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About Kabir



Kabir Das (1398 – 1448) was a 15th-century Indian mystic poet and saint, whose writings influenced Hinduism’s Bhakti movement and his verses are found in Sikhism’s scripture Guru Granth Sahib. His early life was in a Muslim family, but he was strongly influenced by his teacher, the Hindu bhakti leader Ramananda. Wikipedia

References:   Encyclopaedia Britannica

  

Quotes by Kabir

Kabir (quotes)

  • Stand firm in that which you are.
  • Wherever you are is the entry point.
  • I sell mirrors in the city of the blind.
  • The sun is within me and so is the moon.
  • Wherever you are, that’s the entry point.
  • It is the spirit of the quest which helps
  • The essence of life is in remembering God.
  • When the flower opens, the bees will come.
  • Why are we here? To become ourselves in you.
  • The river that flows in you also flows in me.
  • If you haven’t experienced it, it’s not true.
  • Listen, my friend. He who loves understands.
  • Forgiveness is a game only saints play Kabir.
  • Listen to me, my Friend! My beloved Lord is within.
  • I laugh when I hear the fish in the water is thirsty.
  • When you really look for me you will see me instantly.
  • Now I have no caste, no creed, I am no more what I am!
  • My Beloved One gleams like the lightning flash in the sky.
  • All darkness vanished, when I saw the Lamp within my heart.
  • I do not quote from the scriptures; I simply see what I see.
  • What is a holy person? The one who is aware of others’ suffering.
  • Only in the heart can one experience the divine presence of truth.
  • My heart is so intoxicated with love that I have no wish to speak.
  • Student, tell me, what is God? He is the breath inside the breath.
  • Listen to me brother! bring the vision of the Beloved in your heart
  • Wear a crown of flowers on your head, let its roots reach your heart
  • For millions of years you have slept. This morning, will you not wake?
  • The purpose of labor is to learn; when you know it, the labor is over.
  • When the bride is one with her lover, who cares about the wedding party?
  • As the bee collecteth honey with great zest, so the fool collecteth wealth.
  • The fish in the water that is thirsty needs serious professional counseling
  • The flute of the infinite is played without ceasing, and its sound is love.
  • The apple blossom exists to create fruit; when that comes, the petal falls.
  • But if a mirror ever makes you sad you should know that it does not know you.
  • Sing such a song with all of your heart that you’ll never have to sing again.
  • Do what you do with another human being, but never put them out of your heart.
  • Plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is, Believe in the Great Sound!
  • When you feel most alive, find out why, This is one guest you won’t greet twice.
  • As the river surrenders itself to the ocean, what is inside me moves inside you.
  • Listen to your own Self. If you listen to that Self within, then you find the Truth.
  • Are you looking for the Holy One? I am in the next seat. My shoulder is against yours.
  • I went in search of a bad person; I found none as I, seeing myself, found me the worst.
  • I felt in need of a great pilgrimage, so I sat still for three days and God came to me.
  • If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?
  • Just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things, and stand firm in that which you are.
  • The instruction of the foolish is a waste of knowledge; soap cannot wash charcoal white.
  • Lift the veil that obscures the heart, and there you will find what you are looking for.
  • Be strong then, and enter into your own body; there you have a solid place for your feet.
  • Faith,Waiting in the heart of a seed, Promises a miracle of life which cannot prove at once.
  • All know that the drop merges into the ocean but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.
  • A learned man’s knowledge will be of no avail to him if he doesn’t have control over his tongue
  • If you make love with the divine now, in the next lifeyou will have the face of satisfied desire.
  • Reading books everyone died, none became any wise. One who reads the word of Love, only becomes wise.
  • Do not praise yourself not slander others: There are still many days to go and any thing could happen.
  • The external forces conceal from the eyes the deep meaning of existence; True faith resides in the heart.
  • The Lord is in me, the Lord is in you,as life is in every seed, put false pride away and seek the Lord within.
  • Seeking Why run around sprinkling holy water? There’s an ocean inside you, and when you’re ready you’ll drink.
  • The truth of love is the truth of the universe: it is the lamp of the soul that reveals the secrets of darkness
  • The world will die, but I shall not die.If God dies, then I will die;If he does not die, then why should I die?
  • The stone neither speaks nor gives anything. Therefore its service is fruitless and its worship is of no avail.
  • If you want the truth, I’ll tell you the truth. Listen to the secret sound, the real sound, which is inside you.
  • A diamond was laying in the street covered with dirt. Many fools passed by. Someone who knew diamonds picked it up.
  • Don’t open your diamonds in a vegetable market. Tie them in bundle and keep them in your heart, and go your own way.
  • Do you believe there is some place that will make thesoul less thirsty? In that great absence you will find nothing.
  • I’ve burned my own house down, the torch is in my hand.Now I’ll burn down the house of anyone who wants to follow me.
  • Though One Brahman is the Cause of the Many. … Behold but One in all things it is the second that leads you astray.
  • I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. I laugh when I hear that people go on pilgrimage to find God.
