Suno Bhai Sadho #1

Kabir is incomparable. He opens a doorway of hope for everyone, because it is hard to find a man more ordinary than Kabir. If Kabir can reach, anyone can. Kabir is utterly rustic—so there is hope even for the rustic; he is unlettered—so clearly truth has nothing to do with being educated. As for caste and creed, Kabir’s have no fixed address—perhaps born in a Muslim home, raised in a Hindu household. So God has nothing to do with caste at all.

Kabir remained a householder his whole life—a weaver—he wove cloth and sold it; he never left home for the Himalayas. So the divine can arrive at home; going to the Himalayas is not essential. Kabir renounced nothing, and attained everything. So renunciation cannot be the condition for attainment.

There is nothing “special” in Kabir’s outer life either. So “specialness” is the ornament of ego, not the beauty of the soul.

Kabir is neither wealthy, nor scholarly, nor honored, nor educated, nor cultured. If such a man attained supreme knowledge, you need not be disheartened. Hence, Kabir is a great hope.

If the Buddha attains, it isn’t obvious that you will. Understand Buddha rightly and a kind of despair will creep in—because Buddha’s pre-attainments are immense. He is a prince. If a prince renounces wealth, it’s not surprising—someone who has had everything can clearly see its futility. For the poor, dropping wealth is hard—how will one know it is futile when one has never had it? Buddha came to know; how will you? To know something is futile, at least some experience of it is needed. How will you say wealth is useless, when you never had any? You have always lived in lack, in a hut—how will you assert there is no joy in palaces? And even if you repeat it, it won’t be the voice of your heart; it will be borrowed truth. Deep down, wealth will continue to possess you.

If you ponder on Buddha, your limbs go limp.

Buddha says that in women there is nothing but bones, flesh and marrow. But Buddha had access to the most beautiful women; you have seen them only on a movie screen. There is a great distance between you and the most beautiful women. To you, those beauties are irresistibly enchanting—you would leave everything to possess them. To know that what you haven’t tasted is futile requires great awareness.

Kabir is poor, yet he knows wealth is futile. Kabir has a simple wife, yet he knows that all glamor, all luxury, all beauty is but the mind’s imagination.

Kabir requires deep understanding. For Buddha, many insights arrive through direct experience; Kabir must bring them through understanding alone.

It is very difficult for the poor to be free—difficult in the sense that the poverty of experience must be compensated by awareness; the lack of experience must be made up by meditation. If you had everything as Buddha had, you too would flee the palace—there is nothing left to gain, hope collapses, craving drops, no future remains; the palace becomes empty. Man lives on ambition—“tomorrow I’ll be bigger, and bigger, and bigger...” But when the last station arrives and there is no movement, if you don’t drop it what will you do? Then the palace becomes either suicide or a revolution of the self. But Kabir has no palace.

Buddha is extraordinarily gifted. Whatever highest knowledge was available, he was initiated into it. He is learned in scriptures; rich in words; sharp in intellect; son of an emperor; thoroughly educated.

Kabir grew up on the street. No one knows his parents. Perhaps he was illegitimate—his mother left the infant by the roadside after birth. So there is no trace of his mother. He does not hail from a noble lineage. As if born on the street, raised on the street. As if being a beggar was written on day one. If such a beggar comes to see that wealth is futile, then you can come to see it too. Buddha does not kindle hope. You can worship him—the distance is great, but to become like Buddha seems arduous—journeys of lifetimes. Between Kabir and you there is almost no distance. The road on which Kabir stands—he may be standing even behind you; and if he, standing behind, arrived, you can arrive too.

Kabir can be a deep formula for living—remember this first. That is why I call Kabir unique. Mahavira is the son of a king; so is Krishna, so is Rama, so is Buddha; they all came from palaces. Kabir came from the street; he has nothing to do with palaces. Kabir himself says he never even touched ink and paper, “masi kagad chhuo na haath”—“I did not touch ink or paper.”

