Kahe Kabir Diwana #9

When the delusion of sin and virtue is burned away, then the radiance of Murari dawns.
Says Kabir: Hari is such—as it is there, so it is here.
Whoever lives and dies in the illusion, “I shall do,” dies in vain; what the King, Ram, does—only that comes to pass.

If I ask you, “Where is the world?” you will point to the ten directions. But there, the world is not—there is Paramatma. So perhaps you will point within, to an eleventh direction. There too the world is not—there too is Paramatma. Outside, That alone; inside, That alone.
Then where is the world? Between the outside and the inside. What we call mind—that is where the whole world is. The mind is neither outside nor inside; it is the wall standing between the two. And the entire world is an expansion of the mind.
What you see is not what is; you see what your desire, your craving wants to see. Everything becomes tinted by your want, colored by your attachment. You only see what your inner longing allows you to see. Your seeing is not pure; your vision is not clear—distortion fills it.
The meaning of distortion is only this: you are not empty like a mirror, so that what is would reflect. You see what you project. Somewhere you see beauty, somewhere you see ugliness; somewhere profit, somewhere loss—these are your notions, your desires.
Pure truth is present on all sides—outside and inside—but the mind throws its colors over everything.
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin worked in an office. An old man—seventy!—but a long-time employee, so they retained him. Many men and women worked there, and as often happens, jokes about women circulated among the men. There was a very beautiful woman in that office. When the month of Shravan arrived, she said to Nasruddin, “Mulla-ji, I see no one else here on whom I can tie a rakhi. And I have no brother. Only you seem such a simple soul. The day after tomorrow is Raksha Bandhan. I will tie a rakhi to you. But remember—you’ll have to give me twenty-one rupees and a sari.”
Nasruddin became a little anxious. A crease appeared on his forehead. Perhaps she thought the twenty-one rupees and the sari seemed too expensive. She said, “No, no—don’t worry. I was only joking.” Nasruddin said, “That’s not the point; you misunderstood. Take forty-two instead of twenty-one. Take two saris instead of one, but at least don’t spoil the relationship!”
Within is the mind—its own attachments, its own colors. Others cannot see them; only you can. How could your mind be visible to another? The world you live in—no one else can know. If you move with a little awareness, you yourself will begin to know.
And your mind colors everything. Of someone you say, “mine, my own.” Of someone else, “other.” Someone is friend, someone enemy. Who is friend? Whoever falls in line with your desires. Who is enemy? Whoever goes against them. Someone seems good, someone bad. To some you are drawn close, from some you want distance. All this is the play of your mind.
Chekhov, the great Russian writer, wrote a story from his memories. The son of his friend ran away from home ten years earlier. The friend was wealthy—and as the wealthy often are, extremely miserly—so father and son did not get along. The boy ran away. He was an only son. When he left, the father’s pride was high; gradually it softened. Death came closer. Ten years passed. There seemed no hope of the boy’s return.
Searchers were sent. The father bent a little; after all, he was owner of all the property, and death could come any time. There was no news. Then one day a letter came—the boy was in great trouble, in a nearby city. He had called his father: if you come, I will return home; I can’t gather the courage to come by myself; I feel ashamed, guilty.
The father went to the city, stayed at a grand hotel. In the night he heard someone coughing outside his room. He opened the door and said to the man, “Move on from here! Will you let me sleep or not?” But the night was cold, snow was falling, and the man refused to go. So he pushed him out of the verandah and went back to sleep. In the morning, a crowd had gathered in the hotel grounds—someone had died. He too went to see. The clothes looked like those of the man he had thrown out. Pushing through the crowd, he looked at the face—it seemed familiar. It was his son!
His own son—thrown out in the night by his own hands. If the mind does not know “mine,” then even one’s own is not one’s own. If the mind knows “mine,” then even a stranger becomes one’s own. It is all the play of mind. A moment earlier, it meant nothing—just a dead man, a crowd had gathered. A moment later, the father beat his chest crying, “My son has died!” And the pain will last a lifetime, because “I killed him.”
It is all the mind’s game. If right now someone were to come and prove, “This boy was my son, not yours. You are mistaken,” your tears would dry up, cheerfulness would return; in a moment everything changes. The mood of the mind shifts—and all shifts.
Chekhov wrote another story: two policemen are passing a road; a stray dog has bitten a vagabond; the dog is also stray. The man has grabbed the dog’s leg. A crowd stands near a hotel. People are saying, “Kill it—he has troubled many; might be mad. This dog has become a nuisance in this area.” The policemen stand in the crowd. One says, “Finish it. At night he doesn’t let us walk the beat. Dogs have always been against sannyasins, policemen, postmen—anyone in uniform—they flare up. He doesn’t let us walk. He barks, creates a commotion. Kill it.”
The other policeman looks closely and says, “Think before you act. This looks like the Inspector General’s dog—not a stray. I recognize it well.” Everything changes color. The policeman who said “kill it” pounces on the vagabond: “You’re causing a disturbance, blocking traffic? Let go of the dog! Do you know whose dog this is? How valuable?” He hoists the dog onto his shoulder, seizes the vagabond’s hand: “Come to the station!”
