When time came to leave this mundane world, Sant Kabir left Kashi, went to Maghar and breathed his last. It is an illusion to believe that you can achieve 'nirvana' if you breathe your last in Kashi--- said Kabir. Your religion, your ethics, your reverence for truth is your own responsibility, he said. He asked us to be mature in our belief, in our religion.
But we decided to stay raw and inexperienced. We did not want to feel the eternal, formless Lord in our hearts. We created incarnations instead. We personified someone as God and claimed, 'Here is the Lord Himself! Follow him, keep in constant touch with him and you'll get everything you cherish in your life!'
Kabir said--- It is good to be inspired by someone. But if you are engrossed with that 'someone' only, it is not done.You have know your own soul. You can know the source of your inspiration externally, but you have to feel him within yourself. You cannot know him among ostentitious celebrations. If you can reach God by worshipping a stony idol, then you better worship a mountain. If you think God can be reached by presenting a handful of Tulsi leaves, you better go and worship the Tulsi plant itself. If you think the only path to reach God is by being a vegetarian, then the grazing cattle would have been closest to him by now. Even Meera sang so in her Bhajans.
Kabir asked --- Don't you have love within you?
How can you love something empty and formless? Kabir said, yes you can love in such a way. Love itself is strong enough for that. Have a look at the Sufi saints and Bauls... take a dip in your deeper soul and see, does formlessness signifies emptiness? Do you want a form to get attached to or you want love? The ore of love is within yourself, and you are searching love in figures only?Aren't you formless yourself? Does knowing you means barely getting acquainted with your physical features? No dear, that formlessness equates to inner beauty. Stop searching for a figure to lean on. Search for the ore of love instead. Dive into the deep fathom of your soul. What is there externally? Nothing. You get nothing unless you take a plunge in your inner depth.
Kabir reminds us about our conscience. He speaks of eternal joy of our lives. And finally he asks us to be mature in the religion we follow. He says, many things can inspire us, but can those things be the final truth?
How to reach the final truth? Kabir says, there's no way to reach. If you don't have to reach there, how will there be a path? That truth is existing, in your faith, in your every breath. You light the lamp of love and behold the sight of your beloved. That love of your life is within you, surrounding you, including your own self, sometimes beyond yourself, overwhelming your own existence.
And think, you are living with all sorts of discriminations, caste and creed, blinded with errors and illusions! Leave these! Be mature in your beliefs. Rouse your conscience! Your cannot make a straw effigy of your conscience, nor can you make a stone or clay idol that'll act as a scarecrow for your immature sense of judgement. Your conscience is as pure as a blue lotus floating on your stream of life. Learn to know that flower, try to be a humming bee and dip in the deep nectar of that blue lotus. You can taste the sweetness of love. What is the value of wisdom if your heart remains dry and parched? Be soft, moisten your soul with balm of love, get carried away by this lovely life and carry all along with you.
Purushottamji's Kabir is a poet, and philosopher. We can relate Kabirji with our own time, that's the charisma of Puroshottamji's writings and obviously that's the magic of this book. It compels you to think again about Kabir. Not to admire him only passively, but it imbibes you with the spirit of fearless questioning what Kabir did by remaining a very ordinary person.