The Subtle Path
From beyond no one returns
To whom I could run
And learn of the path to God;
From here all depart
With load after load
Of the weight they amassed.
From beyond comes my Master
With knowledge
Profound and pure;
He pilots the battered
Boat of seekers
And ferries them
To the opposite shore.
K.S.S., p. 53:1,2
That door is atop
Your physical frame,
Like the tiny pot
The water girls place
Over the larger vessels.
On the gibbet
The Beloved has laid his bed —
There he beckons your soul
To reach and merge
In his loving embrace.
K.S.S., p. 53:3
What attachment brings one here,
What attachment takes one back?
What attachment leads
To the state of permanence?
Beloved Master, pray explain.
Attachment to passions
Brings one to this world;
Attachment to Shabd
Takes one back;
Attachment within,
Which leads to realization,
Takes one to the state
Of permanent bliss;
But the method
Of that attachment
The True Master alone gives.
K.S.S., p. 53:4,5
I go to the city
Of eternity,
Without baggage,
In tattered clothes;
Join me, if you're keen to come —
But remember, my path
Through the scaffold runs.
K.S.S., p. 53:9
How can Kal harm him
Who has made his home
Atop the scaffold,
Who poison as nectar takes,
And throughout the watches eight
Is alert and awake.
K.S.S., p. 54:10
My Husband calls me
With great love and grace,
But I'm unable to go —
For when the wife is impure,
The Husband immaculate,
How can she reach
And embrace his lotus feet?
K.S.S., p. 54:11
Men even know not
The name of the Town;
Without knowing
How can they go?
For ages and eons
They have been walking,
But have failed to arrive
At the Town,
Less than quarter
Of a mile away.
Kind and merciful
Is my perfect Master;
He came and blessed me
With his grace —
The path that was
A million lives long,
I covered in the twinkling
Of an eye.
K.S.S., p. 54:12,13
Kabir's Home is on a peak,
The path is slippery and hard;
Where even an ant's foot
Finds no hold,
Scholars want to reach
With bullock carts of books.
K.S.S., p. 54:18
Where even an ant
Cannot climb,
Even a mustard seed
Cannot stay,
There Kabir has placed
His attention,
There he has reached
With effortless ease.
K.S.S., p. 54:19
Hard and tortuous
Is the path, O Kabir;
Where ascetics and hermits
Toiled and toiled
But failed,
Kabir climbed
With the Master's
Strength and grace.
K.S.S., p. 54:20
This is a path
Which needs no feet to tread;
This is a country
With neither house
Nor lane;
The Lord here
Has neither body nor shape.
Realize it, says Kabir.
K.S.S., p. 55:25
Kabir, narrow is the door
Of salvation —
A tenth of a mustard seed;
My mind has grown huge
Like an elephant,
How can it ever
Pass through the door?
If a True Master
I meet, O Kabir,
Who in his mercy
Is pleased with me,
Salvation's gate
Will become large and wide,
And I will come
And go with ease.
A.G., p. 1367:58,59
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