When time came to leave this mundane world, Sant Kabir
left Kashi, went to Maghar and breathed his last. It is an illusion to believe
that you can achieve 'nirvana' if you breathe your last in Kashi--- said Kabir.
Your religion, your ethics, your reverence for truth is your own
responsibility, he said. He asked us to be mature in our belief, in our
religion.
But we decided to stay raw and
inexperienced. We did not want to feel the eternal, formless Lord in our
hearts. We created incarnations instead. We personified someone as God and
claimed, 'Here is the Lord Himself! Follow him, keep in constant touch with him
and you'll get everything you cherish in your life!'
Kabir said--- It is good to be
inspired by someone. But if you are engrossed with that 'someone' only, it is
not done.You have know your own soul. You can know the source of your
inspiration externally, but you have to feel him within yourself. You cannot
know him among ostentitious celebrations. If you can reach God by worshipping a
stony idol, then you better worship a mountain. If you think God can be reached
by presenting a handful of Tulsi leaves, you better go and worship the Tulsi
plant itself. If you think the only path to reach God is by being a vegetarian,
then the grazing cattle would have been closest to him by now. Even Meera sang
so in her Bhajans.
Kabir asked --- Don't you have
love within you?
How can you love something empty
and formless? Kabir said, yes you can love in such a way. Love itself is strong
enough for that. Have a look at the Sufi saints and Bauls... take a dip in your
deeper soul and see, does formlessness signifies emptiness? Do you want a form
to get attached to or you want love? The ore of love is within yourself, and
you are searching love in figures only?Aren't you formless yourself? Does
knowing you means barely getting acquainted with your physical features? No
dear, that formlessness equates to inner beauty. Stop searching for a figure to
lean on. Search for the ore of love instead. Dive into the deep fathom of your
soul. What is there externally? Nothing. You get nothing unless you take a
plunge in your inner depth.
Kabir reminds us about our
conscience. He speaks of eternal joy of our lives. And finally he asks us to be
mature in the religion we follow. He says, many things can inspire us, but can
those things be the final truth?
How to reach the final truth?
Kabir says, there's no way to reach. If you don't have to reach there, how will
there be a path? That truth is existing, in your faith, in your every breath.
You light the lamp of love and behold the sight of your beloved. That love of
your life is within you, surrounding you, including your own self, sometimes
beyond yourself, overwhelming your own existence.
And think, you are living with
all sorts of discriminations, caste and creed, blinded with errors and
illusions! Leave these! Be mature in your beliefs. Rouse your conscience! Your
cannot make a straw effigy of your conscience, nor can you make a stone or clay
idol that'll act as a scarecrow for your immature sense of judgement. Your
conscience is as pure as a blue lotus floating on your stream of life. Learn to
know that flower, try to be a humming bee and dip in the deep nectar of that
blue lotus. You can taste the sweetness of love. What is the value of wisdom if
your heart remains dry and parched? Be soft, moisten your soul with balm of
love, get carried away by this lovely life and carry all along with you.
Purushottamji's Kabir is a poet,
and philosopher. We can relate Kabirji with our own time, that's the charisma
of Puroshottamji's writings and obviously that's the magic of this book. It
compels you to think again about Kabir. Not to admire him only passively, but
it imbibes you with the spirit of fearless questioning what Kabir did by
remaining a very ordinary person.
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