Kabir Day 36

Today’s thought –

 

“There must be more to life than having everything.”

-Maurice Sendak

 

…and now, Kabir day 36:

 

The couplet transliterated:

Man diya kahin aur hi, tan saadhan ke sangh |

Kah Kabir kori gaji, kaise laage rang      ||

 

Translation:

While the mind roams its myriad paths, the body exercises on its own |

Says Kabir, an unbleached cloth, cannot take on the dye applied to it ||

 

My understanding – 

The mind strives to find its destiny in this life.

 

The body, driven by instinct, desire and activity around itself, has an agenda driven by basic instinct. This ‘drive-for-lucre’ causes conflict between the body’s desires and the mind’s quest, and they fall out of sync in their purpose. Living together, they are inextricably attached and yet completely disconnected from each other in both purpose and path.

 

Kabir, the weaver, has gone back to his profession to find an appropriate analogy – and what a perfect one he found. An unbleached cloth cannot take on color applied to it in any sense of regularity or appropriateness. Similarly, the mind cannot comprehend, accept or come to terms with the body’s physical desires especially when they are not in sync with the larger goals of life.

 

This is where I found harmony in Maurice Sendak’s quote above – the everything he speaks of is the everything this world has. That is still everything that goes back to dust and ashes when the body is no more. What remains after is what the mind strives for – and what our body must join in the search for, to attain the true purpose of life. For both can only work together, or not at all.