Songs of Kabir — trans. Rabindranath Tagore, with an introduction by Evelyn Underhill (1915)

O my heart! the Supreme Spirit, the great Master, is near you: wake, oh wake! Run to the feet of your Beloved: for your Lord stands near to your head. You have slept for unnumbered ages; this morning will you not wake?

XX

II. 22. _man tu pâr utar kânh jaiho_

To what shore would you cross, O my heart? there is no traveller before you, there is no road: Where is the movement, where is the rest, on that shore? There is no water; no boat, no boatman, is there; There is not so much as a rope to tow the boat, nor a man to draw it. No earth, no sky, no time, no thing, is there: no shore, no ford! There, there is neither body nor mind: and where is the place that shall still the thirst of the soul? You shall find naught in that emptiness. Be strong, and enter into your own body: for there your foothold is firm. Consider it well, O my heart! go not elsewhere, Kabîr says: "Put all imaginations away, and stand fast in that which you are."

XXI

II. 33. _ghar ghar dîpak barai_

Lamps burn in every house, O blind one! and you cannot see them.
One day your eyes shall suddenly be opened, and you shall see:
and the fetters of death will fall from you.
There is nothing to say or to hear, there is nothing to do: it is
he who is living, yet dead, who shall never die again.

Because he lives in solitude, therefore the Yogi says that his
home is far away.
Your Lord is near: yet you are climbing the palm-tree to seek
Him.
The Brâhman priest goes from house to house and initiates people
into faith:
Alas! the true fountain of life is beside you., and you have set
up a stone to worship.
Kabîr says: "I may never express how sweet my Lord is. Yoga and
the telling of beads, virtue and vice--these are naught to Him."

XXII

II. 38. _Sâdho, so satgur mohi bhâwai_

O brother, my heart yearns for that true Guru, who fills the cup
of true love, and drinks of it himself, and offers it then to
me.
He removes the veil from the eyes, and gives the true Vision of
Brahma:
He reveals the worlds in Him, and makes me to hear the Unstruck
Music:
He shows joy and sorrow to be one:
He fills all utterance with love.
Kabîr says: "Verily he has no fear, who has such a Guru to lead
him to the shelter of safety!"

XXIII

II. 40. _tinwir sâñjh kâ gahirâ âwai_

The shadows of evening fall thick and deep, and the darkness of
love envelops the body and the mind.
Open the window to the west, and be lost in the sky of love;
Drink the sweet honey that steeps the petals of the lotus of the
heart.
Receive the waves in your body: what splendour is in the region
of the sea!
Hark! the sounds of conches and bells are rising.
Kabîr says: "O brother, behold! the Lord is in this vessel of my
body."

XXIV

II. 48. _jis se rahani apâr jagat men_

More than all else do I cherish at heart that love which makes me to live a limitless life in this world. It is like the lotus, which lives in the water and blooms in the water: yet the water cannot touch its petals, they open beyond its reach. It is like a wife, who enters the fire at the bidding of love. She burns and lets others grieve, yet never dishonours love. This ocean of the world is hard to cross: its waters are very deep. Kabîr says: "Listen to me, O Sadhu! few there are who have reached its end."

XXV

II. 45. _Hari ne apnâ âp chipâyâ_

My Lord hides Himself, and my Lord wonderfully reveals Himself:
My Lord has encompassed me with hardness, and my Lord has cast
down my limitations.
My Lord brings to me words of sorrow and words of joy, and He
Himself heals their strife.
I will offer my body and mind to my Lord: I will give up my life,
but never can I forget my Lord!

XXVI

II. 75. _ônkâr siwae kôî sirjai_

All things are created by the Om;
The love-form is His body.
He is without form, without quality, without decay:
Seek thou union with Him!
But that formless God takes a thousand forms in the eyes of His
creatures:
He is pure and indestructible,
His form is infinite and fathomless,
He dances in rapture, and waves of form arise from His dance.
The body and the mind cannot contain themselves, when they are
touched by His great joy.
He is immersed in all consciousness, all joys, and all sorrows;
He has no beginning and no end;
He holds all within His bliss.

XXVII

II. 81. _satgur sôî dayâ kar dînhâ_