Kabir emphasizes here the imperative need of a Master to save man from the miseries of birth and death and to lead him to the Lord. When he meets a perfect Master, all that a devotee has to do is become a gurumukh — a disciple who implicitly obeys his Master, overcomes his ego, controls his mind and surrenders himself to the Master. As directed by the Master, the disciple does his spiritual practice, goes within and merges himself into the radiant or Shabd form of the Master.

A temple roof
Cannot stay up without rafters;
So without Naam
How can one cross the ocean?
Without a vessel
Water cannot be kept;
So without a Saint
Man cannot be saved from doom.
Woe to him
Who thinks not of God,
Whose mind and heart
Remain absorbed in plowing
The field of the senses.

Without a plowman
Land cannot be tilled,
Without a thread
Jewels cannot be strung,
Without a knot
The sacred tie cannot be made;
So without a Saint
Man cannot be saved from doom.

A child cannot be born
Without father and mother,
Clothes cannot be washed
Without water,
There can be no horseman
Without a horse;
So without a Master
None can reach the court of the Lord.

Without music
There can be no wedding; ²
Rejected by her husband,
A bad woman suffers misery;
So man suffers
Without a Saint.
Says Kabir, My friend,
Only one thing attain:
Become a gurumukh
That you not die again.

A.G., Gond, p. 872
Jaise mandir mahi