The paathi sings the Bani of Sant Kabir Sahib Ji from the book: Sant Kabir, pg 190
Saadho so jan uthare paara,
Jin man mein aapa daara.
Saadho so jan uthare paara,
Jin man mein aapa daara.
THIS IS THE BANI of Param Sant Satguru Kabir Sahib. Kabir Sahib has tried to explain in this Bani, what is the biggest impediment in our devotion because between us, our soul and God Almighty, there is a veil of ego. And the devotion of God Almighty is to take off that veil of ego.
So, to get rid of that veil of ego, we go to the Masters. And, with the help and Grace of the Masters, we are able to focus inwardly and get our attention at the back of the Eye Center. And, with that, we have the Radiant Form of the Master manifest at the back of the Eye Center. And that's where the ego is reduced when we do devotion.
If we, on the other hand, keep increasing our ego, then that veil becomes thicker. And then, how will we achieve our objective of meeting God Almighty?
God Almighty says, “I like that devotee who has killed his ego.” To kill or get rid of the ego, it is very important for us to follow the instructions of the Master and leave our nine doors and come to the Tenth Door. When the Sound Current manifests inside, and when we go there, we see how Kal and Maya have created this illusion, how there is so much suffering that is happening. And when we see all of that, and we are in touch with the Sound Current, the ego is vanquished, automatically.
Koi kahe mai gyani re bhai,
Koi kahe mai tyagi;
Koi kahe mai gyani re bhai,
Koi kahe mai tyagi.
Outwardly, when we do our devotion within the realm of the mind, then we end up increasing and inflating our ego. So, when we follow the mind, sometimes the mind says that we should go and stay in the jungles, and we follow that. Or, we go in some ashram and stay there. So, this is all under the purview and the instructions of the mind. And when we go there, and we work and do our devotion under the realm of the mind, the ego keeps increasing. When we do that, we start feeling that we have sacrificed so much, and our ego keeps increasing. When we do reading according to the instructions of the mind, and we read a lot of holy books, then we feel that we have read so much Holy Scriptures and holy books, now we are so knowledgeable about God Almighty.
So, all these things lead to us increasing our ego. Therefore, if we see the history of yogis, munis, and people who have done a lot of penance and such like, then they have spent most of their lives under the influence of their ego, either by cursing somebody or by blessing somebody. And that's how they have all wasted their devotion. Because all these measures of devotion and practices that are there, all these are below Brahm. And when we do anything below Brahm, then we are doing it under the influence of mind, because mind does come from Brahm.
So, all these are being done under the realm and instructions of the mind. It is only the devotion of the Saints where our devotion goes beyond Brahm. It is in Par Brahm, and that is the only devotion, which rids us of our ego. Because, when we do Their devotion and go beyond Brahm, then the mind stops at Brahm. It cannot go beyond Brahm. And we are also outside of the compound of Kal. So, both these influences are not there, and the soul gets free after that.
As we follow the practice and instruction of the Master, we do our Simran, Dhyan and Bhajan then, automatically, humility in us sets in. Because we soon realize, when we go through the Third Eye, that the Doer is someone else. We have just been instruments. So, the Doer is someone else. That's when all our questions and all our queries get to rest, and we get our True Humility.
Koi kahe mai gyani re bhai,
Koi kahe mai tyagi;
Koi kahe mai indri jeetha,
Aham saban ko laagee.
Kabir Sahib says, “People who spend time, and the learned people, or the pundits, who have read the Scriptures, Vedas, etc., they start believing that they are very intellectually evolved, and they are pundits, and that ego sets in.” On the other hand, people who go into the jungle, they wear a loin cloth, and go and stay and do pranayama in the jungle, they feel that they have become yogis. So, all these are various aspects of egos that have set in.
Gorakhnath was a yogeshwar. He had done his penance in the Himalayas. A yogeshwar is an ascetic who has reached up to Brahm. And a yogi is an ascetic who has reached up to the Sahasdal Kamal. So, he was a yogeshwar, and after he had done his penance in the Himalayas, when he came down into the plains, he spent time debating with various other pundits and other learned people, and he carried out those debates. So, that way, he came down to the plains, and people he met, he would get into debates, and he built a very highly inflated ego about himself when he reached Varanasi.