Such an uneducated man, who cannot even sign his name, attained the supreme knowledge of God—this breeds great trust. Then if you are deprived in this world, you are deprived because of yourself; don’t blame circumstances. Whenever the urge to blame circumstances arises, remember Kabir. At least you know your parents; you have a home; you were not born on the street. You can sign your name. You have some little education, you can keep accounts. You have read a little of the Vedas, the Quran, the Gita. If not a great pandit, at least a small one. So whenever you feel like blaming circumstances—“Buddha could reach; he had all the facilities—how can I?”—remember Kabir. Where Buddha creates an imbalance, making it seem we cannot arrive, Kabir brings the scale back to balance. Kabir is more workable than Buddha. Buddha may serve a few; Kabir is a royal highway. Buddha’s path is narrow; only a few will manage to traverse it.

Buddha speaks the language of the selected few—each word is precious, but each word is subtle. Kabir’s language is everyone’s language—the language of the unlettered. If you cannot understand Kabir, you won’t understand anything. If you understand Kabir, nothing remains to be understood. And the more you understand Kabir, the more you will see that Buddhahood has nothing to do with circumstances; it depends on an inner longing, and can happen anywhere—hut, palace, marketplace, Himalayas; to an educated mind or an uneducated one; to poor or rich; to pundit or peasant; circumstances are irrelevant.

The sayings we are going to take up in this samadhi camp of Kabir are titled: “Listen, O Brother Sadhus.” In almost every utterance Kabir addresses the “sadhu.” Let us understand this address, then we will try to enter his words.

A human being can ask in three ways. One is curiosity—childlike. Asking just to ask: no need, no thirst, no purpose. The mind itches, a question arises, it is asked. If an answer comes, fine; if not, fine; there is no thought of asking again—like little children. On the road they ask, “What is this? Why are trees green? Why does the sun rise in the morning and not at night?” If you answer, they are not waiting; before you finish, they have asked the next question. If you don’t answer, they won’t insist. They are asking to exercise their intellect—like when a child first learns to walk, he keeps trying—not to reach anywhere; the fun is in the walking itself. So too when he learns to speak, he speaks just to speak—no meaning. When he learns to ask, he asks just to ask. There is no real question, only curiosity.

So there are childish people who ask about God out of curiosity. Answers or no answers, their lives remain unchanged. Whether they believe in God or not, they live exactly the same way.

It is astonishing that there is no difference in the life of an atheist and a theist. Can you tell by someone’s life whether he is a theist or an atheist? No—you have to ask. Their conduct is the same; both equally dishonest, equally untrustworthy. One believes in God, the other doesn’t—such a big belief, and not a trace of it in life! Then that belief is worthless. Such childish belief should be dropped. Curiosity is the surface layer.

A second, a little deeper, is inquisitiveness. Here there is a search for answers, but it is intellectual, not existential. It enriches information, becomes knowledge, not life. The inquisitive person remains the same, only better informed.

Inquisitiveness arises from the intellect.

Then there is a third level: mumuksha. It means the inquiry is of life itself. One is asking not to “know more,” but because life is at stake. The answer will determine where to go, what to do, how to live. A thirsty man asks, “Where is water?” This is no mere question—his every cell asks. He is not interested in the scientific definition of water as H2O. If someone says, “Stop crying ‘water, water,’ use science—two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen,” it is meaningless to the thirsty.

Mumuksha means the inquiry has reached the center. The issue “Is there God?” is no longer a child’s question, nor a philosopher’s—hunting through scriptures for conceptual answers. The truly thirsty doesn’t search in scriptures for the nature of water—he wants a lake. He doesn’t want knowledge; he wants the knower he can drink from and quench his thirst.

The mumukshu seeks a master; the inquisitive seeks scripture; the curious asks anyone.

Kabir calls the mumukshu “sadhu.” Hence every utterance of his is addressed with this in view: “Listen, O Brother Sadhus!” Sadhu means one eager for sadhana—practice—one who longs to transform, to make life auspicious and true.

“Sadhu” is a wondrous word. Overuse has distorted it. It means straight, simple, easy, natural. These are the flavors of sadhu—and this is sadhana.

So Kabir says: “Sadho, sahaj samadhi bhali”—simple, spontaneous samadhi is best. Be natural; become simple.

Understand this, because I have seen many who, in striving to be simple, become very complicated; they set out to be simple and get entangled.