Then the other says, “No, no—mistake. This isn’t the I.G.’s dog; it only looks like it. His has a black mark on the forehead; this one doesn’t.” The first policeman throws the dog down: “What stray dog is this—and I lifted it up! Catch it! Finish it!” The vagabond grabs the dog’s leg again and is about to smash it on the ground when the second policeman says, “No—on second thought, it might indeed be the I.G.’s dog; it looks exactly so.” Again the tune changes. Both rush the vagabond: “How many times have we told you—don’t make a disturbance! Let go of the dog!” And again the dog is on the shoulder.
So the story goes—changing many times.
Such is the whole of life. “Mine”—and everything changes. “Yours”—and everything changes. The world remains the same. Neither the sky is yours, nor the stars; neither the river and mountains are yours, nor the people. Even if someone is born through you, they are not yours. No one is one’s own, no one is other. If any belong, they belong to Paramatma. If any presence is in all, it is Paramatma. The entire play of “mine” and “yours” is of the mind—and the mind manufactures the world.
Then remember: you may think there is one world in which we all live; you are mistaken. There are as many worlds as there are minds. As many people here—as many worlds.
And even within a single person—if there were only one mind, it would still be easy. But within each, there are many minds. In the morning your mind is one thing; by noon, another. In the morning you were ready to die for your wife: “Without you I cannot live even a moment.” By noon you say, “With you I cannot live.” By evening, the wind turns, the season changes; you sit beside her in great love. As if a policeman keeps whispering in your ear, “She is yours.” Then says again, “No, not yours; an enemy.”
Hence the disturbance. All the time your mind keeps saying something. And you don’t have one mind—many. Mahavira said: “Man is multimental, poly-psychic.” If there were one, we could manage. But there are a thousand. So you cannot trust which voice to follow. Inside there is not one voice but a thousand; a mixed clamor. You are a marketplace, a crowd.
Thus each person holds many worlds; and then there are so many people on earth—so many worlds.
When truth is seen, it will be one. Untruths are personal; truth is public, universal. Your truth and mine cannot be different. Your untruth is yours; mine is mine. Untruths are private; truth is not. Truth is universal. So wherever you find any trace of privacy in your truth, become suspicious. Is truth ever private? Truth belongs to all; all are in truth.
Therefore if you say, “My religion is Hindu,” be suspicious. Your religion will be the mind’s play—because it stands against the Muslim. If your religion is Jain, it stands against the Hindu. If Sikh, against the Jain. Religion must belong to truth, not to mine and yours. The day a person becomes religious, that day all scriptures dissolve into his—Quran, Bible, Veda—all. That day he holds a universal truth.
But that can happen only when mind disappears. Mind will not allow you to rise into the universal. Mind is the world; no-mind is going beyond the world. Freedom from mind is freedom from the world. Then your truth will not be yours—it will be everyone’s; not only of humans, but of trees, of stones, of moon and stars. For truth is one—the very life-breath of existence. It is not some mental notion; it is the stream of life itself.
Hence pure religion is simply religion—not Hindu, not Muslim, not Christian. These are mind’s games. Church, temple, mosque, gurdwara—constructions of the mind, the net of the mind.
You have looked at religion through the mind; hence religion too splits. Whatever you look at through the mind, it instantly divides. Mind is a process of dividing, a way of breaking. You may have seen a prism—a crystal. Pass a sunbeam through it; it breaks into seven colors—the rainbow forms. Before entering the glass, the ray was one—pure, white. Passing through the prism, it splits into seven. The seven-colored net spreads—the rainbows appear.
Mind is that prism. The ray of life-consciousness passes through this glass and breaks into seven colors. Its whiteness is lost; its innocence, simplicity, virginity lost. Then the seven colors appear. The world—the seven colors. The world is truth seen through the mind. The world is Paramatma glimpsed from behind the curtains of notions, desires, longings.
Mind is error—and from the mind’s error arises the vast delusion of the world.
Mind is not within—for within is Paramatma. Nor is mind without—for without too is Paramatma. Mind stands between the two.
What shall we call the mind? Hindus called it Maya. Understand the word “Maya.” Maya does not mean false; it does not mean non-existent. Maya means the in-between—between illusion and reality.
We cannot call mind wholly false—because it is, and for many lifetimes it has led you astray. How could a non-existent thing lead you astray? If it were not at all, how could you construct this vast world around you? The mind is—so to say it isn’t would be unfair. But to say it is as Paramatma is would also be untrue—for it is not eternal, it is momentary—arising and passing, again arising and passing.
It is not like the ocean; it is like a bubble—arising, bursting. If you look at the world through the bubble, you live neither outside nor inside—whereas outside and inside are one. You start living in the middle.
This middle-state is dreamlike. A dream happens—otherwise how would you see it in the night? Some mornings you wake and say, “No dream came.” Other mornings, “I dreamed.” If it was, then it was—seen, remembered, narratable; yet upon waking, you know also that it is not. The dream is a bewildering riddle: say “it is”—wrong; say “it is not”—wrong. It is as if it is; it is as if it is not. It is in the middle—half and half. Half true because it was seen; half untrue because it is not found.
