Kabir

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Swan, I'd like you to tell me your whole story!

Where you first appeared, and what dark sand you

Are flying toward.

& where you sleep at night & what you are looking for.

It is morning - wake up! Climb in the air & follow me.

I know of a place not ruled by flatness

Or constant risings & depressions,

& those alive are not afraid to die.

There wild flowers come up through the leafy floor,

& the fragrance of "I am he" floats on the wind.

There the love bee stays deep inside the flower

& cares for no other thing.

Listen, friend, this body is his steel guitar.

He draws the strings tight, & out of it

Comes the music of the entire universe.

If the string breaks & the bridge falls

Then this fine instrument of dust

Goes back to dust.

Kabir says: the Holy One is the only one who can draw

Music from that which you are.

Don't go outside your house to see the flowers -

My friend, don't bother with that excursion.

Inside your own body there are flowers…

One has a thousand petals!

Won't that do for a place to sit?

Sitting there you will have a glimpse of Reality -

Inside the body and out, a garden in a garden.

The spiritual athlete often changes the color of his clothes

& his mind remains gray and loveless.

He sits inside a shrine room all day, so the Guest has to go

Outside and praise the rocks.

Or he drills holes in his ears, his beard grows enormous & matted, people

mistake him for a goat.

He goes out into wilderness areas, strangles his impulses,

And makes himself neither male nor female.

He shaves his skull & puts his robe in an orange vat,

Reads the Bhagavad Gita & becomes a terrific talker.

Kabir says: the truth is, you are riding in a hearse to the country of

death, bound hand & foot.

Friend, please tell me what I can do about these

ever-changing dramas I keep spinning out?

I gave up my fashionable clothes & had a robe made,

but I noticed the cloth was well-woven.

I traded the fine cloth for worn burlap

But I still threw it elegantly over my left shoulder.

I tried to forget my sexual longings

And now I feel angry a lot.

I gave up rage and now I feel greedy all day.

I worked hard at dissolving the greed

And now I am proud of myself.

When the mind tries to break its link with one thing

It clings to another thing.

Kabir says, Listen, my friend, there are very few who find the center.

The Guest is inside you and also inside me.

The sprout is there 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 further and further,

The daily sense of failure fades away…

The damage I have done myself becomes preparation

And a million suns come forward with light.

I hear bells ringing that no one has shaken -

Inside "love" there is more joy than we know.

Rain pours down through a clear sky

And the rivers of light are full.

The ocean of this being knows a fathomless love -

That is the fulfillment of life in this body.

Those who hope to be reasonable about it fail.

The arrogance of reason has parted us from love -

With the word "reason" you are already lost,

Feeling thousands of miles from where you are.

How lucky is Kabir, surrounded by all this joy;

He sings inside his own little boat -

His poems are about a soul meeting itself;

They amount to forgetting buying and loss,

They flow beyond coming and going.

Have you heard the music that no fingers play,

For inside one's own house

The open chord ringing -

What is the sense of going outside?

Suppose you rub your ethical skin until it shines,

But inside there is no music -

Then what?

Mohammed's son repeats his prayers

And realizes the inner meaning -

But if his chest is not soaked dark with love -

Then what?

The yogi comes along in his famous orange,

But if inside he is colorless -

Then what?

Kabir says: Every instant that the sun is risen,

If I stand in the temple or on a balcony,

In hot fields or in a walled garden,

My own Lord is making love with me.

At last the notes of the flute come in

& I cannot stop dancing around the floor.

The blossom opens, even though it is not May.

The bee knows the secret of the blossom,

For him it is always open.

The air over the ocean is troubled;

There is a painful flash, heavy seas rise in my chest.

Rain pours down outside

And inside I long for the Guest.

Something inside me has reached the place

Where the whole world is within me breathing.

The flags we cannot see are flying over

The peak of the mountain.

Kabir says: My desire body is dying and my heart's desire

Is being born.

The woman who is separated from her lover spins at the spinning wheel.

The Bhagdad of the body rises majestically with its towers and gates.

Inside, the palace of clear light is open.

The wheel of ecstatic love turns round in the sky.

& the spinning seat is made of the jewels of work & study.

The threads the woman weaves are subtle,

And the intensity of her love makes them shine.

Kabir says, "I am that woman."

I am wearing the linen of night and day.

When my lover comes I fall to his feet,

& the gift I will have for him is tears.

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