Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Kabir--"To Be a Slave of that Intensity"--poem
To Be a Slave of Intensity
Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think. . .and think. . .while you are alive.
What you call “salvation’ belongs to the time before death.
If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?
The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten--
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of
Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you
will have the face of satisfied desire.
So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!
Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that
does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.
- Kabir
(version by Robert Bly)
I dearly love this poem by Kabir. It expresses fully and persuasively the need to desire, long for, the Beloved to enter our lives, even though that longing will make of us a slave of our own passions. To long for divine connection is much like longing for a special love relationship. At some stages, we can only hope that our desire for union will be fulfilled. But--if we ignore our inner needs, we will never fulfill our dreams.