Seen—but not found—that is dream.
Seen—but not attained—that is Maya.
Seen—and never available—that is the world.
It always seems to be; whenever you come close, it vanishes. From a distance it appears; when you arrive, it is lost. The rainbow is visible; try to approach—closer and closer, the rainbow fades. Arrive exactly where it seemed to be, and it is gone. It is seen only from a distance; distance is needed, and with nearness it disappears.
Remain in stupor—and dreams appear. Let a little awareness arise—and the dream shatters. Even if just the awareness arises, “I am dreaming,” the dream breaks.
Gurdjieff used to tell his disciples: until you can break the dream, you will not be able to break Maya. He was right. He discovered a unique method. He said, you will not be able to break the world, nor be free of it. You have not yet become free even of dreams. Freedom from the world is far away. The world is a vast dream you have dreamed for lifetimes—so often that by sheer dreaming it has become “true.” So many layers of experience have formed that it is impossible today to believe it is not. First, break the dream.
So Gurdjieff told his seekers—and I tell you—do a precious experiment. Great results can come. At bedtime, for five to seven minutes—when you feel that sleep is near—keep remembering one thing inside: “Whatever I see, I will know it is a dream. Whatever I see, I will know it is a dream.”
For three months there may be no results. You will repeat it, but forget in the dream; in the morning you’ll remember: “I had thought to remember it as a dream, but I didn’t. The dream took hold.”
After three months, little by little, a slight awareness will begin. A subtle doubt will enter. The dream will continue, and inside a faint restlessness, “Something is off. Not clear yet that it’s a dream, but something is amiss.” A dim sense will begin to rise.
If you continue, then sometime between three and six months, suddenly, right in the middle of the dream, sleep will not break, yet you will awaken inside. For if sleep breaks, it is no use—anyone knows after waking that it was a dream, but that “knowing” is about what is already gone—worthless. Value belongs to the present. One day you will find: sleep continues, you are awake within; you see, “This is a dream.” The moment you see it, the dream evaporates, leaving a space empty. The gap where the dream dissolves—the empty space it leaves—that is no-mind’s first glimmer. The first glimpse of the mind’s absence.
Then go on deepening this. Slowly it will become a daily rhythm. The moment a dream grabs you, not even a second will pass before you awaken within. The dream will vanish, sleep will continue. And you will find: if in sleep the dream breaks, then in waking thoughts begin to break. The moment you start thinking, suddenly something fills within with awareness—“These are thoughts—this too is dream”—and thought stops.
If dream breaks in sleep and thought breaks in waking, your world drops away.
To leave the world, going to the Himalayas achieves nothing. Renouncing home achieves nothing. The house is not the world; wife, husband, children are not the world. The world hides in your way of seeing—your stupor. Wherever you go, what difference does it make? You go to the Himalayas, build a hut under a tree—that hut will become yours as your palace was. If someone tries to sit there, a quarrel will flare up. Even there, litigation will arise; no court is needed. You will fight: “This bush is mine; I am here from earlier—move away.” “Mine” will clutch you. If someone begins to press your feet, he will become “yours.” If he falls ill, you will be pained. If he dies, you will weep. The house has formed; householding is born.
A sannyasin lay on his deathbed. His disciples asked, “Any last message for us?” He said, “What my master told me and I did not obey, I tell you. Try to obey—I failed.” All sat alert—something important, which the master had told him and he could not follow. He said, “Never keep a cat.” The disciples were surprised: “What kind of Brahma-knowledge is this? Neither Veda nor Bible mentions this. What religion is this? Has your mind gone off in your dying hour? We ask for a key, a sutra—and you say, ‘Don’t keep a cat!’ Have you gone senile?” He said, “No—that is exactly what my master said. I could not heed it. I will tell you my story—remember it.
“At his death I asked, ‘What shall I do? Any essence, any sutra?’ He said, ‘Don’t keep a cat.’ I too thought he had gone senile—ninety years old, the mind no longer clear. What has a cat to do with anything? There I missed. I thought his mind wavered—that was my slip.
“Years passed. I left everything and began living in the forest—study, meditation. I had nothing, only two loincloths. But mice in the hut chewed the loincloths. Villagers would sometimes bring food or fruit. I asked them, ‘What shall I do?’ They said, ‘Keep a cat.’ I didn’t even remember that at death my guru had said, ‘Don’t keep a cat.’ It didn’t seem like much—it sounded simple and harmless. What trouble in keeping a cat? Is a cat a household? The wise have said, ‘Don’t keep a wife, don’t keep a husband’—but has anyone said, ‘Don’t keep a cat’? And what do I have to do with a cat? The cat will settle the mice.
“It made sense. I kept a cat. But a great difficulty arose. Sometimes the cat caught mice, sometimes not. She often went hungry—she too suffered. I asked the villagers again. They said, ‘Keep a cow—it will help you too with milk, and the cat as well.’ Naturally the cow came. Now the cow needed grass. Sometimes people brought it, sometimes not. I said, ‘This is trouble—now I must worry for the cow: grass, food, water.’ They said, ‘Sow some grass seed, some wheat. It’s not as if you have much to do—this will help you, the cat, the cow.’
