“I don’t want to come to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.”
– Diane Ackerman
Kabir – The couplet
??? ????? ??? ????, ????? ???? ??? |
?? ???? ???? ???, ??? ?????? ??? ||
transliterated:
Jin dhunda tin payiya, gahire pani paith |
Mai bauri duban dari, rahi kinare baith ||
Translation:
The seeker found the sought, by diving into the deep |
Apprehensive of the depth, I stayed safe on the shore ||
My understanding:
On the face of it, this is an extremely simple thought – no risk, no gain- and no loss!
However, there is deeper significance to it.
Every moment of life presents us with the opportunity for enormous gain – if we dive into the unknown risk supported only by our collected wealth of experience. The only way to see beyond is by scaling the peaks in front of us.
More importantly, the exploration of the opportunity is a primary purpose, not a possible potential benefit of being born. We each have a responsibility to see further, learn more, dive deeper and gather more (riches of knowledge) than what is present in our world as it exists now.
That is the yardstick by which the great seer Kabir is asking us to measure ourselves by – that I made the effort to do more than I could every moment of the way.