Saint Kabir's Teachings On Love - Session 3

Listen to Ektaji talk about Saint Kabir's teachings on love. These teachings are aimed at helping a true seeker walk the path of truth to find the source of love which is located within each one of us and to experientially understand it.

Transcript

Salaam.

Salaam.

Salaam.

Salaam.

Salaam.

Salaam.

So there are two kinds of people who start this spiritual path and they are different in their own making,

The way their own plumbing is.

They are different in their own natures and this cannot be removed from the person.

Some people are predominantly in the heart and some people are predominantly in the head.

Some have a good balance of the two.

The people who are in the heart are so much in the heart,

They are against the path that just talks about wisdom,

Intellectualization and knowledge.

The people who are in the head are totally anti-love,

Anti-devotion and have no interest in that path.

This will give you a kind of an idea where you are.

If you have a balance of the two,

Then I think you are on the safe side.

But if you have predominantly one over the other,

That is where you will find a little bit of clash coming up and this clash is presented by your own ego.

So let's understand the two parts.

The people who are in the heart,

They do not know what their real problem is.

They are seeking love but they don't know.

So they call that sense of lack that they are feeling as the search for God or the search for truth or searching for a higher purpose in life because they don't know.

But the real problem is that they are seeking love.

And obviously the solution is to see the witness as love.

That which we completed in the session one yesterday.

To recognize the witness as love.

Now what is the witness we all know?

You are all looking at an object,

The computer screen or any device screen.

Your eyes are the seer of that object.

So that object in front of you is the seen.

Advaita says take one more step behind.

The mind behind the eyes says that,

Yes right now I can see the eyes are open.

Shut your eyes for a moment and the mind says the eyes are shut.

So the eyes being open and shut are known by something at an inner level.

That is the mind.

The mind is that the end?

No.

There is one more level.

Something that is witnessing the mind.

Something that says I can see the mind saying yes and no.

I like and I don't like this.

I understand what she's saying.

I don't understand what she's saying.

There is a level behind.

That level doesn't speak like this.

I am just saying it metaphorically.

That is the witness.

The person who is walking the path of love very quickly recognises the sweet peace.

And again and again,

Again and again makes an attempt to dissolve in this sweet peace of the witness.

His obstacles of course are the same conditioning that come up on everybody's path.

It doesn't matter which path you take.

Your own conditioning,

Material conditioning as well as spiritual conditioning.

Both together become an obstacle on your own path.

We have understood very clearly what is conditioning.

Yesterday I also gave you a homework.

Write down all the conditioning that which is an obstacle on your path.

I hope you did that homework.

So the journey for this person who is walking on the path of love is two parts.

Number one,

Again and again dipping into the witness,

Into that sweet peace.

Seeing the witness as love and letting go of conditioning,

Letting go of conditioning,

Letting go.

Both have to be done.

In this process automatically when he learns to rest in that sweet peace he discovers the void.

Yes,

The same witnessing void that the person on the path of wisdom or jnana gets in touch with first.

So the person on the path of love is called a bhakt.

And what is his bhakti or devotion towards?

It is towards the witness.

He recognizes the witness as love.

And that is what has been termed as divine love in the scriptures.

So this I quickly explained the path of love for the people who are more in the heart,

Predominantly in the heart over the head.

Now let's come to the other side.

The people who are predominantly in the head over the heart.

What is their problem?

Same sense of lack.

Something is missing,

Something is amiss.

He might be rich,

He might have everything,

He might be famous,

He might have great relationships but there is something missing in life.

And the person who is in the head notices that his mind is very noisy.

It doesn't mean it is not for the person who is in the heart.

But the person who is in the heart,

His thirst for love,

That seeking for love is very intense.

More intense than the chattering mind.

In fact such a person says,

You know the mind is not such a botheration in my life.

It's just that I am not happy.

I don't have loving relationships.

Or I am feeling very devoid of a sense of joy in life.

That is the person in the heart.

The person in the head is very bothered by his mind and he just wants to shut down this chattering.

Somewhere he is looking for peace.

He doesn't know how to describe this peace.

But when he steps into the witness and recognizes it as the void,

He knows this is it.

Initially on the path of Advaita,

You only get a glimpse of the witness.

This glimpse is sufficient to give you the foundation for building your conviction in yourself.

On the other paths where you don't get any glimpses to begin with,

On the other paths they say have faith.

You just believe that the teacher,

The guru,

The scripture will take you there and you blindly follow.