“The path opened—from the cat, the cow came; then fields. But sometimes when I felt unwell, I still had to work in the field—watering, sowing. Gradually farming became important; meditation receded. There was no time. If rains failed, I had to irrigate. I asked people again: ‘What now? I am growing old.’ They said, ‘There is a girl in the village—past marriageable age; no one will marry her. Let her serve you.’ No danger seemed likely—the girl came to serve. She tended the fields, looked after the cat and the cow, cared for the sannyasin—massaged his feet when he was tired, gave medicines. Slowly attachment arose, love grew. The cat brought in everything—the entire world.
“One day the villagers came themselves: ‘This is not right—since attachment has arisen, it is a little immoral. Better you marry her.’ I said, ‘That’s true.’ We married. Children came. On my deathbed I remembered—my guru had said, ‘Don’t keep a cat.’
“So I say to you too—don’t keep a cat. And be careful: I made the same mistake—thinking my guru had gone senile. I fear you’ll think so too and keep a cat.
“In truth, the guru spoke a little wrongly. If I were in his place, I would have said, ‘Don’t keep a loincloth’—because the cat was a later link. When there is a loincloth, mice will come; where mice, there the cat…”
The real trouble began with the loincloth. If you advise anyone, speak of the loincloth—not the cat; that formula failed.
In truth, any single thing will bring the rest—because the issue is not the world but the mind. Where will you run? Wherever you go, at least you will be there. You yourself are the “loincloth.” If you are, then all is. If you are, the loincloth will appear; the loincloth brings mice, mice bring the cat, the cat the cow—and the world expands.
You don’t even notice it—one step at a time. It comes so gently, you never realize expansion is happening. Never does the world pounce on you all at once. Had the loincloth turned straight into a wife, you would have noticed—because there would be a leap. But stairs were built.
The world comes by steps; Paramatma comes by a leap. The world comes gradually—were it to leap, even the sleeping would awaken. Paramatma comes by a leap—because the sleeping must be awakened, not lulled.
Hence the supreme benediction of life happens in a single leap, and the disease, the hell of life, arrives inch by inch—so quietly its footfall is not heard; you can’t tell whence it came.
“Don’t keep a loincloth.” But if you are, you will have to keep a loincloth. Truly, you yourself are the loincloth. Until you dissolve, the world cannot dissolve. “You” means your mind. “You” means your ahankar, your ego. “You” means the sense “I am.” Where “I” is, there is the world. Where “I” is not, the world is not.
Therefore beware of whatever strengthens your “I,” whatever empowers it, buttresses the ego. I’m not telling you to renounce—renouncing does nothing; renunciation too can feed the ego. Be watchful.
You have lakhs of rupees—that is your swagger. Give them up—and a new swagger arises: “I have renounced lakhs.” And this new pride is greater—because many have lakhs, but few renounce them. Pride in having is common, stale; the pride in renouncing is rare—so it grows bigger.
Remember—if you do not awaken to ego, whatever you do will be from ego: indulgence or renunciation, worldliness or detachment. Your ego will be nourished. Perhaps you will starve the body, but the mind will grow fat.
Mulla Nasruddin’s wife was very fat. He consulted doctors. One advised horseback riding. After a month, the doctor met Nasruddin on the road: “How are things? Any results?” Nasruddin said, “The poor thing has become skin and bones.” The doctor, delighted, said, “I told you so!” Nasruddin said, “You misunderstood—not my wife, the mare! The wife is putting on more weight.”
Do not starve the mare. The body is the mare. However much you fast, nothing will resolve—the wife will keep fattening: that wife is the ego within.
Those you call renouncers—what do they do? They torture the body—eat less, sleep little, suffer heat and cold—but the inner ego grows. As the body loses weight, the ego gains. Nowhere will you find more egoistic people than the ascetics; they are the pure peaks of ego. If you want to see pure ego—see it in the renouncer. In the worldly it is impure; it lacks the sheen—because the worldly feels he is doing wrong; a fear remains, so his ego can’t display in full splendor—he stays slightly bent, a little humble. The renouncer has no sense of guilt; he walks stiff with pride, his flag forever flying—filled with a terrible ego.
The worldly has a world; the renouncer has a world—wherever ego is, there is the world.
The day the “I-sense” falls, all dreams fall. This great world is a dream—a dream with open eyes. There are two kinds of dreams—one you see with closed eyes; not so dangerous, they break each morning. The other is with open eyes—this vast thing you understand to be around you; very dangerous, because across births you are born, you die, and it does not break. Whoever breaks it is supremely blessed.
How will it break? Kabir’s sutras point the way.
“Blind one, without Hari who is yours? ...”
Kabir says: If you must call anyone “mine,” call none but Hari.
Someday even Hari will drop—because the thought “Hari is mine” is the last splinter of the dream. But when you are caught in the dream, you must remove one thorn with another thorn. The second is just as much a thorn as the first. On a path you get a thorn in your foot—you pick another thorn, extract the first with the second—then throw both away.
