Talk:Kabir

Unsourced

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• 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?

• Kabir says: Listen to the word spoken in every body.

• Kabir says that I start and end all my rituals by chanting "Ram" for since the very begining of this world it is this word that has protected all Ram's disciples.
  • Kabir's conception of "Rama" (or "Ram") is attested to have been quite different than the anthropomorphic conceptions of conventional traditions.

• Look at you, you madman! Screaming you are of thirst and dying as if you are in a desert, when all around you there is nothing but water.

• Music without words is like leaving the mind behind. And leaving the mind behind is meditation. Meditation returns you to the source. And the source of all is music.

• There is nothing but water in the holy pools. I know, I have been swimming there. All the gods sculpted of wood or ivory can’t say a word. I know, I have been crying out to them. The Sacred Books of the East are nothing but words. I looked through their covers one day sideways. What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through. If you have not lived through something, it is not true.

• When you were born, you cried, and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
  • This and close variants of it are also often cited as an "Indian" proverb, a Tibetan Buddhist proverb or a Cherokee proverb.
  • Variants: When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live in such a manner that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
    When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
    When you were born in this world
    Everyone laughed while you cried
    Conduct not yourself in manner such
    That they laugh when you are gone.

• Wherever you are is the entry point.

Robert Bly

Robert Bly's version is not a separate translation but a paraphrase of Rabindranath Tagore's translation. Should it be removed or should that just be pointed out in the text? (My source is Linda Hess and Shukdev Singh's The Bijak of Kabir, page 6, 1983 version.)