I have a friend whom people call a sadhu, but I call him “a-sadhu,” because he is not straight or simple in the least. If you offer him milk in the morning, first he asks: cow’s or buffalo’s? He won’t drink buffalo milk; he’s a pure Hindu, only cow’s milk. And not just any cow—only a white cow; he has found some scripture declaring the milk of a white cow is purest. And he will drink it only if it was drawn just moments ago—if it stands too long it becomes tainted. He takes only clarified butter freshly churned—if it’s older, scriptures say it is degraded. As for water, it must be fetched by someone wearing wet clothes, so it is absolutely pure—dry clothes might have been touched by impure hands; laundry isn’t trustworthy. So the water carrier must bathe at the well with clothes on so both get washed, then fill the pot. He will eat only if a Brahmin has cooked. All this keeps him busy twenty-four hours. Not a moment left for God; food takes all his time. He set out to be simple and became so complicated that living is hard—and whoever hosts him ends up praying for deliverance. If such a sadhu stays at your house, your one prayer becomes: “May he leave soon!” He gets up at three, and raises everyone, chanting Om in such a booming voice you cannot sleep. You cannot even tell him he is wrong—what he is doing is “right.”

In the search for simplicity, people become complex. Something is being misunderstood. Simplicity means living each moment naturally, not by rigid discipline—because discipline becomes complex. Eat when hungry, accept whatever comes. When you wake, that is the Brahma-muhurta. When sleep comes, see it as God’s command—sleep. When you wake, see that as His command—rise. Don’t do anything from your side—leave it to Him. Because whatever you do will be from the mind—and the mind is a machine for complexity; it will create disturbances without end. Such “sadhus” become less sadhu and more “a-sadhu,” their simplicity lost. We have mistaken simplicity for wearing just a loincloth, but such a person can be more attached to his loincloth than an emperor to his empire—because now there is no other place for attachment; all of it condenses on the loincloth. Attachment is the issue, not loincloth or empire. The emperor’s attachment is spread out; the beggar’s is concentrated, dense, dangerous. If he loses his loincloth he might commit suicide—it was his all. On the surface there appears simplicity, but a great complexity is concealed.

Kabir calls that one a sadhu who is truly straight and simple.

Even after becoming enlightened and realizing the supreme truth, Kabir continued to weave cloth. Devotees protested: “It doesn’t befit a knower like you to weave all day and sell in the market; we feel embarrassed.” Kabir said: “When God, the great Weaver, weaves this vast tapestry of existence and is not ashamed, why should I be? He weaves the world—I weave cloth. He is a big weaver; I, a small one. He hasn’t run away; why should I? I have left it to His will—when He orders me to stop, I will.”

Till the end of life, even in old age, he sold in the market. But even in selling, there was sadhuta—simplicity. While weaving, he kept the rhythm of “Ram” going—warp and weft with the Name. When someone like Kabir chants Ram in the weave, the fabric’s very quality changes—he has woven Ram into it. Hence he says: “Finely, finely have I woven this cloak.” And in the market he would tell buyers: “Ram, I have woven this for you—with great care.” He addressed every customer only as Ram. These customers are Ram; it is for this Ram that I wove it. These are not “customers,” and Kabir is no “trader.”

Kabir did business and became simple. He did not cultivate simplicity separately; cultivated separately, it becomes complex. Simplicity cannot be cultivated; understanding flowers as simplicity.

Kabir surrendered himself so totally to God’s will that each morning, when people gathered for bhajan, he would say: “Don’t leave just like that—take food with you.” His wife and child were distraught: “Where do we arrange so much?” Debts piled up. Each night his son Kamal pleaded: “Enough, please—tomorrow don’t invite anyone.” Kabir would say: “As long as He has me say it, what can I do? Should I listen to you or to Him? The day He stops, who will make me say it? We initiate nothing from our side—why worry? If He arranges so much, He will arrange this too!”

