there.
No one looks to see whether the train is coming.
When the bell rings, a wave runs through; people collect their luggage; bags are lifted; clothes straightened; they stand; the talk stops.
As the train nears, the station becomes more and more eager; people are ready; even a moment becomes long.

Exactly so is the devotee’s state.
The boat is close; the message has arrived on the wind; the boat is even visible from the shore.
The devotee stands on the bank.

Sab rag tant rabab tan, virah bajave nitt.
Aur na koi sun sake, kai saai ke chit.

Is tan ka deeva karun, baati melyun jeev.
Lohi seenchun tel jyu, kab mukh dekhyo peev.

“When shall I behold the Beloved’s face?
I am ready to do anything.
I will make a lamp of this body; I will make the wick of my very life; I will pour my blood like oil—when shall I behold my Beloved’s face?”
When will the complete union be—when shall I be lost like a drop in the ocean so that not even a grain of distance remains—so that duality is gone?

So long as the body is, a trace of duality remains.
The pitcher is drowned in the water, but a slight gap remains.
That gap is the fire of longing.
Blessed are they who know virah, for only those have tasted a little of union.

In Egypt there is an ancient saying: you begin to seek God only when he has already found you.
Otherwise how would you begin to seek?
But then longing tortures—and in that longing there is bliss; supreme bliss.
It is not a pain like other pains; it is sweet—a sweet pain.
It cuts within, like music; its note resounds like the strings of a veena.

Blessed are those who have tasted a little of union and are filled with the pain of the great union—whose body has become a veena, and on it a single note rises ceaselessly: the note of longing.

After union comes longing—and after longing, the great union.

Enough for today.