In those days, Ramanand Swami had an ashram in Varanasi, and he did a lot of preaching in Varanasi. So, for debating, Gorakhnath, as usual, came across and he put his trishul in the ground, and sat on the edge of the trishul, on the tip of the trishul. And then, he challenged Ramanand. He said, “You come out and answer my questions. And if you are not able to do that, then you should leave your ashram.”
Ramanand Swami was a simple person, he was a brahmin. And he saw this Gorakhnath opposite, and he felt, “This ascetic has come, and he has come with all mystic powers, and he is challenging me. So, even if I get into a debate, it is quite likely that he will curse me, he’ll use some of his mystic powers, and he’ll curse me. So, there is no point getting into a debate.” What, instead, he decided to do was pack his bags and leave the ashram.
So, one of the disciples of Ramanand ran out, and he went to call Kabir Sahib. During that time, Kabir Sahib was a fourteen-year-old boy. So, when he related all of this to Kabir Sahib, Kabir Sahib felt sad and He told him, “Don't worry, you go back and tell Guru Ji, tell Ramanand Ji, that he should not pack his bags. He should continue staying there. Tell him that I will come there and I will do this debate with Gorakhnath.”
So, by now, Gorakhnath had got very angry, because nobody had come, and he had no signs from the ashram. And he was almost about to curse Ramanand when Kabir Sahib came there.
Now, Kabir Sahib came there with a bundle of thread, and He was just tying that bundle as He came towards Gorakhnath. So, Kabir Sahib noticed that Gorakhnath was sitting at the tip of that trishul. He felt that, yes, Gorakhnath is a yogeshwar. So, what He did was, He threw that bundle of thread, which He had, and He threw it about ten times the height of where Gorakhnath was sitting. And then, He went and sat on top of that bundle of thread. Then, He asked Gorakhnath, “Okay, please ask your questions. I will give your answers.”
So, thereafter, there was a very long debate, and there were lots of questions asked by Gorakhnath. And this went on for seven days. So, when all his questions were answered by Kabir Sahib there over seven days, he said, “Okay, now let us test each other for our mystic powers.”
Gorakhnath had a kamandal, a utensil, which holds water. So, he had that kamandal with about half-filled with water. So, he transformed himself into water, into that element, and he got mixed with that water, which was there in the kamandal and he told Kabir Sahib to search him out.
So, Kabir Sahib then asked the disciple of Ramanand to bring five katoris, or five small utensils. And then, He took this water from this kamandal pot, and He poured it into those five different utensils. Then, Kabir Sahib told him, “Okay, Maharaj, why don’t you come out and show yourself now?”
Now, He had put that water into five different utensils. So, his body parts had all separated. He was not able to come back. So then, Gorakhnath told Him, “Okay, you’ve found me, you got me. You please put that water back in the kamandal, and I’ll come out.”
So then, Kabir Sahib turned into the Holy Sound Current. Now, that Sound Current is there everywhere. It is all around and only the soul can hear that, so He vanished.
Then, Gorakhnath admitted defeat. And he asked Kabir Sahib, “You are so young. So, when is it that you practiced and achieved all of this knowledge? And where have you come from? Which is your country? Which is your world, where you from?”
Kabir Sahib told him in a verse, which meant that ‘I have come from that world where only knowledgeable people, Saints, know about that place. Only those people are aware of that place. I am from that place’.
So, thereafter, Gorakhnath left from there. But he had a very big ego. He did not take initiation from Kabir Sahib and he left. And, thereafter, he never returned back to Varanasi. So, people who are learned, who have spent time in reading all these holy books, etc., and people who have spent time in these austerities, these people have built up all these egos, and those egos do not go away.
Koi kahe mai jogi re bhai,
Koi kahe mai bhogee;
Koi kahe mai jogi re bhai,
Koi kahe mai bhogee;
Mai tho aapa doori na daara,
Kaise jeevai rogee.