But the difference on the path of Advaita Vedanta is not faith,

Not blind belief.

You are given the glimpse right at the beginning.

So you recognize,

Ah,

That which I can glimpse,

I can with practice,

With dropping of conditioning,

With practice of identifying as the witness as opposed to identifying with the body and mind,

I can rest in the witness.

I can abide in that void.

Ah,

I can get there.

It gives you a conviction in yourself rather than in another.

You see what I am saying?

The probability for doubt to arise on the path of Advaita Vedanta is reduced by this initial glimpse.

Because you get the conviction,

Ah,

If I got a glimpse,

I can get there.

So the person who is walking on the path of wisdom,

He again and again has to do the two-part process again.

Recognize the witness as the void,

Rest there in the void and drop conditioning,

Drop conditioning,

Both material and spiritual conditioning.

He has to do exactly the same thing as the person on the path of love.

The process does not change.

In the process of soaking into the witness,

In becoming one with the witness,

He falls in love with the void.

Some of you must have already started experiencing this.

And how does this falling in love express itself?

There is a lot of interest in you to recognize the qualities of the witness,

To recognize the nature of the witness.

You dive deeper into it.

Maybe because you are a person who is more in the head,

You will use analysis more.

But again and again,

A reminder is given by the Advaita Vedanta teachings.

Drop the analysis and rest in the void.

After you come out of the void,

Then you can do your analysis.

Don't spoil the piece of the void when you are in it with analysis.

And slowly and slowly,

The person on the path of wisdom falls in love with the void.

And that falling in love has a sweetness to it.

He experiences that soft,

Sweet peace.

So you see,

This is where both the paths merge.

The person who was walking on the path of love discovers the void and the person who was walking on the path of wisdom falls in love and experiences the soft,

Sweet peace.

That is the end.

So Gyanis attains jnana.

He becomes wise because he attains the highest wisdom.

The highest wisdom is nothing else but this recognition of who am I truly.

Am I really the body?

Am I really the mind?

Who am I?

What am I?

This is wisdom.

Both the path of love and the path of wisdom will take you to the same end destination.

Love will happen on both the paths.

On the path of bhakti or love,

It starts with love.

On the path of jnana,

It culminates in love.

So Kabir is for both.

In Kabir's Advaita Vedanta,

This love factor was added a lot in his teachings.

That is why it is called Vishishta Advaita Vedanta.

That is what makes it Vishishta.

So now if it is very clear that love is something that happens on either paths,

The path of wisdom or the path of love,

Let's just call it a sweetness because the people on the jnana path really are tired of love love love and don't want to hear it anymore.

So we will call it sweetness.

Ramras.

Kabir did the same thing.

He called it Ramras.

Ram is again not Lord Rama,

The king of Ayodhya or Dashrata's son.

No,

We are not talking about that Rama.

Ram here is just a substitute like I explained to you in Kabir session one.

And because he was teaching the sadhus who kept doing Rama and Hari,

He explained the witness to them in terms of the same words that they used to use Rama and Hari.

But it has got nothing to do with Rama,

Dashrata's son.

So Ramras here means the sweetness of the witness.

Ras is that juice,

The sweet juice,

The sweet juice of the witness.

So it is Nitho Ghanno Re Jogiya Ho Jiya Pye Ammar Hoi Jai Ho Ramras.

The drink of Ram is incredibly sweet.

The drink of this witness is incredibly sweet.

And one who drinks it never dies.

He becomes Ammar.

Ammar means becoming eternal.

So what does this mean?

Oh wow,

Now I am going to be in the witness and this body is not going to die.

Is that what it is saying?

No.

Then you went back to your old conditioning.

In your old conditioning you believed,

I am the body.

The new understanding now is,

No,

I am the witness that is witnessing this body.

I am the witness that is witnessing the mind.

So then what death are we talking about here?

What death?

Can there be death to the witness?

If I recognize that I am the witness of the body and the mind,

Does this witness in the night when the body is completely asleep like a dead man or a dead woman,

When the mind is totally conked of like that of a dead man or a dead woman,

Is the witness also gone?

No,

The witness is there.

That is why in the morning when you wake up,

Say,

I slept so well.

Who is saying I slept so well?

The body has no idea.

It was gone.

Who was knowing that this sleep is sound?

Who was knowing that this sleep is very,

Very quiet,

Very,

Very restful?

There has to be somebody knowing at that time.

Who was knowing?

Who was the knower of that rest?

The body cannot know.

The mind was totally conked of.

