Reading volume after volume,
Men tire themselves to exhaustion,
But not one becomes
A real scholar;
Who learns the one word love
Is the truly learned one.

Reading and reading,
Men have become
Dead like stones;
Writing and writing,
They have become
Dumb like bricks;
Kabir, not even a spark
Of love has entered
Their heart.

K.S.S., p. 167:8

Through reading and ruminating,
Through studying and listening,
Delusion's deadly thorn
Can never be removed;
Few listen to Kabir when he says
Learning is the cause of all pain.

K.S.S., p. 167:11

K.S.S., p. 167:13

The pundit and his books
Are like the knowledge
Of the trained partridge;
To others their future it shows,
But never knows its own bondage.

K.S.S., p. 167:10

The learned and the torchbearer
Are both unable to see;
To others they show light,
Themselves in darkness stay.

K.S.S., p. 168:14

Kabir tells the pundits:
What you keep reading
Does not enter your heart;
Others you seek to guide,
But yourself sink
In your pride of learning.

K.G., p. 29:13

K.G., p. 28:9

Even a parrot learns to speak
The words of holy books;
A captive of the cage,
It repeats wise words to others,
Unaware of its own sorry state.

K.G., p. 29:14

The priest is the guide of the world;
By deluding others
With rites and rituals
He earns his living.
He entangles himself
In Vedas and scriptures
And wastes his human birth.

K.S.S., p. 168:18

Sink your scriptures, O Pundit,
Discard your books, O Qazi;
Tell me the date
When there was neither the sky,
Nor was there the earth.

K.S.S., p. 168:I7

K.G., p. 30:3

Reading and reading,
Men toil to death,
But no one can thus
Become truly learned;
He who reads
The one word Beloved
Is the truly
Enlightened one.

K.G., p. 30:4

Wrap up your holy books, O Pundit,
Make them your pillow
And sleep with ease;
That one word love
Is not in your books,
Discard them happily
— Or with tears in your eyes —
For they are futile.

K.S.S., p. 167:9