I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty.

You don’t grasp the fact that
what is most alive of all

is inside your own house; and so you walk from one holy city to the next
with a confused look!

Kabir will tell you the truth:
go wherever you like, to Calcutta or Tibet;
if you can’t find where your soul is hidden,
for you the world will never be real!

I don’t know what sort of a God we have been talking about.
The caller calls in a loud voice to the Holy One at dusk.
Why? Surely the Holy One is not deaf.
He hears the delicate anklets that ring on the feet of an insect as it walks.

Go over and over your beads, paint weird designs on your forehead,
wear your hair matted, long, and ostentatious,
but when deep inside you there is a loaded gun,
how can you have God?

Kabir, from The Kabir Book: Forty-Four of the Ecstatic Poems of Kabir, versions by Robert Bly
Copyrighted material; for educational/therapeutic purposes only.