How humble is God?...by Kabir

God is the Tree in the forests 
that allows itself to die 
and will not defend itself 
in front of those with the ax, 
not wanting to cause them shame.

And God is the Earth
that will allow itself
to be deformed by man’s tools,
but He cries; yes, God cries,
but only in front of His closest ones.

And a beautiful Animal is being beaten to death,
but nothing can make God break His silence
to the masses
and say,
‘Stop, please stop,
why are you doing this
to Me?’

How humble is God?
Kabir wept
when I
knew.

~ Kabir
From: Love Poems from God: by Daniel Ladinsky.

I long for the bliss of divine union....by Kabir

When will that day dawn, 
When the One I took birth for
Holds me to His heart with deathless Love ?

I long for the bliss of divine union.
I long to lose my body, mind, and soul
And become one with my Beloved .
When will that day dawn ?

Beloved , fulfill now the longing I have had
Since before the universe was made.

Enter me completely and release me.
In terrible lonely years without You
I yearn and yearn for You.

I spend sleepless nights hunting for You,
Gazing into darkness after You,
With unblinking hopeless eyes.
When will that day dawn ?

When will my Beloved hold me to His heart ?
My empty bed, like a hungry tigress,
Devours me whenever I try to sleep.

Listen to your slave's prayer
Come and put out this blaze of agony
That consumes my soul and body.
When will He hold me to His heart?
When will that day dawn ?

Kabir sings,
"If I ever meet You, my Beloved,
I'll cling to you so fiercely You melt into me;
I'll sing from inside You songs of union,
World-dissolving songs of Eternal Bliss."

~ Kabir

The Home...by Kabir

HE is dear to me indeed 
who can call back the wanderer to his home. 

In the home is the true union, 
in the home is enjoyment of life: 
why should I forsake my home and wander in the forest? 

If Creator helps me to realize truth, verily
I will find both bondage and deliverance in home.

He is dear to me indeed who has power to dive deep into Him; whose mind loses itself with ease in His contemplation.

He is dear to me who knows Him,
and can dwell on His supreme truth in meditation;
and who can play the melody of the Infinite
by uniting love and renunciation in life.

Kabîr says:
"The home is the abiding place; in the home is reality;
the home helps to attain Him Who is real.
So stay where you are, and all things shall come to you in time."

~ Kabir
The Songs of Kabir,
Trans by Rabindranath Tagore
Art by Yuliya Glavnaya

Because you are not with me....by Kabir

"My body and my mind are in depression

because you are not with me.
How much I love you and want you in my house!

When I hear people describe me as your bride
I look sideways ashamed,
because I know that far inside us
we have never met.

Then what is this love of mine?

I don’t really care about food,
I don’t really care about sleep
I am restless indoors and outdoors.

The bride wants her lover
as much as a thirsty man wants water.

And how will I find someone
who will take a message to the Guest from me?

How restless Kabir is all the time!
How much he wants to see the Guest!"

~ KABIR
The Songs of Kabir, tr. by Rabindranath Tagore
( What is this Love of mine?)

Inside this clay jug...by Kabir

Inside this clay jug
there are canyons and
pine mountains,
and the maker of canyons
and pine mountains!

All seven oceans are inside,
and hundreds of millions of stars.

The acid that tests gold is here,
and the one who judges jewels.

And the music
that comes from the strings
that no one touches,
and the source of all water.

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

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

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

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

Here is Kabir's idea :
as the river gives itself into the ocean,
what is inside me moves inside you.

~ KABIR
version by Robert Bly
From The Kabir book: forty-four ecstatic poems by Kabir (1977)

Oh friend, I love you.....by Kabir

Oh friend, I love you, 
think this over carefully! 

If you are in love,
then why are you asleep? 

If you have found him,
give yourself to him, take him.

Why do you lose track of him
again and again?

If you are about to fall into heavy sleep anyway,
why waste time smoothing the bed
and arranging the pillows?

Kabir will tell you the truth:
this is what love is like:

suppose you had to cut your head off
and give it to someone else,
what difference would that make?

~ Kabir
Kabir: Ecstatic Poems
Trans by Robert Bly

Oh Companion That Abode Is Unmatched, Where My Complete Beloved Is..by Kabir

Oh Companion That Abode Is Unmatched,
Where My Complete Beloved Is.