The world is a thorn; so is religion. Right now—wife mine, husband mine, son mine, house mine, wealth mine, honor mine, position mine—this is one thorn. “Hari is mine”—that is the other, with which all the rest come out. But don’t keep the second stuck in the wound—otherwise you prove a fool; your effort wasted; the second too is a thorn—useful only as a method.
Thus Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras calls even Ishvara a method for freedom from the world. Astonishing—and in human history no one else has stated it so plainly. Patanjali says clearly: Ishvara is also a method. By this medicine the disease ends—when it ends, throw the medicine away; don’t carry it on your head.
Buddha said: You cross the river by a boat—the boat is for crossing. Once across, you forget the boat—leave it in the river. Don’t carry it on your head and wander into the town, saying, “How can I throw away the boat—it carried me across!” Then you are a fool. Better you had never crossed—at least you had no boat on your head. Now you bear this burden.
Many grasp scriptures and doctrines; many grasp even God. Then God himself becomes the loincloth—and from that loincloth the whole world returns.
“Blind one, without Hari who is yours? ...”
Kabir is pointing to a thorn: for now, understand—without Hari, no one is yours. Not your wife—everyone is a stranger. You met on the road, spun a few illusions.
Think—those you call your own, how did they become yours? Your father took your birth-chart to an astrologer. Another took a woman’s chart to another astrologer. Charts were matched, numbers aligned, omens fit. Bands played. You were made to circle the fire seven times—and the woman became “your” wife. Till yesterday she was not yours. A coincidence—river meets boat. She could have been someone else’s—nothing prevented that; then too she would have lived in the same illusion that “this is my husband.” Some other woman might have been your wife—and then you would have remained in the same illusion—“this is my wife.” Other children would have been born to you—then they would have been “yours.” Those not “yours” now, are playing in someone else’s courtyard.
Don’t take coincidence for truth. Two people meet on the road, walk together, chat. Then their ways diverge—farewell. But we create great illusions.
Hence so much ceremony is needed for marriage—deep psychology lies behind it. People ask me, “What is the need for the groom’s horse, the bands and fireworks, the expense of the procession? So many people coming and going—what need?” A simple marriage would do, they say. It could. But illusion would be hard to cement. You meet a woman, say, “Let’s marry.” You circle each other and come home—but a suspicion will linger: “How did she become mine, just like that?” That whole commotion is needed to convince the mind that something heavy has happened—something that won’t happen again.
You don’t ride a horse every day—only once. Thus “Dulha-raja”—the groom as king for a day. And what humiliation will follow later—who knows! But today he sits stiff, dagger at his waist, a crown on his head—borrowed clothes, never mind—today he is decked out, and the procession marches like an army; the great walk below while the groom becomes king for a day.
It imprints the mind, conditions it, engraves a samskara—old people were skillful. They arranged so the illusion would harden: some profound bond is being created, a unique event not to be repeated.
Thus the East stands against divorce—because the East is clever; the West is still childlike, inexperienced about the mind. The East has ages of experience. For if divorce is possible, marriage will never be complete. If there is the possibility that tomorrow we may separate, the union will never settle deeply—household will not be born. Inside there will remain: if we wish, we can part—she need not be my wife; she could be someone else’s; someone else could be mine; other children could be born. “Ours” weakens.
A disturbance has arisen in the West; the world there is wobbling. I have heard—an actor in Hollywood sits with his wife, and their children are playing. The wife says, “Look—I’ve told you a thousand times, something must be done. Your children and my children are beating up our children.” In the West it is possible: the husband has children by another wife; the wife has children by another husband; then they have children together. “Your children and my children are beating our children.” This must be stopped. But where there are “yours,” “mine,” and “ours”—there, “ours” weakens. What is “mine”? All feels like a house of sand—nothing solid, nothing permanent.
An actress was asked at an airport, “Married or unmarried?” She said, “Both—sometimes.” Sometimes married, sometimes unmarried. Where things become like sand...
The East is cunning—age brings cunning; the old turn crafty, streetwise; children are innocent—they don’t know the colors of life. The East arranged that bonds be made with such strength that the illusion becomes firm—“She is my wife.” In the East, it’s understood this is not for one life—husband and wife pursue each other across births. Wives are delighted by this; husbands grow a little afraid: “Across lifetimes? One is enough. And next life—again this goddess?” But wives rejoice: “Where will you run? There is no escape.”
These impressions are instilled—psychologies of the mind. They make you feel “mine.” A child is born from you—you think “mine.” What is born from you? You are merely a laboratory, a passage. Now science says a child can be born in a test tube—no mother’s womb needed. Science says sperm can be preserved in ice for thousands of years. You may die—and a thousand years later, your son can be born. Your sperm can be saved. What relation remains with you? Ten thousand years later your son could be born, you dead for millennia—your veins dissolved into dust—yet your child can appear. What relation remains? You were just a passage. No one is anyone’s here. You are a stranger here. To lean on “mine” gives relief—true. If you knew clearly you are utterly alone, you would tremble, panic—hands and feet shake.
