The Gyani
As against a pundit or learned man, a gyani has carried out a deep study of philosophy, theology and scriptures, and is capable of elaborating on them at length. Kabir calls such highly learned intellectuals vachak gyani or 'verbalists' who excel in the field of the spoken and written word.
Real knowledge, according to the Saints, is the inner knowledge obtained through actual spiritual experience. All knowledge of the physical and mental planes, in the absence of inner realization, is meaningless on the spiritual path. Kabir rejects all such external knowledge, for to 'know' is better than to profess, to speak from experience of the reality is far more significant than mere repetition from books.
Like the blind men's knowledge
Of the elephant
Is the book knowledge
Of the learned ones;
Each commends his own views,
And the seeker wonders
What is false, what is true.
K.S.S., p. 77:1
Their knowledge is like
The blind men's elephant —
Within limits, what they say
Might be right;
But their deductions
They derive
From guessing and groping,
For with their own eyes
They neither can see
Nor the Truth realize.
K.S.S., p. 77:2
What can one say to the gyani?
Kabir feels ashamed
To explain to them,
For it is futile
To dance before the blind —
A waste of one's art,
A waste of one's time.
K.S.S., p. 77:3
The gyanis are lost
In lecturing
On their studies about God;
But God is near
Their own self —
They toil to find Him
Everywhere else,
While hidden within them
Lies that rare wealth.
K.S.S., p. 77:6
They do not pierce
The veil within,
Outside they lecture
And make many a claim;
If they go in and see Him
They will know:
Within and without,
The Truth is the same.
K.S.S., p. 77:7
The gyani loses all
When he claims 'I am God';
Much better are the worldly
Who always live in awe
Of the Almighty Lord.
K.S.S., p. 77:5
Truth has to be realized,
It is not a topic of mere talks;
Every gyani that you see
Lives in the webs of delusion.
K.S.S., p. 78:8
When I realized
My true self,
I rose above
Pleasure and pain;
My heart like a lamp
Emits divine light,
All debating
For me is vain.
K.S.S., p. 77:5
Anubhav Gyan
They who fill papers,
Who tracts and volumes indite,
Are learned men
Or men worldly-wise.
Where and how
Can the realized man write,
For wherever he looks,
The Beloved alone he sees.
K.S.S., p. 77:6
Anubhav Gyan
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