But one day it reached a breaking point. Kamal said: “Enough! Shall we start stealing, then?” He said it in anger. Kabir replied: “Crazy boy, why didn’t this occur to you earlier?” Kamal thought Kabir hadn’t understood and repeated it. Kabir said: “All is His—what theft and what non-theft? As He wills! Why didn’t this thought come sooner?” Kamal, remarkable in his own right, said: “Let’s complete this test—then I will go steal, but you must come along.” Kabir stood up at once. Difficult for you to understand, because we don’t know truly simple people. Our “sadhu” would say: “Theft is sin, non-theft is virtue; fool, you are dragging me to hell!” But Kabir stood up—sweet simplicity, no divisions left—no theft, no non-theft; no good, no bad. If all belongs to God, what is the difference? Distinctions belong to the cunning mind; what distinctions can simplicity make? They went.

Kamal broke into a house; Kabir stood outside. Kamal dragged out a sack of grain. As he crawled out, the household stirred—because Kabir had loudly called: “Hey fool! Did you ask the householder? Theft is fine, but did you tell them? Make some noise so they wake up and know theft is happening.” Hearing the voices, people woke. As Kamal was slipping out, someone grabbed his leg: “Now what?” Kamal cried: “At least sever my head so the family won’t be disgraced.” Kabir said: “Splendid! Well suggested!” The tale says Kabir cut off Kamal’s head—but warned, “We can’t hide this; He knows all. Still, as you wish...” The corpse looked like Kamal’s, though headless. Next morning, knowing Kabir would pass by for bath and kirtan, they hung the body on a post outside, hoping he might show some reaction. But something else happened. Kabir stopped and said: “Look—Kamal is hanging there! He used to join us daily; today he couldn’t. Let us do kirtan by him.” When they sang, Kamal’s dead hands began to clap.

No one dies. Death is impossible—it is your belief. You die because you believe and because you do not know. Life-energy pervades all. Kabir said: “I told you, it can’t be hidden—He knows. He has revealed the secret.”

So Kabir always taught his disciples: Walk by His will.

The greatest truth of life is the falling away of division—the duality of good and bad, devil and saint, night and day, life and death, darkness and light. When all distinctions fall—of auspicious and inauspicious—then one is a sadhu. We call a man “sadhu” who is for light against darkness, for the auspicious against the inauspicious, for saints against devils—but that sadhu is a projection of our mind, not Kabir’s.

Kabir’s sadhu is one for whom all distinctions have dissolved; who lives in non-division; whose duality is destroyed; who dwells in Advaita, the One realized. In that One, who is saint and who devil? Who is virtuous and who wicked? What is sin and what is merit? All distinctions are illusion. Division is the very basis of maya. Whoever lives in division will become complex; who abides in non-division is a sadhu—simple, straight. He chooses nothing from his side; he does not thrust his will in between; he simply flows, like drifting in a river rather than swimming—where the river takes you, you consent to go; wherever you land is the goal; if the river drowns you midstream, that is the shore.

Kabir again and again says: “Listen, O Brother Sadhus.” He points to that within you which is simple and straight. How will you find it? By some complicated discipline—yogasana, headstands, hours of mantra? If effort is needed to find the simple, it isn’t simple—this is only understanding, only a seeing. As soon as you see there is only One, simplicity appears. That is why Kabir emphasizes sahaj samadhi—spontaneous, effortless absorption. Sahaj means what does not have to be achieved. Sadhu means what flowers out of understanding, for which no striving is needed; where you are, the door opens there; union happens where you stand; not an inch of going. Start moving and complexity begins. Whatever is obtained by effort cannot be sahaj.

“Listen, O Brother Sadhus”—I too am addressing the sadhu hidden in you. Your intellect is the element of “a-sadhuta,” and your heart is the element of sadhuta. The heart knows neither good nor bad. It has no arithmetic. It cannot cut; it knows how to join—like a needle with thread.

Once someone gifted Farid—a contemporary of Kabir—with a golden pair of scissors. Farid said: “Forgive me—what shall I do with scissors? My work is not to cut, but to join. If you want to give, bring me a needle and thread.” Saints join; pundits cut. The world is so fragmented because of pundits—three hundred religions! The pundit seeks differences—subtle differences. The saint seeks the non-difference, the bridge between two. So the real opposition is not between saint and sinner; it is between saint and pundit. Religions are born with saints and destroyed by pundits. As soon as a religion is born, the pundits take over.