Some say, “I am a yogi.” Some person says, “I am a worldly person.” Kabir Sahib says, “Till you vanquish that ego, all these measures, which you undertake for your spiritual upliftment, are of no use.” Because, the power that makes us go back in this ocean of life, into this cycle of life and death of 8.4 million life forms, that is ego.
So it is only 'me' and 'mine', these two things, which cause us to be attached to everything. And because of our attachment to all the things that we have this attachment with, we have to keep coming, again and again, back into this world.
Koi kahe mai daata re bhai,
Koi kahe mai tapasi;
Koi kahe mai daata re bhai,
Koi kahe mai tapasi;
Niz tat naam nischay nahi jaana,
Saba maaya mein khapasee.
Some people donate monies and donate wealth amongst the poor and amongst others. They carry this ego of being very generous and donating monies to others for help, etc. And then, there are others who say, “I have undergone so much austerity. I have sacrificed so much and I have undergone very difficult austere measures for achieving or doing my devotion.” Both these are other forms of increasing our ego.
Various rishis and munis have done all these austere measures and have developed a lot of mystic powers, as a result. But then, because of their ego, they have lost those mystic powers, and they’ve wasted that devotion also.
In recent times also, during the time of Emperor Akbar, there was one person called Rahim Khan-I-Khana. And, though he was a Muslim, he was a very astute devotee of Krishna. And he was one of the ministers in the court of Akbar. So, whatever he earned, he would also donate that to poor people. And when he would do these donations, or he would give out this money, he would bow down, and he would not look at the person when he was giving the money. So, that became a prevalent practice, and people would say, “Like Rahim Khan-I-Khana is giving alms, or he is giving donations, whenever he gives, he keeps his head bowed down and he doesn't look at the person who is taking that donation, simply so he doesn't feel egoistic that ‘I have given this person and this person now owes me something’, or increasing his ego of having donated money.”
So, someone posed this question to Tulsi Das who was around the same time he was there. Someone asked Tulsi Das that this Rang Rahim Khan-I-Khana is donating like this, with his hand above, and his head bowed down. So, Tulsi Das then talked to Rahim Khan-I-Khana, asking, “Where have you learned to donate like this, where your head is bowed, and your hand is above when you’re donating?”
He replied, “I give it like this. I bow my head and I put my hand up and I give this donation because it is God who is giving this. I am receiving from God, and I am giving it onwards. So, if people look at me and they see me giving, they will say ‘Rang Rahim Khan-I-Khana, is giving me this donation’. But then, I feel ashamed, because it is not me who was giving it. It is God Who was giving to me, and then, I am only giving forward, onwards to the person. And, if God stops giving to me, then how will I give it forward?”
So, when we do these things, when we do these donations, or we give donations, and where people do these austere measures, all these also lead, in a way, to increasing our ego, because we get egoistic in doing these achievements. If we go to temples, or other places of worship, quite often, we see there are tiles, which are put in the walls saying that this money has been donated by this person. So, these are similar. When we give these donations, we want to satisfy our ego, and we have our name also encrypted there in the wall saying that we have donated to this temple or this purpose.
Koi kahe mai daata re bhai,
Koi kahe mai tapasi,
Niz tat naam nischay nahi jaana,
Sab maaya mein khapasee.
Kabir Sahib says, “The basic element of Naam is something, which no one has known. And that is why people have not been able to break out of this illusion of Maya.” He says, “Only Naam can take us out of this illusion of Kal and Maya. And, with that, Naam can only be given by a True Master.”
Kohi kahe jugathee sab jaanou,
Koi kahei mai rahanee;
Aatham dev se parichay naahi,
Yah sab jhooti kahanee.
Kabir Sahib puts forth the questions and answers. He says, “You say that ‘I have achieved all of this’.” And then, He answers, saying, “Since you have not known the truth about your own soul, all these measures that you have taken are a waste.”
So, when do you get this knowledge about your soul? When do you get to know about yourself? It is when you leave your nine doors and come to the Tenth Door and see yourself, see your soul at the back of the Eye Center at the Tenth Door. When we realize our soul, we see it at the Tenth Door, we develop this knowledge of being able to discern, and it is called vivek. And we achieve this when we open the Tenth Door.
