VBT – Week’s Meditation 52
Poetry Only Whispers
For Tantra God is Sensitivity.
Kabir says: every instant that the sun rises, if I stand in the temple, or on a balcony.
In the hot fields, or in a walled garden, my own lord is making love with me.
What is God? The moment the question is asked, the idea of a person arises in the mind – and God is not a person. Those who think of God as a person start, from the very beginning, moving in the wrong direction. They will never arrive. They will go round and round in circles, they will travel much, but they will never reach anywhere.
If the first step is wrong, all else goes wrong. The first step has to be absolutely right because the first step is half the journey already. In fact, as far as you are concerned, the first step is the whole of the journey – because the other step is to be taken toward you by God.
You take one step, he takes the other step. And the meeting. The distance between you and God is only two steps. The initiative has to be from your side.
God is not a person, but that’s what you have been told down the ages. God is a presence. God is not substance but significance. Once God is understood as significance, your life starts changing. You don’t argue about God, whether he exists or not; you are no longer interested in theology. The whole of theology becomes rubbish. You start moving in a totally different way, in an altogether different dimension.
If God is significance, you have to create a certain meaning in your life because only meaning can meet the meaning. You have to create significance in your life because only significance can meet the significance. You have to become more aware, more loving, more aesthetic, more sensitive.
If God were a person, it would have been a totally different approach. God is not a person, but only a fragrance. You will need great sensitivity to comprehend that significance, that fragrance, that music.
In this doha, Kabir is talking about something very fundamental. Listen to his words. Don’t only hear, listen. Don’t only listen, meditate with him, go with him. He is not a philosopher, he is not propounding a system of thought; he is a poet. He is singing from his own experience. He is not concerned with concepts. He is pouring his heart into his songs, he is pouring himself into his words.
You have to be very sensitive to understand this great poetic expression of mysticism, this great poetic expression of religion. Religion can only be expressed through poetry, music, dance. Any other way of expressing religion falls short, is inadequate. The mysterious has to be indicated only by something mysterious. God cannot be approached through the mind of calculation, mathematics. It is not possible to approach God through prose. The door opens only when you approach him through poetry.
Poetry is more liquid, more vague, not so solid as prose. Prose says something clearly, poetry only hints. Prose shouts, poetry only whispers. Prose is for the mundane world, poetry is for the sacred.
So whenever it happens that a person becomes a buddha, his expression, without any effort, becomes that of poetry. He may not compose poetry literally, but whatever he says, whatever he is, is poetry.
Kabir was absolutely illiterate, never went to school, wasn’t able to read or write. Still, when it happened, he exploded in great poetry. When the experience arose in his being, when the doors opened and mysteries were revealed, he bloomed in thousands of flowers. No other poet can be compared with Kabir. There have been greater poets than Kabir, but they were mere poets – talented, with great art, but Kabir has a personal experience of the divine which is missing in other poets. They may be talking about God, but it is mere talk. With Kabir it is not just talking. It is his heartfelt experience – it is existential.
Tags: Poetry Only Whispers