Within you the heart is the element of sadhuta because it is untrained. The intellect has been trained by society; the heart by God. There is no university for the heart. No method to train love has ever been found—blessed we are! If ever found, it will be a great misfortune; you will become machines. Your intellect is already mechanical; your heart is not fully mechanized—nature still beats there, God still gives notes. Through the intellect you cannot reach God; that is why no one reaches through scripture. One reaches through the heart—love, prayer, trust. When we say “sadhu,” we address your heart. So don’t “think” about what is said—understand it. The heart understands; the intellect thinks. They do not match. The intellect argues; the heart sees. The heart has eyes; the intellect is the blind man’s stick.

“Listen, O Brother Sadhus” means: Listen with the heart, with simplicity; not with logic and thought, but with feeling and love—such a one will understand.

Now let us take Kabir’s verse. Let each word sink into the heart.

“Maya, the great swindler—this I have come to know.”

What is maya? That principle by which the One appears as two.

When drunk, you see one man on the road as two; one house appears as two; one door as two.

Mulla Nasruddin was seeing off a friend. They drank late into the night. On the dark, deserted path, the friend asked for directions. Nasruddin said: “Just mind one thing—after a hundred steps you will come to a place where you’ll see two roads. Turn left, because there is no road to the right—only the appearance of one. I say from experience—I have turned right many times and got lost. There is no road there.”

Another time, in a tavern, Nasruddin told his son: “Look, in that corner there are four men—when you start seeing eight, stop; go straight home.” The son said: “Father, I see only two.” Nasruddin had started much earlier!

When drunk, you shake within, and by that inner shake the world appears to shake. When drunk, you split into two within: your essence cannot be drunk—consciousness never goes unconscious; the intoxication reaches the body and mind, not the soul. As soon as intoxication enters, you divide—soul on one side, body-mind on the other. And body and mind are one continuum—gross and subtle forms of the same. You shake within, and everything appears to shake.

Maya is a drunkenness.

Kabir says:
“Maya, the great swindler—this I have come to know.
She loops her noose around the formless, sways with Him,
and speaks in honeyed tones.
She sits as Lakshmi with Keshav (Vishnu),
as Bhavani in Shiva’s abode.”

Understand this a little. Rama with Sita, Krishna with Radha, Shiva with Shakti, Vishnu with Lakshmi—these Hindu symbols were chosen because of you. You are split in two; the divine cannot appear one for you. Because you tremble within under the spell of maya, you see Shiva and Shakti as two. When your trembling ceases, suddenly you will see Shiva and Shakti as one—the image of Ardhanarishwara. Lakshmi dissolves into Vishnu and Vishnu into Lakshmi; one remains. The two are because of your inner tremor.

Who makes you tremble? You may not drink wine, but you are drunk—on attachments, on delusions, on ego, on hatred, envy, ambition, greed, anger—you have imbibed many intoxicants. Intoxication is anything that renders you unconscious; it doesn’t only come in bottles—it is woven into life.

Intoxication means a state in which you cannot see clearly; either you see what is not, or you see in a distorted way. When infatuated, you do not see what is; you see what your infatuation projects. When angry, you see something else entirely. Yesterday you passed a woman a hundred times—today, suddenly she seems the most beautiful woman ever; what happened? Something inside you—a spell, a trance, a drunkenness. The woman is the same; your inner state has changed. You are projecting your dream upon her. Live with her a while, marry—soon the dream breaks; dreams cannot last; no one can dream twenty-four hours. Truth alone lasts. Then comes disillusion: she seems ordinary, even repulsive; earlier she was golden, now she smells; earlier fragrance—now stench; earlier you couldn’t see sweat—now only that. You begin to see through anger and aversion. The woman is the same; the man is the same; all the difference is within you.

Kabir says:
“Maya, the great swindler—this I have come to know.”
Maya is the name of your art of going unconscious—the process of sleep and dreaming.

A man mad after wealth—what does he see in it? He opens his safe like a lover looking at his beloved—eyes shining with dreams. If you are mad for wealth and find the Koh-i-Noor on the road, you will lose your senses. But it is only a stone—what you see is what you have put into it.

Whatever you see in the world is what you have projected. Those mad for position, for power, run like crazed men.