But the true awareness of the soul comes when we cross Par Brahm, and we cross and we shed all the three coverings of the soul, and the soul realizes its True Self. That is when the Real Knowledge of the self comes. That is the place where the soul becomes naked of all these three coverings, and it has the luminance of twelve suns.
So, Saints refer to this Self-realization or the realization of the soul, but that realization is not possible without the Grace and help of the Masters.
Even King Janak had been given this knowledge by Ashtavakra when he was shown his self, his soul, within, but that was only limited to him seeing his own soul at the Tenth Door.
So, that pedestal is also a very high pedestal where you can see your own soul. We have left the nine doors and come to the Tenth Door, and then, we develop this power to discern. And we develop this vivek buddhi that is the Tenth Door. That is the realization that ‘I am the soul. I am not this body or this mind, and I am not these outward worldly things, which I have been pursuing’. And the soul gets to see everything that is happening around it. So, even though we see the soul at that time, the soul still has these coverings, and these coverings come off only in Par Brahm.
Koi kahein dharm sab sadhe,
Aur barath sab keenha;
Koi kahein dharm sab sadhe,
Aur barath sab keenha;
Aapa ki aanty nahi nikasee,
Karaj bahuth sir leenha.
If someone says that he has done a lot of austerities, he has done a lot of other practices, he has done a lot of donations, he has gone on all kinds of pilgrimages, and he has spent years in his devotion in the jungle or doing other things, even then, if he does not have the realization of his soul, all of these things are a waste. Because this entire delusion is broken away only when one sees the soul within when one realizes the True Self.
Koi kahein dharm sab sadhe,
Aur barath sab keenha;
Aapa ki aanty nahi nikasee,
Karaj bahuth sir leenha.
Garab ghumaan sab dhoor nivaare,
Karanee ko bal naahi;
Garab ghumaan sab dhoor nivaare,
Karanee ko bal naahi.
Kabir Sahib says, “For millions of lives, the ego that we have built up, if we are able to break this ego, then we are on the Path of devotion and salvation.” So, when that happens, we will be humble and we will follow the Path of Truth because, when there is ego, these two things are missing.
Saints say that They always teach that we should treat one and all equal and it is from one God Almighty that all of these souls have come, and everyone is equal. So, we should treat everyone equal and love everybody equally because all these impurities are only in the mind. So far as the soul is concerned, all souls are pure, and all are good.
Therefore, whenever Saints look at a person, They always see the soul and They do not look at the impurities of the mind. Because They see the soul, and the soul is a pure daughter of the God Almighty, and it is as pure as God Almighty.
Garab ghumaan sab dhoor nivaare,
Karanee ko bal naahi;
Kahe kabeer saheb ka bandha,
Pahunchaa niz padh maahi.
When we go about doing our activities or doing anything, it should be free from our desire or the expectations of results. If it is free from that expectation, then that is the right way to do our activity. When we do anything without the requirement or desire of a particular result, we are detached in so far as we are doing that activity for the sake of doing that activity. At the end, it is easy to redeem these karmas that we have built on these activities.
Otherwise, when we have desires associated with those activities, or there are expectations around it, then we have to come back to redeem those desires.
When we go about our lives thinking that everything belongs to God Almighty and the Master, and everything that is given to us is by the Master and that He is doing it and we are instruments in that Form, then we do not get affected by those actions or those deeds. And such devotees, definitely, reach Sach Khand and Sat Lok.
Jo kohee ya bidhi mann ko lagaave,
Mann ko lagaaye guru paave.
Jo kohee ya bidhi mann ko lagaave,
Mann ko lagaaye guru paave.
Kabir Sahib goes on to say, “Those who do their devotion at the Feet of the Master, and do the practice of Naam, they definitely become successful.”
Jaise natava chadath baas par,
Doliya dol bajaave.
Apana bhoj dharai sir oopar,
Surat baas par laavein.
