kabir

I know Maya is a great deceiver.

Formless, carrying a noose in her hand, she wanders around, speaking with a sweet tongue.

She takes the form of Kamala with Keshava, and Bhavani with Shiva.

She works as an idol for the priest, and is the water at the holy places.

She is Yogini with the yogi, and in the King's palace she is the queen.

To some, she is a diamond; to some, she is a broken cowry shell.

She is a bhakti for the devotee, and the Brahmani of Brahma.

Kabir says: Listen, 0 sadhu! All this is an indescribable story.

Enlightenment depends on your inner longing. It can happen anywhere: in a hut, in a palace, in the marketplace, in the Himalayas. It can happen to an educated mind and it can happen to an illiterate mind. It can happen to the poor, to the rich, to a pundit or to an uneducated person. Circumstances have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

A person can ask in three ways. One is like a child, out of curiosity, asking just for the sake of it. There is no need, no longing, there is no particular reason; just a mental itch. A question comes to mind and is asked immediately. If he gets the answer, it is fine; he never bothers to ask again - just like children do. When they are walking down the road, they ask: what is this? And if you say it is a tree, they will ask: what's a tree? Why are trees green? Why does the sun rise in the morning, why not at night? But there is no particular interest in listening to your answer. By the time you answer their first question, they are ready with the next one. They won't press you, even if you do not answer. Whether you answer or not, is all irrelevant to them.

The child asks just for the sake of asking. The child is only making use of his brain. Just as when he starts walking for the first time, he tries again and again, though not necessarily to reach anywhere. At this point he has no particular place to reach, he just enjoys walking. He simply makes use of his feet and feels very happy; he is just thrilled that he can walk. The walking is not related to reaching any destination, it is only a matter of practicing. Similarly, when a child begins to speak, he speaks just for the sake of it, just for practice. There is no particular meaning to what he says. Once he has learned how to ask, then he asks for the sake of asking - there is no real question in it, only curiosity.

So there are those who, out of curiosity, ask childish questions even about God. It doesn't matter to them if they get an answer or not. And whatever answer they may be given, will make no difference to their lives. They will live the same way, whether they believe in God or not.

This is really strange: whether a person is a theist or an atheist, his life remains unchanged. Can you say whether someone is a theist or an atheist just by looking at his life? No. In fact you have to ask whether the person is a theist or an atheist. One finds not an iota of difference in the behavior of either of them. If one is dishonest, so is the other. They are both the same, there is no difference whatsoever. One believes in God, the other does not believe in God. Such a great belief does not leave even a little imprint on life - it leaves not even a slight mark on life! One is as dishonest in business as the other; one is as much a liar as the other. Neither the believer can be trusted nor the nonbeliever. Shouldn't faith make some difference in life? If it doesn't, then such faith is worthless. Then the faith must have been born out of curiosity, then it is childish. Such childish faith should be completely dropped.

So, curiosity is on the surface. Secondly: as you go a little deeper, it becomes inquiry. Inquiry is not just about asking - there is a search for an answer, but the search is intellectual, it is not existential. The search is thought-centered, not life-centered. Anyone who is filled with inquiry is certainly sincere in his desire to find an answer. But once he finds it, he will intellectualize it, he will store it in his memory; he will become more informed. His knowledge will grow, but he will not grow in the way he behaves, there will be no growth in his life. The answer will not transform the individual. The person will remain the same - though he will be more informed. Inquiry is a product of intellect.

Then, there is a third level which is called mumuksha, the desire to attain the ultimate freedom. Mumuksha means the inquiry is not intellectual, it is existential. The inquiry is not in order to accumulate more information. One inquires because all of life is at stake. The question is asked because the very answer will show where to go, what to do, how to live.

For example, a thirsty man asks where he can find water. This is not a simple inquiry. Someone is lying in a desert, thirsty, and asks, "Where is there some water?" At that moment each and every pore is asking the question, it is not arising from his intellect. At that moment, he is not interested in having a scientific definition of water. If someone asks him why he keeps asking about water... Doesn't he know that water is H2O? Why doesn't he make use of science? The

formula is clear: two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen makes water - H2O! But for the person who is thirsty, it makes no difference how water is formed. That is not the question. His question is not to find out what water is; it is not an inquiry to increase his knowledge about water. His whole life is at stake. If he does not get water in the next moment, death is certain. His whole life depends on water. It's a matter of life and death for him.

Mumuksha means the inquiry has hit the center. Now the question is not whether God exists or not - a childish type of question. The question is also not asked the way philosophers raise questions of an intellectual type and then start looking for the answer in scriptures. Someone who is thirsty will not go to the scriptures to find what water is like. A thirsty person goes in search of a lake. Anyone who is really thirsty seeks a man of wisdom from whom he can drink and quench his thirst. He does not want knowledge, he seeks the knower.

A mumukshu seeks a master, an inquirer looks for a scripture, a curious man asks anyone. Kabir calls the one who is a mumukshu a sadhu. That's why his every word has been addressed keeping this fact in mind: Suno bhai sadho - listen, 0 sadhu. Sadhu means one who is interested in sadhana, in spiritual work; one who is a seeker. Sadhu means one who is earnest about transforming himself, to work for the good, to live the truth - in other words, one who is interested in being a sadhu.

This word sadhu is so wonderful. Because of its overuse it has become distorted. Sadhu means one who is simple, straight, innocent, natural. Sadhu has great connotations and nuances. And, being simple, straight, innocent, natural is what sadhana, spirituality, is all about. Hence, Kabir says: 0 sadhu, a naturally attained samadhi, superconsciousness, is better. Be natural, be simple, take it easy.

So even a person who is in pursuit of simplicity ends up becoming difficult. Obviously, something is wrong: we have no understanding of what it means to be simple.

