kabir ki kahani

Day one:
Severe immersion
We read an excerpt from the book “the bijak of kabir” by Linda Hess.
“Numskull! You’ve missed the point”

I wrote in my log….
This is not the first time that I have come across the notion that knowledge cannot be acquired by reading books. It is through experience that one truly learns.
At first I was hostile towards this notion. From the day that we are born books have been shoved into our hands. How can someone suddenly tell me that there is no learning from books? Should I never touch a book again then? Is that what is being implied? Extremist position.

But I’ve come to understand this notion a little better. I believe that it is important to be in a state of mind, a kind of composure - of body and mind that comes about through meditation – which creates an aura in which there is better learning. I can still read a book, which might not be the ultimate mode of learning. Sometime a feeling of thoughtlessness takes over. Words roll out, as if they construct themselves out of no thought.

Does kabir speak of ignorance? An excerpt from a book on Tibetan philosophy which seems kabiresque..

“Gautama felt as though a prison which had confined him for thousands of lifetimes had bee broken open. Ignorance had been the jail keeper. Because of ignorance, his mind had been obscured, just like the moon and the stars hidden by the storm clouds. Clouded by endless waves of deluded thoughts, the mind had falsely divided reality into subject and object, self and others, existence and non-existence, birth and death, and from these discriminations arose wrong views – the prisons of feelings, craving, grasping and becoming. The suffering of birth, old age, sickness and death only made the prison walls thicker. The only thing to do was to seize the jail keeper and see his true face. The jail keeper was ignorance. Once the jail keeper was gone, the jail would disappear and never be rebuilt again.”

In the past week, we have been reading endless notions about truth and fearlessness. Fearless speech and fearless listening. I would like to add to it the notion of fearless thought. Fearless thought comes out a kind of state of mind that is more sub-conscious than conscious. It is the part of the mind that has developed through the realm of experience.
Immersion requires fearless thought.
It might seem as though kabir speaks of only one truth. He speaks of the act of being witness to truth. And he gives us his testimonies of the truths that he has witnessed.

We come across the argument of authorship and authenticity, the same as in art. But in the case of kabir, it is believed that kabir is said to be authentic when it is internalized and understood by the listener. Kabir has disappeared behind his poetry. This is when the reader/participant becomes the author.

This is going to be a week of song, inspiration, metaphors, meaning, truth.
I shall bear witness.