In that Place There Is No Happiness or Unhappiness, 
No Truth or Untruth
Neither Sin Nor Virtue.
There Is No Day or Night, No Moon or Sun,
There Is Radiance Without Light.

There Is No Knowledge or Meditation
No Repetition of Mantra or Austerities,
Neither Speech Coming From Vedas or Books.
Doing, Not-Doing, Holding, Leaving
All These Are All Lost Too In This Place.

No Home, No Homeless, Neither Outside or Inside,
Micro and Macrocosm Are Non-Existent.
Five Elemental Constituents and the Trinity Are Both Not There
Witnessing Un-struck Shabad Sound is Also Not There.

No Root or Flower, Neither Branch or Seed,
Without a Tree Fruits are Adorning,
Primordial Om Sound, Breath-Synchronized Soham, 
This and That - All Are Absent, The Breath Too Unknown

Where the Beloved Is There is Utterly Nothing
Says Kabir I Have Come To Realize.
Whoever Sees My Indicative Sign
Will Accomplish the Goal of Liberation.
~KABIR

The Guest is inside you, and also inside me...by Kabir

The Guest is inside you, and also inside me;
you know the sprout is hidden inside the seed.

We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.
Let your arrogance go, and look around inside.

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

I hear bells ringing that no one has shaken;
inside love there is more joy than we know of;
rain pours down, although the sky is clear of clouds;
there are whole rivers of light.

The universe is shot through in all parts by a single sort of love.
How hard it is to feel that joy in all our four bodies!

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

How lucky Kabir is, that surrounded by all this joy
he sings inside his own little boat.
His poems amount to one soul meeting another.

These songs are about forgetting dying and loss.
They rise above both coming in and going out.

~ Kabir

The melody of love...BY Kabir

THE light of the sun, the moon, 
and the stars shines bright:

The melody of love swells forth, 
and the rhythm of love's detachment beats the time.

Day and night, the chorus of music fills the heavens; 
and Kabîr says
"My Beloved One gleams like the lightning flash in the sky."

Do you know 
how the moments perform their adoration?
Waving its row of lamps, 
the universe sings in worship day and night,

There are the hidden banner and the secret canopy:
There the sound of the unseen bells is heard.

Kabîr says: 
"There adoration never ceases; 
there the Lord of the Universe sitteth on His throne." 

The whole world does its works and commits its errors: 
but few are the lovers who know the Beloved.

The devout seeker is he who mingles in his heart 
the double currents of love and detachment, 
like the mingling of the streams of Ganges and Jumna;

In his heart the sacred water flows day and night; 
and thus the round of births and deaths is brought to an end.

Behold what wonderful rest is in the Supreme Spirit! 
and he enjoys it, who makes himself meet for it.

Held by the cords of love, 
the swing of the Ocean of Joy sways to and fro; 
and a mighty sound breaks forth in song.

See what a lotus blooms there without water! 
and Kabîr says
"My heart's bee drinks its nectar." 
What a wonderful lotus it is, 
that blooms at the heart of the spinning wheel of the universe! 
Only a few pure souls know of its true delight.

Music is all around it, 
and there the heart partakes of the joy of the Infinite Sea.
Kabîr says: "Dive thou into that Ocean of sweetness: 
thus let all errors of life and of death flee away."


Behold how the thirst of the five senses is quenched there! 
and the three forms of misery are no more!
Kabîr says: "It is the sport of the Unattainable One: 
look within, and behold 
how the moon-beams of that Hidden One shine in you."

There falls the rhythmic beat of life and death: 
Rapture wells forth, and all space is radiant with light.
There the Unstruck Music is sounded; 
it is the music of the love of the three worlds.

There millions of lamps of sun and of moon are burning;
There the drum beats, and the lover swings in play.
There love-songs resound, and light rains in showers; 
and the worshipper is entranced in the taste of the heavenly nectar.

Look upon life and death; 
there is no separation between them,
The right hand and the left hand are one and the same.
Kabîr says: "There the wise man is speechless; 
for this truth may never be found in Vadas or in books."

I have had my Seat on the Self-poised One, 
I have drunk of the Cup of the Ineffable,
I have found the Key of the Mystery,
I have reached the Root of Union.

Travelling by no track, 
I have come to the Sorrowless Land: 
very easily has the mercy of the great Lord come upon me.
They have sung of Him as infinite and unattainable: 
but I in my meditations have seen Him without sight.