To be simple means

• you begin to live moment to moment, naturally - not under any discipline - because discipline is a complicated thing.

• So when you are hungry, you have your meal. Whatever you get, you accept it quietly. When you wake up, you consider that moment to be the brahmamuhurta, the auspicious moment.

• When you feel sleepy, you take it as a message from existence, and when you come out of your sleep you take it that existence wants you to wake up.

• You don't do anything on your own, you leave everything to existence - "Thy will be done" - because whatsoever you do, you will make things complicated.

• After all, whatever you do, you will do through the mind, and the mind is a mechanism that creates complications. It will generate some trouble which then keeps on growing. Then there will be no end to it.

Those whom you call sadhus become more like non-sadhus than sadhus because the essential meaning of sadhu - simplicity, innocence - gets lost. We have devised new meanings for simplicity. By simplicity we mean that a simple person is one who lives with one loincloth. But did you know that someone who lives with only one loincloth becomes as attached to it as an emperor does to his whole kingdom? Obviously, because then there is nothing else to be attached to, so the entire focus of the person's attachment is on his loincloth.

It is not a question of either the loincloth or the kingdom; it is a question of attachment. An emperor's attachment is spread out, it is divided. A beggar's attachment is narrow; it is centered only at one point. And if you observe closely, you will find that a beggar's attachment is more dangerous because it is undivided, condensed and intense. Everything is put at stake for just one thing. The beggar will commit suicide if he loses his loincloth because for him it means everything. So what appears to be simplicity has great complexity hidden underneath.

Once, someone presented a pair of golden scissors to Farid...

Farid was Kabir's contemporary. They met once, it was a really sweet meeting. Both stayed together for two days but kept silent. Not a word was exchanged between the two. Both hugged each other, both sat together and had a good laugh. Kabir went to welcome Farid at the edge of the village and went again to give him a send-off. But for two days not a word was spoken between the two. The disciples of both said: "What's the matter? We got bored, we got tired, we had high hopes that we would hear some conversation, learn something. Two days have been wasted."

Farid said: "One who speaks is ignorant. If I had spoken, I would have been seen as ignorant; if Kabir had spoken, he would have been seen as ignorant."

Kabir told his disciples: "There was nothing to talk about because we both know; both of us have known oneness. Now who is there to speak to? Who is there to listen? And there is no point in repeating, making a meaningless effort, when we both already know. Farid is exactly where I am. We both are nobodies. For you, we were two, for us we were just one. You wanted us to have a dialogue, but if we had done that we would have looked like fools. Actually, it would have been only a monologue. The other was not there, who could I have talked to?"

There can be discussion if two ignorant people meet, a lot in fact. There can be a discussion if a meeting takes place between a wise man and an ignorant man - although not much is understood. But how can there be any conversation when two wise men meet? Absolutely nothing is said, and yet everything is understood. Not a word is heard, and yet all is understood. But two ignorant people get into a lot of discussion, a lot is heard, too much noise happens, but nothing is understood.

A wise man and an ignorant person also talk. If the ignorant one is willing, he can gain much from such a talk. If he is a little open, if he has some heart quality and is not all intellect, a few seeds can sprout in his heart.

Religions are born through saints and the priests destroy them. And as soon as a religion is born, the priests overpower it.

The heart that you carry within constitutes saintliness. Why? - because the heart inside you is untrained. Intellect has received training; the intellect has been created by the society. Existence has made the heart. There is no way to educate the heart, there is no university where your heart can be educated. No method has yet been discovered for teaching love - and we are fortunate that no such method has yet been found. There will be no greater misfortune than the day it is found. Then that day you will turn into a machine. Your intellect has already become mechanical, but your heart is a little less mechanical. Existence still beats in your heart. Existence still echoes in your heart. Your intellect, on the other hand, is absolutely mechanical and is a creation of society.

I know Maya is the great deceiver. Maya is not some kind of a philosophical doctrine. The philosophers grabbed it and made great doctrines out of it. And they have created a great confusion. If you were to read these philosophers, it would be very difficult for you to figure out what actually maya is because they have given different interpretations. Someone says, maya is God's power; somebody else says, maya is God's shadow. And they are in great difficulty. For example, Shankaracharya has great difficulty in explaining where maya comes from; because, if everything is brahman, then from where is maya born? He has no answer. There cannot be an answer.

But if you look closely, maya is a psychological concept. It is not a philosophical concept. Maya has nothing to do with brahman, with existence. Maya is concerned with you. Maya is your shadow, not brahman's. And maya is another name of your inner unconsciousness. So, as you become conscious within, as you become more alert and able to witness, maya will begin to disappear.

If maya is a fundamental component of brahman, then how would you be able to let it go? Then how would you wake up? If maya were part of brahman, how would you be able to destroy it? No, maya is part of you.

So don't get involved in the discussion of brahman. Until the maya within you breaks down, you won't be able to know brahman. Maya is a very significant word. Maya means exactly what magic means. The root word is the same.

Remember: the experience which first gives happiness and then is followed by misery, know that it has come out of maya; and the opposite: the experience which feels painful in the beginning but is followed by happiness, know that it has not come out of maya.

The definition of spiritual fire, tapa, is where pain comes first followed by happiness. And the definition of sensual gratification is simply where pleasure in the beginning is followed by misery. Happiness - the servant of maya - will always be there to welcome you, but misery is hiding behind. In going through the spiritual fire, in pursuing spiritual discipline when you are full of search for the truth - when you are filled with the desire to attain liberation and keep going -first you will find it painful. If you get too scared of facing that pain, you will never wake up from maya. But if you accept the pain, then soon that pain disappears and the doors to the greatest happiness open up.