"Between the
conscious and unconscious, the mind has put up a swing"
Kabir
Poems
__"Kabir says: Friend, listen, this is what I have
to say: The Guest I love is inside me!
"Where Do You Search Where do you search me? I am
with you Not in pilgrimage, nor in icons Neither in solicitudes Not
in temples, nor in mosques Neither in Kaba nor in Kailash"
__"I am with you O man I am with you Not in prayers, nor in meditation
Neither in fasting Not in yogi exercises Neither in renunciation Neither
in the vital force nor in the body"
Book "The soul is here
for its own joy" Robert Bly Translation
__"Between the conscious and unconscious, the mind
has put up a swing"
__"The yogi comes along in his famous orange but
if inside he is colorless, the what?
__"The truth is you turned. Away yourself, and decided
to go into the dark alone. Now you are tangled up in others , and have
forgotten what you once knew, and that's why everything you do has some
weird fail in it"
__"The spiritual athlete often changes the color
of his clothes, and his mind remains gray and loveless. He sits inside
a shrine room all day, so that the guest has to go outdoors and praise
the rocks. Or he drills holes in his ears, his beard grows enormous
and matted, people mistake him for a goat.... he goes out into wilderness
areas, strangles his impulses, and makes himself neither male nor fame....
he shaves his skull, puts his robe in an orange vat, reads the Bhagavad-Gita,
and becomes a terrific talker. Kabir says: actually you are going in
a hearse to the country of death, bound hand and foot!
Who is Kabir?
(1440 - 1518) (also known as Kabira)
was an Indian mystic who preached an ideal of seeing all of humanity
as one. He was known to be a weaver and later became famed for scorning
religious affiliation, seen as a threat to the elite. His philosophies
and ideas of loving devotion to God are expressed in metaphor and language
from both the Hindu Vedanta and Bhakti streams and Muslim Sufi ideals.
Kabir is also considered one of the early northern India Sants. He was
initiated by Ramananda. Watch
His Bio on Documentary Film
Watch
Robert Bly performs the poetry of Kabir at one of
the Mythic Journeys conferences. Musical accompaniment by Eugene Friesen
and Arto Tuncboyaciyan.