That's how you had gone out of your dream state and completely into off state.

The switch was off.

Yes.

So the knower is the witness.

That witness is there even when the body is totally switched off,

When the mind is totally switched off.

If I recognize I am that which is always there,

Always,

Then I know that I never die.

This was the meaning of you go beyond life and death if you walk the path of spirituality,

Whichever scripture you read it in.

This was the true meaning.

But people started thinking,

Oh,

This body is going to become immortal.

This body is not going to die.

Yes,

That was the wrong understanding that happened.

When I tell you to drop conditioning,

This is one of that conditioning that you need to drop.

This body is not going to become amur.

There have been people who have tried to make the body amur and they go for all these spiritual siddhis and this magic and that magic and voodoo magic and somehow nothing should happen to this body.

There are stories of people who have preserved their bodies.

They are dead.

They preserved their bodies,

Giving millions of dollars,

Expecting to come back.

Crazy stuff.

That's not spirituality.

That's really not spirituality.

True spirituality helps you recognize that you are the witness.

That witness is ever alive.

The witness does not die because the witness is not born.

This physical body appeared in that witness and after 60,

70,

80,

90 years,

Whatever,

100 years if you're lucky,

This physical body will disappear in the same awareness,

The same witness consciousness.

There is no difference between witness,

Awareness,

Consciousness.

It is all the same.

The sweet peace is of the witness.

Mind does not have any sweet peace.

Mind just has pleasure,

Joy,

Joy that comes out of getting something for a temporary moment.

Temporarily I'm happy.

You praised me.

You said,

Wah,

Wah,

Wah.

Very good.

This is the mind.

We're not talking about this.

We're talking about the one who is the witness of this temporary pleasure.

There.

There is no death to that witnessing consciousness,

To that pure consciousness.

So the drink of this witness is incredibly sweet and one who drinks it never dies.

Next is,

Meh mira ghar jadi ore jogiya o jiya liyo palita hath koi agar jado ghar aaprore jogiya o jiya chalo hamare sath.

He's saying,

I burnt down my house.

What house is he talking about?

The big house of conditioning that I have.

Yes,

Both material world conditioning and spiritual conditioning.

I am the body.

I am the mind.

These are all conditionings that you have carried through whatever 30,

40,

50 years of your life and everything attached to that wrong idea of I am the body.

My dear one,

My house,

My child,

My money,

My,

My,

My.

All that conditioning is false because I'm not the body only.

Even if you thought I am the mind,

That conditioning that comes with the mind,

The cravings of the mind,

The aversions of the mind,

All that is false because I am not the mind.

Dropping not just material world conditioning,

Even spiritual conditioning.

Oh,

I am a Hindu.

I follow this scripture.

Oh,

I follow Jesus.

Yes,

I follow that scripture.

This is also conditioning.

Not to label yourself is the meaning of burning down your house.

No labels.

No labels of I am this or I am that.

Complete freedom.

Kabir teaches you to be completely free.

Completely devoid of labels.

That is the meaning of burning down the house of conditioning.

And in the next line,

He says,

Koi agar jaado ghar aap piro.

If you are ready to burn down your house of conditioning,

Then you can walk with me.

Otherwise,

You cannot walk Kabir's path.

Kabir's path is for the one who is very courageous,

Who's ready to let go of this conditioning that he has carried in his mind all along,

Who's ready to look at everything with the eyes of a newborn baby.

Take your memory back to when you were just one year old.

As a one year old baby,

Did you say,

I am this body?

Did you even have the feeling,

I am,

I have a solid,

Consolidated heaviness that is labeled as the body?

No.

You never even thought,

I am the mind.

All these things were not there.

You had not learned to speak.

Everything was new and everything was beautiful.

Everything you saw with the same awe,

The same wonder,

The same innocence,

The same sweet peace.

That is the original you devoid of conditioning.

Then conditioning started slowly,

Slowly,

Slowly.

Oh,

If I scream,

My mother gives me a toy.

Screaming is the button.

I press that button and there comes the toy.

I scream and my mother takes me out for a walk.

I scream and I get food.

Slowly,

Slowly all your conditioning started.

That's how you know.

Then language came in.

Language had its own conditioning.

Then parents taught something.

Society teaches you something.

Cultural conditioning is there.

Religious conditioning is there.

And then you learn everything.

In learning everything,

You lose your sweetness.

You lose that which was your core.

You lose who you were.

That is what you were thirsting for because that is what you lost.

You lost the original you,

The real you.