Once, returning on a drizzly night, Nasruddin met a local politician who said, “Without an umbrella?” Nasruddin didn’t want to admit he couldn’t afford one. He said: “This is a spiritual exercise, a meditation experiment—God is showering and you fools hold umbrellas? Throw them away; stand and see—great revelation!” The politician was skeptical but tried it; he returned furious: “All night I shivered with fever! Only water ran down my neck.” Nasruddin said: “Is that not revelation enough? Continue the practice—greater experiences will come!”

Unless the inner state changes, you will not find God anywhere—whatever you find will be the world, because your eyes will see through themselves. The real issue is not searching for God but breaking inner unconsciousness. An unconscious man will find unconsciousness everywhere.

If inner sleep breaks, dreaming breaks, wherever you are, God will be available—He alone surrounds you. The miracle is how you miss Him; you must be deeply anesthetized.

Someone asked Mahavira: “Who is a sadhu?” He said: “One who is awake.” And the non-sadhu? “One who is asleep.”

Within you there is a mechanism for waking and a mechanism for sleeping. You can sleep and dream; you can also know truth. Sleep is called maya.

At night you dream—only if you fall asleep first. Likewise, as you see the world now—you see God in money, beauty in bone and flesh, life’s juice in food, art in clothing; you take the non-essential for essential; the essential escapes you—clearly, you are asleep, dreaming.

“Maya, the great swindler—this I have come to know.”
Maya is not a metaphysical entity; philosophers made it a heavy doctrine and confused everyone—Shankara struggles: if everything is Brahman, how does maya arise? There can be no answer. Maya is psychological, not philosophical. It relates to you, not to Brahman. It is your shadow, not Brahman’s. It is your unconsciousness. As awareness and witnessing grow, maya dissolves. If it were Brahman’s, how could you dissolve it?

The word “maya” is akin to “magic”—the power to weave illusions. Fear on a dark road—rustling leaves become footsteps; the shape of trees becomes ghosts. If you don’t know it’s a cremation ground, nothing happens; if you know—even where there is none—you’ll be in trouble.

A friend of mine boasted he feared nothing. Those who boast of fearlessness are afraid—otherwise, why boast? I arranged for him to sleep in a warehouse full of empty oil drums; at night the drums expand and contract, making eerie sounds. At two in the morning he screamed; he couldn’t come down through the room; we had to put a ladder at the window. He fell off shaking. I explained the drums; he said: “Impossible. I saw ghosts moving from drum to drum—saw with my eyes!” This is “experience” born of maya. Much of what old people say “from experience” is like this—valuable only when one has awakened from maya.

Thus Kabir says:
“Maya, the great swindler—this I have come to know.
She loops her noose around the formless, sways with Him,
and speaks in honeyed tones.”

And she must be sweet—otherwise, how would so many be ensnared? She shows beautiful dreams, an iridescent world—irresistible, and you chase. Everyone runs after their own dreams. You never attain them because they do not exist; in the end your hands are empty. Even if you get everything, your hands are empty. Death comes and all dreams shatter; the precious opportunity is wasted. Children chase butterflies; look closely—old people chase them too. The butterflies have changed—paper money, positions, Delhi is salvation! The old collect diamonds; the child picks pebbles—what is the difference? If no human eye were there, what difference between a pebble and the Koh-i-Noor? Yet Queen Victoria, who had everything, coveted that stone like a wound.

As long as you have not awakened—born anew in awareness—whatever you do will be foolish; whatever arises out of maya is foolish.

Understand one thing clearly. When I speak of maya, I have no use for the metaphysical debate of maya and Brahman—nor does Kabir. Maya is your inner unconsciousness—your sleep and dream. Therefore meditation is useful: it breaks maya by awakening. When you awaken, you do not find the “world”—you find Brahman. As long as maya is within, you cannot see truth.