  • What is found now is found then. If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
  • Look at you, you madman! Screaming you are thirsty and dying in a desert, when all around you there is nothing but water!
  • I am not a Hindu, Nor a Muslim am II am this body, a playOf five elements a dramaOf the spirit dancing With joy and sorrow.
  • There’s a moon in my body, but I can’t see it! A moon and a sun. A drum never touched by hands, beating, and I can’t hear it!
  • Admire the diamond that can bear the hits of a hammer. Many deceptive preachers, when critically examined, turn out to be false.
  • God, provide me with enough sustenance that my family is taken care of, that neither I remain hungry, nor does my guest go unfed.
  • If it were possible to meet the Beloved while laughing and in a state of comfort, why should one suffer the anguish of separation?
  • Path presupposes distance; If He be near, no path needest thou at all. Verily it maketh me smile To hear of a fish in water athirst!
  • Do not keep the slanderer away, treat him with affection and honor: Body and soul, he scours all clean, babbling about this and that.
  • Love does not grow on trees or brought in the market, but if one wants to be “LOVED” one must first know how to give (unconditional) LOVE.
  • Nada is found within. It is a music without strings which plays in the body. It penetrates the inner and outer and leads you away from illusion.
  • The savor of wandering in the ocean of deathless life has rid me of all my asking: As the tree is in the seed, so all diseases are in this asking.
  • Many have died; you also will die. The drum of death is being beaten. The world has fallen in love with a dream. Only sayings of the wise will remain.
  • I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. You wander restlessly from forest to forest while the Reality is within your own dwelling.
  • Listen to the secret sound, the real sound, which is inside you. The one no one talks of speaks the secret sound to himself, and he is the one who has made it all.
  • Music without words means leaving behind the mind. And leaving behind the mind is meditation. Meditation returns you to the source. And the source of all is sound.
  • When the Guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work. Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.
  • Be quiet in your mind, quiet in your senses, and also quiet in your body. Then, when all these are quiet, don’t do anything. In that state truth will reveal itself to you.
  • I don’t think there is such a thing as an intelligent mega-rich    For who with a fine mind can look  out upon this world and  hoard what can nourish  a thousand  souls.
  • Within the body there is played Music unending, though without stringed instruments  That music of the Word pervades the entire creation  Who listens to it is freed from all illusion
  • Go over and over your beads, paint weird designs on your forehead, wear your hear matted, long, and ostentatious, but when deep inside you there is a loaded gun, how can you have God?
  • There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman. There is not even a rope to tow the boat, and no one to pull it.  There is no earth, no sky, no time, no thing, no shore, no ford!
  • The Beloved is inside you and also inside me. You know the tree is hidden inside the seed. Let your arrogance go. None of us has gone far. Inside love there is more power than we realize.
  • 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.
  • Take a pitcher full of water and set it down in the water-now it has water inside and water outside. We mustn’t give it a name, lest silly people start talking again about the body and the soul.
  • Men have always looked before and after, and rebelled against the existing order. But for their divine discontent, men would not have been men, and there would have been no progress in human affairs.
  • I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. You don’t grasp the fact that what is most alive of all is inside your own house; and so you walk from one holy city to the next with a confused look!
  • As long as a human being worries about when he will die, and what he has that is his, all of his works are zero. When affection for the I-creature and what it owns is dead, then the work of the Teacher is over.
  • One love it is that pervades the whole world, few there are who know it fully: They are blind who hope to see it by the light of reason, that reason which is the cause of separation – The house of reason is very far away!
  • The man who is kind and who practices righteousness, who remains passive against the affairs of the world, who considers all creatures on earth as his own self, he attains the Immortal Being; the true God is ever with him.
  • Be strong then, and enter into your own body; there you have a solid place for your feet.  Think about it carefully!   Don’t go off somewhere else!    …just throw away all thoughts of   imaginary things,   and stand firm in that which you are.
  • As long as I talked unceasingly about the Lord,The Lord stayed away, kept at a distance.But when I silenced my mouth, sat very stillAnd fixed my mind at the doorway of the Lord,I was linked to the music of the Word,And all my talking came to an end.
  • It is time to put up a love-swing! Tie the body and then tie the mind so that they swing between the arms of the Secret One you love, Bring the water that falls from the clouds to your eyes, and cover yourself inside entirely with the shadow of night.
  • He is the real Guru Who can reveal the form of the formless before your eyes; who teaches the simple path, without rites or ceremonies; Who does not make you close your doors, and hold your breath, and renounce the world; Who makes you perceive the Supreme.