All this conditioning is just a put on,

That which you have just put on later.

The core has become dry and parched.

So he says now you break down this conditioning,

Burn it,

Let it go and go back to that core,

That beautiful innocence that you were.

Because you were continuous joy 24-7.

You were joy.

You were a bundle of joy.

That is why children look so beautiful.

That is why they are so happy because they are in their true nature.

Jesus said,

Only those who become childlike can get entry into the kingdom of heaven.

You must have heard this.

Does he mean become childish?

No.

Not to become childish,

To become childlike.

And this is what he means.

Go back to that softness,

To that innocence.

That state where you embrace all,

Everything.

You look at everything with equal affection.

Now your cunning mind will say,

No,

No,

No,

I want to keep this conditioning and I want to go back to that core of sweetness and innocence.

It's not possible.

Not possible.

Stop fooling yourself.

Your mind is fooling you.

Your mind is fooling you.

Either or.

Either you stay with your conditioning and suffer for the rest of your life.

At the last moment,

Just before kicking the bucket,

You will regret it because all along you knew how to go back home and you did not make an attempt.

Now you definitely know.

Yeah?

And you will regret it.

You will die with that sadness in the heart that you did not open the door when the Lord knocked.

Or let go of your conditioning.

Go back to that core.

And then it comes at all costs,

Whatever the cost may be.

Let people do what they want to do.

Let people say what they want to say.

I will be that soft center.

That sweet,

Pure core.

That who I was.

All this conditioning just sucked that joy out of me.

I can go back to that because this body-mind complex carries the memory of that.

I can go back.

It is in my hand.

I have to just let go of the conditioning.

So only if you are ready to let go of the conditioning,

Can you walk the path of love.

Now do you understand why Bhakti path is the most difficult path?

Yes?

The Bhakti path externally it may seem easy.

It is harder than the jnana path.

So don't think that by singing songs,

Dancing around an idol or praising the Guru,

Praising the scriptures is Bhakti path.

Not at all.

Not at all.

That is only symbolism.

That was just a symbol for simple people who could not understand the witness.

You are at a level where you can comprehend it.

You can understand it now.

You have even tasted the sweet peace.

Now if you want to genuinely walk a Bheer's path,

It is about burning down the house of conditioning.

The next line he says,

Ghar Jadiyo Ghar Ubherere.

The more conditioning you burn down,

The more the conditioning keeps coming up.

Why?

Because you've had layers of conditioning through all your life.

You burn down the top layer,

There is another thing below it that will come up.

You burn down that layer of conditioning,

Another layer keeps coming up.

Ghar Jadiyo Ghar Ubherere.

You scorch the house and another house arises because the mind is very cunning.

Very cunning.

It doesn't want to walk the path and so it brings up more and more conditioning as an obstacle on your own path.

So really the problem is not in the paths.

Where is the problem?

In my own conditioning.

My own conditioning becomes an obstacle on my own path.

So you burn down one house,

Another gets built up.

Oh Jogiya.

Jogiya is seeker of truth.

Oh the person who is walking on the path,

The spiritual path.

Ghar Rakyogar Jai.

You keep,

You try to maintain or preserve something,

That also goes.

He is talking about both the opposite aspects.

You burn down conditioning,

More conditioning comes up.

You try to protect what you have and it goes because everything is temporary.

Whatever you are trying to preserve,

It keeps going out,

Slipping from your hands.

You think it's just an illusion that this house is permanent,

This money that I have is permanent,

This relationship is permanent.

Day to day it is changing,

Day to day it is changing.

In a moment it can be gone.

So Ghar Rakyogar Jai.

Ek achchambu mein de kyore,

Jogiya ho jiya,

Maro kaalne khaai.

I saw a strange sight.

Oh Yogi,

I saw a dead man eating up time.

Who is the dead man here and what is time?

What does this even mean?

The body,

Mind and ego is called the jiva.

Body,

Mind and ego is called the jiva.

The three together is called the jiva.

The witness witnesses the body,

Witnesses the mind and witnesses the ego.

We are making an effort to drop the conditioning of this jiva and recognize that I am the witness and rest there as the witness because that is where is the sweet peace.

When I am in the body,

In the mind and the ego,

There is time.

When is time there?

Time is there only from the moment you come to the dreaming state and open your eyes into the waking state in the morning.

And in the night,

When you lie down on the bed,

Move into the dreaming state.

Till the end of the dreaming state,

There is time.

After that,

Boof,

Time vanishes.

