These six couplets depict the loving disciple's state of longing and are given under the heading "Longing Arising out of Realization" in most selections of Kabir's poems. The devotee who attains self-realization also realizes that his soul is a particle of the Supreme Being. A desire to merge back into the source — the Lord — is awakened in Him. His love and devotion gain strength and he develops an intense longing to meet the Lord. In the presence of this longing all worldly desires and cravings are destroyed, sensual pleasures become insipid and mind gives up its wayward tendencies.

With paradoxes and unusual images, Kabir conveys that this longing is the Master's gift to the disciple, for it is the Master who sets fire to the sea of worldliness, to the restless waters of the disciple's mind; it is he who sets the forest of sense pleasures and desires ablaze and drives away the wild stags of the passions. In the Master's company the soul soars to the higher regions of bliss.

The lake has caught fire,
Even its mire and moss
Have been burned by the flames;
The scholars of the north,
The scholars of the south
Pondered and pondered
But failed to know its cause.

K.G., p. 9:5

The Master is scorched,
The disciple is burned,
Such is longing's raging blaze;
The petty bit of grass
Soared to its salvation
In the perfect one's embrace.

K.G., p. 9:8

The fire has spread,
The sea is ablaze,
But tiny birds have found
Shelter amidst the flames;
The one thus burned to ashes
Will not thrive again,
For it is the Master
Who has lit the blaze.

Water is burning
In flames rising high,
The restless river
Has ceased its quest;
The fish that once flourished
Have now deserted
Their watery nest.