A dark night, a desolate path—no idea of ahead or behind, not even who you are. Holding someone’s hand gives a little assurance: someone is with me. Granted, he too is blind, and so am I.
I have heard: a hunter lost his way in the African jungle—four days hungry and thirsty—he gave up hope of life. No sign of humans anywhere. At dusk on the fourth day, as the sun was setting, he saw another hunter under a tree with a gun. He ran in joy—you can imagine his happiness: saved from death, life granted! He danced, embraced the man. But that man said, “Brother, wait—I’ve been lost eight days. Don’t celebrate so much. Our meeting changes nothing.”
Yet it brings relief. Even following a blind man, you feel reassured—someone is ahead. Hence the blind line up behind the blind—never mind if the leader is blind like you. The blind advise the blind; the ignorant befriend the ignorant.
If in a dark alley you find no companion, you begin to sing loudly. If you are irreligious, you sing film songs; if religious, you chant Hanuman Chalisa—but there is no difference. Hearing your own voice, you feel someone is there—you are not alone; courage returns.
At the river in winter, pilgrims go to bathe—shouting “Hare Ram, Hare Krishna” as they dip—their chanting is not Ram’s name; shouting “Ram” masks the cold, distracts the mind: “Hare Ram, Hare Ram!”—quickly pour the water. In my village, in the month of Purushottam, women came for the dawn bath. I knew them well; from some I had never heard “Hare Ram”—yet in the water at five in the morning, they became “Hare Ram, Hare Ram.” I thought, this water is mysterious! I knew these women; none were “Hare Ram” types. What happens suddenly when they enter water? Then I entered the river at five—and understood. Even an atheist will blurt something. The icy water shocks you—whatever you babble, it brings relief. Hum in the dark—courage arises.
The blind hold the blind; it feels like someone is here—I’m not alone.
Thus you live in groups, forming crowds. Alone, you grow afraid; in crowds, you relax: “So many—must be right.” You go where the crowd goes. No one dares stand alone. For in solitude you see: no one here is mine. Terror seizes the soul— you could not live in that trembling. Whoever has known aloneness, seeks Paramatma. Whoever is satisfied with society, misses Paramatma. Whoever becomes alone—he will seek; no one can remain alone—one must seek the true companion.
“Blind one, without Hari, who is yours? To whom do you keep saying, ‘mine, mine’?” Those to whom you say it—have come to you for the same reason: they fear aloneness; solitude scares them. The sick are supporting the sick; the blind are guiding the blind; the foolish are offering wisdom to the foolish.
“Taj kulakram abhimana, jhoothe bharam kaha bhulana.”
Drop this talk of caste, clan, family, society. “Taj kulakram”—drop that pride. For whenever you say “mine,” from that your “I” is constructed. Think a little—if nothing were yours, if there were nothing like “mine,” could you maintain your “I”? It would collapse at once. It needs crutches of “mine.” The more your “mine” expands, the stronger your “I.” A big kingdom—big “I.” A tiny hut—tiny “I.” A palace—vast “I.” Two or ten rupees—small “I.” Crores—big “I.”
Hence the rush toward expansion—any kind will do. Money, or knowledge—collect knowledge, information unlike anyone’s; that will do too. Or collect renunciations—so many fasts as no one has done; that will do. Or if not even that, gather disciples—more than anyone else; that will do. Become a leader, gather votes; how many did you get—that too will do.
Remember—ego is imperialistic; it lives by expansion. If you do not expand it, it shrivels. And if you want to drop the “I,” drop the “mine”—that is its food. Remove the crutches and the “I” falls by itself. “Not wife, not son, not house, not land mine”—how will you hold the “I”? It is lame—it cannot walk by itself. The crutches of “mine” hold it up. Remove them and the building collapses.
“Taj kulakram abhimana ... jhoothe bharam kaha bhulana.”
Drop the pride of “mine.” False notions. Who here belongs to whom? If you can belong to yourself, that is enough. Who belongs to whom here?
“Jhoothe tan ki kaha badai, je nimikh mahi jar jai.”
And why do you go on praising this body? Why sing its hymns? Why puff up with it? In one instant it will burn to ash. And upon this body are founded all your relations of mine and yours. “This is my mother”—because your body was born through her. What is the worth of your body? “My father”—because through him your body arose. “My son”—because he came through your body.
“…je nimikh mahi jar jai.”
A moment does not pass—flames leap on the pyre, all becomes ash. All your relations are relations to this body that will burn in a moment.
Buddha sent his monks to the cremation grounds—“Go sit there and see what happens to the body.” Daily the corpses come. In those days there was no electric cremation; even then it was “in a moment burns away”—now Kabir’s words are literally true. Electric fires—instantly it burns. Word for word.
Buddha said—sit by the pyres, meditate. Much will be gained. Monks would watch—pyres burning, bodies lifted, in a moment ashes. People return home—friends, beloveds, so-called one’s own, for whom this person lived their whole life. None go with him. None agree to remain even for an hour. A corpse in the house—people become restless: “Take it away quickly.” The longer it remains, the raw wound shows; how can tears dry? Even a wife will not stay the night with her husband’s body.