When you are in the deep sleep state,

There is no time.

What happened?

I don't know how long I was in the deep sleep state.

When I come out of it,

Probably I can guess.

If I was dreaming for two hours in the night and two in the morning and totally I was in bed for six,

That means two hours I was in deep sleep.

You do a post calculation but really you have no experience of that deep sleep state.

All the scriptures tell you that your sleep will give you the clue about your death.

The same thing happens when you die.

Just time stops.

You are in the similar deep sleep state after death.

So this is a metaphor for saying that when you start dropping conditioning willingly,

Voluntarily,

You are getting ready to die.

The body,

Mind and ego,

The three,

Jiva,

They have collected their conditioning and you are letting go of conditioning,

Letting go of conditioning,

Letting go dropping and just resting as the witness.

What are you doing?

You are eating up time because the witness is timeless.

There is no time there.

So it's a metaphor,

A poetic license given to the poet where he says,

A dead man was eating up time.

I saw this wondrous sight.

So now if you understand the witness and the jiva,

What is aage and what is piche?

The witness is piche and this jiva which is body,

Mind,

Ego is aage.

So aage re aage davajade re.

Davajade means the fire is blazing in the front.

Piche hariya hoe.

But at the back there is greenery.

So again poetic license to say that it is so green and peaceful and full and beautiful like the spring when I am in the witness.

Whenever I am in the body,

Mind and ego,

There is only jealousy,

Hatred,

Anger,

Ill will,

Passion,

Lust,

Ambition.

There is too much fire when I am aage.

But when I am piche,

It is green and soft and very joyous like the spring.

Bali hari,

Un rukhdi re jogiya ojia,

Jad katyo phalahoe.

I saw a plant ojogi.

You cut its root and the fruit revives.

What he is really saying is that the more you cut away conditioning from this body,

Mind and ego,

From this trinity of the jiva,

The more you cut its root,

The fruit which is the witness,

It nurtures,

It thrives,

It flourishes.

You get to be in that witness more and more and more.

Ramras,

This is the sweetness of the witness.

This is nithoganore,

It is very sweet.

Dhruv piyo,

Pralad piyori,

Jogiya ojiya,

Piyo,

Pipe,

Rabidas.

These are all enlightened saints.

Their names are Dhruv,

Prahlad,

Pippa and Rabidas.

All four of them drank it.

He is just giving examples of people who got enlightened.

Bhagat Kabira pe rahyori.

He is addressing himself as,

I Kabir,

The devotee,

I am drinking this nectar right now.

Thir pevan riyas and my thirst is as great as it's ever been.

This is the falling in love that happens to the jnani also.

He falls in love with the awareness,

The witness.

He cannot but stop himself from knowing it more,

From understanding it more.

He makes an attempt to recognize how is the witness different from the mind.

He sees that the mind is nothing but one thought that arises and sets.

From what did it arise?

Into what did it set?

Oh,

This is that witness.

This is that ocean in which every wave comes up,

In which every wave goes and sets.

He becomes so enthralled by this whole understanding of the witness.

The falling in love is a natural process for the jnani.

And his thirst keeps increasing.

There is a story I think in one of Buddha's suttas.

He tells his bhikkhus,

You don't be like that person who is counting others cows.

So he says,

You know there are these cowherds who sit right at that grazing field and they count.

Oh,

That person,

He has 20 cows.

Oh,

That person has 25 cows.

That person is very rich,

45 cows.

So much milk he must be getting.

But he doesn't do anything.

He is not ready to even lift a finger,

Forget grazing a cow and milking it and making money out of it.

Lot of people on the spiritual path love to attend sessions,

Love to listen to Kabir,

To Ramana,

To Nisargadatta Maharaj,

To Atmananda.

They are only counting others cows.

Applying,

Application is the most important thing.

Not just listening.

Stop counting others cows.

Start applying.

You've counted enough of cows.

Now is the time to start making that effort again and again to rest in the witness,

As the witness.

Recognize the conditioning that is pulling me out.

Now learn to drop the attachment to this conditioning.

If something is pulling me out,

Naturally I have an attachment.

I like what J.

K.

Krishnamurthy says about attachment.

He says,

Attachment is the corruption of love.

Corrupted love is attachment.

Don't corrupt your love.

Be pure.

Be pure.

Because you will not find happiness outside purity.

It is not possible.

Forget about it.

Only in one place can you find happiness in purity.

So go back to your pure nature.

Again and again remind yourself.

I have to go back to the way I was when I was one year old.

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