Garden: Your Lord is near...

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.

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Next: This is the end of a path, but not the end of the garden. Return to the beginning: would you like to follow the FLUTE, or answer the call of the VEENA?

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[Source: RT 21 (partial); 2.33. ghar ghar dîpak barai]

Brahman priest = Brahmin. These are priests and also teachers in the Hindu tradition.

Here is the full poem:

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."

Garden: There the Eternal Fountain...

There the Eternal FOUNTAIN is playing its endless life-streams of birth and death. They call Him Emptiness who is the TRUTH of truths, in Whom all truths are stored!

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Where to next: the FOUNTAIN or the TRUTH?

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[Source: RT 76 (partial); 3.48. tû surat nain nihâr]

Here is the full poem:

LXXVI

III. 48. tû surat nain nihâr

  Open your eyes of love, and see Him who pervades this world I

    consider it well, and know that this is your own country.

  When you meet the true Guru, He will awaken your heart;

  He will tell you the secret of love and detachment, and then you

    will know indeed that He transcends this universe.

  This world is the City of Truth, its maze of paths enchants the

    heart:

  We can reach the goal without crossing the road, such is the

    sport unending.

  Where the ring of manifold joys ever dances about Him, there is

    the sport of Eternal Bliss.

  When we know this, then all our receiving and renouncing is

    over;

  Thenceforth the heat of having shall never scorch us more.

  He is the Ultimate Rest unbounded:

  He has spread His form of love throughout all the world.

  From that Ray which is Truth, streams of new forms are

    perpetually springing: and He pervades those forms.

  All the gardens and groves and bowers are abounding with blossom;

    and the air breaks forth into ripples of joy.

  There the swan plays a wonderful game,

  There the Unstruck Music eddies around the Infinite One;

  There in the midst the Throne of the Unheld is shining, whereon

    the great Being sits—

  Millions of suns are shamed by the radiance of a single hair of

    His body.

  On the harp of the road what true melodies are being sounded!

    and its notes pierce the heart:

  There the Eternal Fountain is playing its endless life-streams of

    birth and death.

  They call Him Emptiness who is the Truth of truths, in Whom all

    truths are stored!

  There within Him creation goes forward, which is beyond all

    philosophy; for philosophy cannot attain to Him:

  There is an endless world, O my Brother! and there is the

    Nameless Being, of whom naught can be said.

  Only he knows it who has reached that region: it is other than

    all that is heard and said.

  No form, no body, no length, no breadth is seen there: how can I

    tell you that which it is?

  He comes to the Path of the Infinite on whom the grace of the

    Lord descends: he is freed from births and deaths who attains

    to Him.

  Kabîr says: "It cannot be told by the words of the mouth, it

    cannot be written on paper:

  It is like a dumb person who tastes a sweet thing—how shall it

    be explained?"