Kabir Quotes

I do not quote from the scriptures;
I simply see what I see.

Do not keep the slanderer away,
treat him with affection and honor:
Body and soul, he scours all clean,
babbling about this and that.

as jolaha ka maram na jana, jinh jag ani pasarinhh tana;
dharti akas dou gad khandaya, chand surya dou nari banaya;
sahastra tar le purani puri, ajahu bine kathin hai duri;
kahai kabir karm se jori, sut kusut bine bhal kori;

No one could understand the secret of this weaver who, coming into existence, spread the warp as the world; He fixed the earth and the sky as the pillars, and he used the sun and the moon as two shuttles; He took thousands of stars and perfected the cloth; but even today he weaves, and the end is difficult to fathom.

Kabir says that the weaver, getting good or bad yarn and connecting karmas with it, weaves beautifully.

I am looking at you,
You at him,
Kabir asks, how to solve
This puzzle — You, he, and I?

It is time to put up a love-swing!
Tie the body and then tie the mind so that they
swing between the arms of the Secret One you love,
Bring the water that falls from the clouds to your eyes,
and cover yourself inside entirely with the shadow of night.
Bring your face up close to his ear,
and then talk only about what you want deeply to happen.

Are you looking for me?
I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
you will not find me in the stupas,
not in Indian shrine rooms,
nor in synagogues,
nor in cathedrals:
not in masses,
nor kirtans,
not in legs winding around your own neck,
nor in eating nothing but vegetables.
When you really look for me,
you will see me instantly — you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.

If you want the truth,
I’ll tell you the truth:
Listen to the secret sound,
the real sound,
which is inside you.

I talk to my inner lover, and I say, why such rush?
We sense that there is some sort of spirit that loves
birds and animals and the ants — perhaps the same one who gave a radiance to you
in your mother's womb.
Is it logical you would be walking around entirely orphaned now?
The truth is you turned away yourself,
and decided to go into the dark alone.
Now you are tangled up in others, and have forgotten
what you once knew,
and that's why everything you do has some weird sense of failure in it.

There is dew
on these poems in the morning,
and at night a cool breeze may rise from them.

In the winter they are blankets, in the summer a place to swim.

I like talking to you like this. Have you moved
a step closer?

Soon we may be
kissing.

Admire the diamond that can bear the hits of a hammer. Many deceptive preachers, when critically examined, turn out to be false.

I have come to save the devotees. I was sent here because the world was seen in misery.

The Kazi is searching the words of the Koran, and instructing others:
but if his heart be not steeped in that love, what does it avail, though he be a teacher of men?

... What is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

O How may I ever express that secret word? O how can I say He is not like this, and He is like that? If I say that He is within me, the universe is ashamed: If I say that He is without me, it is falsehood. He makes the inner and the outer worlds to be indivisibly one; The conscious and the unconscious, both are His footstools. He is neither manifest nor hidden, He is neither revealed nor unrevealed: There are no words to tell that which He is.