Recently, in Poona, a woman was murdered. When the husband returned, he could not stay in the house—in the very room of the murder. He checked into a hotel. Fear—panic in entering the room where he must have seen so many delightful moments, dreamt so many dreams; but now, dread. Even dead, a person you called your own begins to frighten you.
A friend came to me: “My wife has died. Has she reached the right place—heaven and all?” I asked, “Why worry? She must have reached—everyone dies and becomes ‘late’ and ‘heavenly’; no one seems to go to hell—politicians and leaders too become ‘heavenly’ in death; don’t worry—she has reached.” He said, “No—let me confess. At night when I sleep, I feel as if she is fumbling—her old habit. She couldn’t sleep long—would take out clothes, put them back, rearrange things, shift furniture. I feel some rustle in the house—what if she’s become a ghost? I haven’t slept in that room for three months.” Your wife—was it a love marriage? “Yes.” Now she is dead—why so afraid? Shouldn’t you be happy that as a ghost she is present in the room? He said, “Forgive me—don’t say such a word! I’ll leave the house. It’s already locked up.” Even if he goes, he suspects something is happening in that room.
You called them your own—if you come to them as a soul, they’ll leave the house. All your connection was to the body; the soul has no relation—and the world is all of the body.
“Jhoothe tan ki kaha badai, je nimikh mahi jar jai.”
“Jab lag manahi vikara, tab lag nahin chhoote samsara.”
So long as there is distortion in the mind—ahankar, desire—so long there is the world. The mind’s distortion is the world. The perverted state of mind is the foundation of your world. Don’t flee the world; drop the distortion. Distortion is stupor—sleep, a drowsy unconsciousness.
“Jab man nirmal kari jana, tab nirmal mahi samana.”
When the mind becomes pure—no dreams remain, because dream is the dirt; no thoughts remain, because thought is distortion—then the mind is no more. Then only the pristine Atman remains. Mind relates to the world; Atman relates to Paramatma. If mind remains, the world surrounds you; when you are Atman, mind gone, Paramatma surrounds you. As you are, so you connect—only the like meets the like.
“Jab man nirmal kari jana, tab nirmal mahi samana.
Brahm agni Brahm soi ...
Ab Hari bin aur na koyi.”
Then the little flame within, the small lamp, dissolves into the great fire of Paramatma. Now without Hari, none remains—not even you. Only the being of God is.
“Jab pap punya bharam jari, tab bhayo prakash Murari.”
This is a revolutionary utterance. Kabir says: when the delusions of sin and virtue are both burned—sin and virtue both—then the vision of Murari occurs; then the glimpse of the Divine.
Hidden in both sin and virtue is the same disease—the doer, the ego. The sinner says, “I have sinned.” The virtuous says, “I have done merit.” In both, one thing is common—“I.” The sinner is a bit afraid to announce his sins; he hides them. The virtuous trumpets his merits—keeps accounts. The sinner may forget; the virtuous never does—his ego is subtler.
Note this. Morality tells you: drop sin, do virtue. Religion tells you: drop both. Because as long as the doer remains, nothing will drop. Morality says: avoid sin, perform virtue. Hence morality has little to do with religion. An atheist can be moral. Soviet Russia is moral—and perhaps more so than the theists. Morality has no relation to Paramatma, moksha, meditation; it belongs to social order. “Do to others as you would have them do to you”—that is morality. Religion stands far above morality—just as far above immorality. Draw a triangle: the two lower corners are morality and immorality; the apex is religion—equidistant from both. Religion is a great revolution. Morality is a small one—“Drop sin.” Religion is a great one—“Drop even virtue.” Because so long as there is clinging, you remain. Let go. Let the doer dissolve.
“Jab pap punya bharam jari ... tab bhayo prakash Murari.” Only then is God realized.
“Kahai Kabir, Hari aisa—jahan jaisa, tahan waisa.”
Let this resound in your heart. No more fitting definition of God has ever been made. Thousands have defined. Kabir’s is precisely right. If any definition comes close, it is this: “Hari is such—as it is there, so it is here.” What does it mean? When the mind disappears, you will find—Paramatma is flower in the flower, stone in the stone, tree in the tree, river in the river, ocean in the ocean.
“Kahai Kabir, Hari aisa—jahan jaisa, tahan waisa.”
No deity will appear before you tricked out with flute and peacock feather. If one does, beware—you are being deceived. Inform the police—some trickster is posing as Murari. Nor will a Ram stand with bow and arrows—what use in the age of atom bombs? And if he stood with an atom bomb—how vulgar! These are human imaginations; God has nothing to do with them. When the mind falls, the Ram and Krishna of the mind fall too. God is the formless hidden in all forms. In the rose, He is the rose; in the stone, stone. Nothing needs to change. Wherever you find—He is present. Bow there. And within you too—He alone. Even if you don’t bow—it is all right. Who will bow to whom?
As Krishnamurti says—people ask him, “What is truth?” He says, “That which is.” He echoes Kabir—perhaps unknowingly; he has little inclination to read Kabir or the Upanishads or the Vedas—no need; each has his way. But had he read Kabir, he would have found the same: “That which is—jahan jaisa, tahan waisa.”