Kabir Sahib gives an example of how we should go about doing our devotion. He gives the example of the street side acrobats who are there. They walk on these ropes, which are tied between two bamboo poles at a height, and they carry a bamboo pole with them, and they perform all sorts of acrobatic actions on those ropes. And there, they have another person who is beating the drum and, at the beat of that drum, on those drumbeats, they are doing a lot of actions and activities and acrobatics, but all the time they’re maintaining their balance, and their mind is always on that bamboo, which they are holding, which is maintaining that balance of theirs.
So, likewise, when we are in this world, we are doing all sorts of activities for our family, work, or any other matter. At all times, our mind should be focused on Naam. And we should go about doing these things, like that acrobat, to the tune of the world and everything around us, but with the mind focused on Naam.
Jaise buvangam charath bani mein,
Oas chaatne aave,
Kabhi chaatein kabhi man tan chitaave,
Mani taj praan gavaave
Kabir Sahib gives another example. In deep forests and deep jungles, there are snakes, which have a jewel. So, they possess a jewel. And these snakes, when they come to eat in the night when there is dew, there are dewdrops on the leaves. And when these snakes have to eat anything, they keep this gem, or jewel, on the side, and they eat those insects, or they eat their prey. And they travel a short distance to drink that water, those dewdrops, which are there on those leaves. But, at all times, that snake always has the attention focused on that jewel, or that gem, which is kept on the side, while he is doing all of this.
So, it is said that, if someone gets this jewel, or this gem, then the snake dies. Therefore, the snake, at all times, has its attention focused on this jewel. That is how we should go about our activities and we should focus on this jewel, which is Naam.
Jaise kaamini bharath koop jal,
Kar chode bathraave.
Apna rang sakhiyan sangh raakhe,
Surat daar par laave.
Kabir Sahib gives another example. In hills or mountains, water is found at the foothill. So, when these small girls come from the villages in the hills above, they carry with them small pots for holding water. They are small pots so that it becomes easy for them to take water from the well and hold them, and then climb the hill. They carry several such pots.
When they go down, they fill them with water, and then, they carry two pots on their head and one in each hand, and then, climb back up that hill, while they go in groups with friends. They keep talking to each other, but they climb back up the hill and back to that village. Their attention is on the pot when they climb back and go to the village.
So, Kabir Sahib says it is like this in our worldly matters also. When we have all the various things that we are doing, we should focus our attention on Naam, like those girls focus their attention on the pots. And they don't allow those pots to drop.
Jaise sati chadi sat oopar,
Apani kaaya jaraave.
Maat pita sab kutumbh tyaage,
Surat piyaa par laave.
Kabir Sahib gives another example of satis. A sati is a widowed lady, and where her dead husband is on the funeral pyre, she also sits on the funeral pyre with her dead husband. When she sits on the funeral pyre to be burned with her husband, a lot of people come and tell her, “Look, your children are there. If you die, your house will remain empty. Who will look after the family?” And all sorts of things like that. But she is resolved in her mind to sacrifice herself for her husband. And so, at all times, her husband is at the top of her mind while she is doing this.
Likewise, for us, we should focus on Naam, and that should be our ruling ambition.
Dhoop deep naivedh argazaa,
Gyaan ka aarath laavai.
Kahe kabir suno bhai saadho,
Fir janam nahi paavai.
Kabir Sahib says, “Like, outwardly, there are rituals, which people do to please gods, and they do these aartis where they have a plate full of various things to eat, flowers, lamp, and all of that. Those are offerings they do to give to the deity.”
So, likewise, Kabir Sahib says, “The offering that we have is the focus of our attention, which should come to the back of the Eye Center. And there, the Light is also there, and Sound is also there.” So, for an initiate, the offering like the outsiders give offerings to deities, it is this offering of focusing our attention inwards and getting to see that Light and that Sound. And by doing such an offering, the initiate then gets the Mercy of God Almighty, gets the Mercy of his Guru, and he gets his salvation.
Dhoop deep naivedh argazaa,
Gyaan ka aarath laavai.
Kahe kabir suno bhai saadho,
Fir janam nahi paavai.
Radhaswami