“She loops her noose around the formless, sways with Him,
and speaks in honeyed tones.”
The ring of coins sounds so sweet; a beautiful face calls so sweetly; a position beckons so sweetly; later all turns bitter, but the beginning is sweet—like sugar-coated poison. Keep a criterion: where pleasure comes first and pain later, it is born of maya; where hardship comes first and joy later, it is not. This is the definition of tapas—austerity: pain first, bliss later. Bhoga—indulgence—is pleasure first, pain later. Pleasure always greets you at the door—the servant of maya—pain lurks behind. In sadhana, when you seek truth with mumuksha, initial discomfort appears; if you fear it, you will never wake from maya. If you accept it, it soon vanishes and great bliss opens. Choosing pain consciously is tapas. The paradox: he who chases pleasure finds pain; he who is ready for pain becomes heir to supreme joy. Understand this arithmetic thoroughly; without it you cannot break maya’s honeyed speech.

“She sits as Lakshmi with Keshav,
as Bhavani in Shiva’s abode.
She sits as an idol for the priest,
as water at the holy places.
She sits as yogini for the yogi,
as queen in the king’s palace.
For some she is the diamond,
for others a chipped cowrie shell.
She sits as devotion in the devotees,
as Brahmani for Brahma.
Says Kabir, listen, O brother sadhus,
this is an unutterable tale.”

Kabir says: I tell you what cannot be said—because language serves logic; this truth is illogical: you suffer because you seek happiness. We prefer to think our suffering is caused by others: husband by wife, wife by husband, child by father, father by child. That seems logical—why would I cause my own suffering when I seek happiness? But the tale is unutterable: precisely because you desire happiness, you suffer. Until you are ready for pain, you will keep suffering; the day you accept pain, you move beyond suffering.

If someone says, “You are lost because you are searching,” it sounds contradictory. If someone says, “Stop, and you will find,” it sounds paradoxical—but it is true. As long as you run, you will not find—because what you seek is hidden within you. Run in any direction—you will go astray. Geography counts ten directions; I say there are eleven: ten outward, and the inner. The inner is never counted—yet that is where it will be found. You are seeking yourself—whichever outer direction you choose, it will be wrong. The more you run, the farther you go.

Stop. Drop all directions. Stay where you are. Rest within, where you are. This is the meaning of sahaj—no method, no effort, nowhere to go; quietly be where you are—for there lies all that is sought. Running is maya; stopping is Brahman. If you run, thought is required; the mind maps paths and methods; the mind must be employed if there is a journey. And the mind is what must be dropped. Mind is maya. When the mind stops—no journey, not even pilgrimage—you have arrived. Then you laugh at how much you ran in searching. You laugh that running itself prevented finding. You laugh that you were the cause of your own suffering, blaming others.

So long as you think others cause your suffering, you will wander—no one gives you suffering, only your own way of living. Your way is mired in maya.

Think: a thief steals your money—does the thief cause your pain, or your attachment to money? Without attachment, if a thief took it, you might feel lighter, grateful: “Thank you for easing my burden.” Your wife dies—you beat your chest and accuse God of cruelty. But is it God or your attachment that hurts? You had equated that woman with your happiness; now that she is gone, you suffer. Whenever you are miserable, you are the cause. As this realization deepens, you begin to dismantle the machinery of misery. If you still want suffering, choose it—but then don’t complain or blame others.

Someone abuses you, and you say: “If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be angry.” No one is angered by abuse—anger arises because you carry an ego that is hurt by insult. Without ego, the insult passes like a breeze; you remain untouched. Often when you injure your foot, that spot gets bumped all day—because the wound is there. The world isn’t suddenly out to hurt you; the wound makes you sensitive. Similarly, you blossom with praise and wilt with blame—what slavery! The other is not responsible; you are. The more you look, the more you will find you are responsible. That is maya. Drop what brings suffering. Thank the one who insults you—and remove the inner wound.

Kabir says: “Keep your critic close—build him a hut in your courtyard.” Let the one who abuses you live nearby, so you can constantly become aware of your ego. The real task is to drop the ego. But you can only look within when you stop blaming others.

This inner blindness is maya, and it takes countless forms—dreams can take any form. Thus Kabir says: for the devotee, even devotion can become maya; he clings to it. For the priest, the idol becomes maya; even the water at a pilgrimage becomes maya.

I once stayed in a Punjabi house. I saw the Guru Granth Sahib placed in a room—next to it, a water pot and a toothbrush twig. I asked why. “For the Guru Granth Sahib’s morning brushing.” A book—not even a statue! Naming it “Sahib”—a person—you begin feeding it, putting it to sleep. Maya sits wherever attachment sits.