Nothing new will appear—this very existence will reveal itself in a new light. Its interpretation will change. Now you think it is “nature”; then you will see, it is God. Now you see people seated; then you will see Krishna seated all around. There was a painting in old houses: sixteen thousand gopis dancing; each one feels that Krishna dances with her—Krishna multiplied into sixteen thousand. Wherever you look, Krishna is embracing you in dance—the breeze carries his gesture; the fragrance of flowers is his coming; the bird’s throat is his call; the river’s murmur is the sound of his feet. Every gopi will find herself encircled by Krishna. It is a lovely picture. Another shows Krishna under a tree playing the flute—and he is in the cow, in each leaf, each flower—everywhere the same presence.
What is—is God. The day your being dissolves, He is revealed. God is not a person—God is existence. He has no name, no address—for He is all. The “is-ness” hidden as the very essence in all that is—that is God.
Understand it. The rose is red, scarlet; the marigold is yellow, golden; the rose like the lips of a beautiful woman—different; trees are different, their greens different, their songs and dances different. The gulmohar flames red, the amaltas glows gold; their leaves differ—no harmony there. But in both one thing is the same: the amaltas “is,” the gulmohar “is,” the rose “is,” I “am,” you “are,” the stone “is,” the rock “is,” the sky “is.” The “is-ness” is the same—everything else differs. That “is-ness”—suchness—is Paramatma.
So Kabir says: “Hari is such—as it is there, so it is here.” Do not go to temples; wherever you find Him as He appears, meet Him as such. If He appears in a flower, talk with the flower—sit there a while, hum a song. If He appears in the sky, peer into it; if in moon and stars, converse with them a little; if in the river’s murmur, jump in—swim a little in God.
So long as you search in temples and mosques, you will be entangled in God made by man. That is the mind’s play. Your temples and mosques belong to the world, not to God—they are extensions of the mind.
In Calcutta I stayed as a guest in a Jain home; next door was a Portuguese church—beautiful, with a big garden. I would walk there in the morning. One day my host discovered this and came annoyed: “Don’t you know it’s a church? If you must go to a temple, tell me—I’ll take you to a Jain temple.” I said nothing—often, silence is wisdom with the uncomprehending. I returned quietly. To him it seemed a grave sin that I went and sat there in silence.
Years later I was again his guest. He said, “Good news—the Portuguese church has been sold; we bought it. The Portuguese left, the church was sold, we purchased it—now it is a Jain temple. Come, we’ll show you.” The same church—now a Jain temple. The signboard changed. The trees were the same, Paramatma still the same. “Kabir says, Hari is such”—but their God had changed. Flowers still bloomed as before—not more flamboyantly because it had become a Jain temple, nor less because it had been a Christian church. Flowers do not know human foolishness. Trees did not even notice the signboard had changed. Signboards change—nothing else does. In signboards there is no God; they are human. In your labels there is no God; they are yours. He took me there with great delight—everything the same—walls, marble. I said nothing—wisdom again to say nothing. He was very pleased—now it was a temple!
How foolish man is. If you long for God, protect yourself from man’s foolishness—much of it wrapped in scriptures, very erudite; you may not even recognize it.
“Bhule bharam mare jin koi, raja Ram kare so hoi.”
This sutra is the final blow upon ego. Whoever has lived with the delusion “I will do,” dies in vain. “What Ram—the King—does, that alone happens.” When it is understood that God is everywhere—“Hari is such—as it is there, so it is here”—that He alone throbs, dances, suffers and rejoices, and I am just a tiny ripple—can I give direction to the ocean? Impossible. If I flow with the ocean, destination is found. When He is on all sides, breathing within me, living in me—He took birth in me, He will take death too. He is the traveler in me—I am but a step of that traveler. The one who knows this drops the illusion that anything will happen by his doing. “What Ram does—that alone happens.”
Then supreme contentment descends—flowers of satisfaction shower. No discontent remains. Mind is discontent; soul is supreme contentment—param-tushti—no trace of lack.
So remember two things. Avoid the doer’s sense—whether of virtue or sin. And avoid “mine”—whether worldly or religious. Don’t say “my temple,” for “my shop” and “my temple” are no different—“my” destroys both. And don’t say “I have done virtue, not sin.” For the “done”—kartabhava—is itself sin; and “mine” is the world. These two—fall from them.
How to fall? Gradually, let go of the props of “I.” The last prop of the “I” drops when it is seen that everything happens by His doing. Did you take birth? You were given birth—you did not take it. Where was your doership? You became young—what did you do? Breath—do you breathe? If you breathed, no one could die; death could come and you would go on breathing—what could death do? You do not take breath; breath goes on. It is taking you—you are not taking it. Observe life carefully and you’ll see—everything is happening. Even what you think you do—is happening. The thought “I am doing”—that thought too is happening. When someone begins to understand life, the doer dissolves.
“What Ram does—that alone happens.” The Whole moves—we are its parts. The burden of doing falls away—you are free, you are fulfilled. When the veena of fulfillment resounds in the heart—that is paramananda, that is sat-chit-ananda.
Enough for today.