That is indeed the sorrowless land, 
and none know the path that leads there:
Only he who is on that path has surely transcended all sorrow.
Wonderful is that land of rest, to which no merit can win;
It is the wise who has seen it, it is the wise who has sung of it.

This is the Ultimate Word: 
but can any express its marvellous savour? 
He who has savoured it once, he knows what joy it can give.

Kabîr says: "Knowing it, the ignorant man becomes wise, 
and the wise man becomes speechless and silent,
The worshipper is utterly inebriated,
His wisdom and his detachment are made perfect;
He drinks from the cup of the inbreathings and the outbreathings of love."

There the whole sky is filled with sound, 
and there that music is made without fingers and without strings;
There the game of pleasure and pain does not cease.
Kabîr says: "If you merge your life in the Ocean of Life, 
you will find your life in the Supreme Land of Bliss."

What a frenzy of ecstasy there is in every hour! 
and the worshipper is pressing out and drinking the essence of the hours: 
he lives in the life of Brahma.

I speak truth, for I have accepted truth in life; 
I am now attached to truth, I have swept all tinsel away.
Kabîr says: 
"Thus is the worshipper set free from fear; 
thus have all errors of life and of death left him."

There the sky is filled with music:
There it rains nectar:
There the harp-strings jingle, and there the drums beat.
What a secret splendour is there, in the mansion of the sky!

There no mention is made of the rising and the setting of the sun;
In the ocean of manifestation, which is the light of love, 
day and night are felt to be one. 

Joy for ever, no sorrow,--no struggle!
There have I seen joy filled to the brim, perfection of joy;
No place for error is there.
Kabîr says: "There have I witnessed the sport of One Bliss!"

I have known in my body the sport of the universe: 
I have escaped from the error of this world..

The inward and the outward are become as one sky, 
the Infinite and the finite are united: 
I am drunken with the sight of this All!

This Light of Thine fulfils the universe: 
the lamp of love that burns on the salver of knowledge.
Kabîr says: "There error cannot enter, 
and the conflict of life and death is felt no more."

~ Kabir 
The Songs of Kabir, 
tr. by Rabindranath Tagore

Do not go to the garden of flowers...by Kabir

Do not go 
to the garden of flowers! 

O Friend! 
Go not there; 

In your body 
is the garden of flowers.

Take your seat 
on the thousand petals 
of the lotus, 
and there gaze 
on the Infinite Beauty.

Hiding in this cage 
of visible matter 
is the invisible lifebird. 

Pay attention 
to her 
She is singing 
your song. 

~ Kabir
Art by Christopher Beikmann

When my Beloved comes ....by Kabir

THE Lover who is parted from her Beloved 
spins at the spinning wheel.

The city of the body arises in its beauty; 
and within it the palace of the mind has been built.

The wheel of love revolves in the sky, 
and the seat is made of the jewels of knowledge:

What subtle threads the lover weaves, 
and makes them fine with love and reverence !

Kabîr says: 
"I am weaving the garland of day and night. 
When my Beloved comes 
and touches me with His kiss, 
I shall offer Him my tears."

~ Kabir 
The Songs of Kabir, 
tr. by Rabindranath Tagore
Art by Ekaterina Prozheyko

MY heart cries....by Kabir

MY heart cries aloud for the house of my lover; 
the open road and the shelter of a roof are all one to her 
who has lost the city of her Beloved.

My heart finds no joy in anything: 
my mind and my body are distraught.
His palace has a million gates, 
but there is a vast ocean between it and me:
How shall I cross it, O friend? 
for endless is the outstretching of the path.

How wondrously this lyre is wrought! 
When its strings are rightly strung, 
it maddens the heart: 
but when the keys are broken 
and the strings are loosened, 
none regard it more.

I tell my friends with laughter 
that I must go to my Beloved in the morning; 
They are angry, for they do not want me to go, 
and they say: 
"She thinks she has gained such dominion over her Beloved 
that she can have whatsoever she wishes; 
and therefore she is impatient to go to him."

Dear friend, lift my veil lightly now; 
for this is the night of love.

Kabîr says: 
"Listen to me! 
My heart is eager to meet my lover: 
I lie sleepless upon my bed. 
Remember me early in the morning!"

~ Kabir 
The Songs of Kabir, 
tr. by Rabindranath Tagore
Art by Natalia Tejera