People even become angry with, or pleased by, an idol. They bargain: “If my son gets a job in fifteen days, I’ll be your devotee forever”—and attribute success to Hanuman! As if Hanuman runs an employment exchange. And if later things go wrong, they get angry, throw the idol into a well. Such devotion is part of maya—where there is demand, there is desire; prayer has nothing to do with desire. When desire drops, what remains to “pray”? Your whole life becomes prayer—gratefulness. Existence gives you far more than you need. God has given you the capacity to awaken—to be a Buddha—is that not enough? Yet you will worship only for a job?

A devotee feels: what I have received is more than enough. The non-devotee prays for more. By this measure, you will find non-devotees in temples—the devotee finds the whole existence a temple; wherever he is, is a temple; whatever he does is prayer.

Kabir says: “Whatever I do is worship.” No one saw Kabir going to temples; Kashi’s priests never accepted him. When dying, he said: “Take me to Maghar.” The tale says: one who dies in Maghar becomes a donkey; one who dies in Kashi is liberated. Kabir lived in Kashi but chose to die in Maghar, saying: “If I die in Kashi and go to heaven, where is my merit? Better to die in Maghar and go to heaven.” It was Kabir’s jest—and courage. If you trust God, what difference Kashi or Maghar?

People go to Kashi to die; live like donkeys in Maghar, die in Kashi, thinking they’ll be liberated. Kabir lived like a saint in Kashi and went to die in Maghar. People think, “Live anyhow; just take the Name at death.” But note: at death you will not be able to take the Name—only what you lived will arise. Priests whisper “Ram” into the ears of the dying for five rupees, while the dying man gathers the seeds of maya for his next birth; both are counting money, and Ram is stuck in between.

Kabir is right:
“She loops her noose around the formless, sways with Him,
and speaks in honeyed tones.”
All seem ensnared—priests, pundits, devotees. Maya’s forms change; the entanglement doesn’t. Wherever you find yourself entangled, search within—you will find maya. Wherever you are bound, cut slowly, understandingly. I say “understandingly,” because people often cut unthinkingly—then the story remains half-finished and starts afresh elsewhere. You leave this wife—another will appear. Leave the house and run to an ashram—attachment will grow there. Don’t chop crudely with an axe; ripening is needed—maturity, awareness. Don’t be in a hurry; God is not in a hurry. Deepen understanding. As it clears, you will see: the pain is not in the abuse but in the ego. Try to understand the ego. When understanding is complete, you will find a dry leaf within—falling of its own accord. No axe needed. Our so-called sadhus and renunciates wield axes; wounds remain; in new places they fill the old wounds. The same race, in new names.

Ripen. Let understanding flower. When it is whole, bondage vanishes. You are free.

“Maya, the great swindler—this I have come to know.
Says Kabir: listen, O brother sadhus, this is an unutterable tale.”

With this sutra we begin. The whole tale is “unsayable,” yet Kabir has said it—simply, sweetly, clearly. No net of logic. Straight, unlearned words. Don’t weave logic around him; let his feeling enter you. If Kabir’s bhava penetrates your heart, you will not have to “do” anything for samadhi.

Understanding is enough—understanding is revolution and transformation. One has to “do” only because understanding is not yet enough; hence meditation, hence practice—to increase your capacity to understand.

In this samadhi camp, do the meditation experiments with your whole being. They will give momentary glimpses of the supreme state toward which Kabir points. If you hold back even a little, you will miss. Dive in totally. Do all that is yours to do and leave the rest to God. If even then it doesn’t happen, it is not your responsibility. But don’t offer half-measures to God; His hand comes only when you have used yours completely.

Once a boat was caught in a storm; people began to pray; a fakir sat quietly. After the storm they rebuked him: “We expected you, of all people, to pray!” He said: “Until we have done all we can, we are not entitled to pray; God’s hand comes when ours are done. As long as there is something left for you to do, you don’t need God.”

In the meditations, immerse yourself completely. If you keep nothing back, suddenly you will feel a hand on your head; you will be lifted; a boat will carry you to the other shore. Then ‘without doing, all is done.’ Not before. Do your uttermost, then His begins.

Enough for today.