To what shore would you cross, O my heart? : Kabir

here    ©fourteenth

To what shore would you cross, O my heart? there is no traveller

before you, there is no road:

Where is the movement, where is the rest, on that shore?

There is no water; no boat, no boatman, is there;

There is not so much as a rope to tow the boat, nor a man to draw it.

No earth, no sky, no time, no thing, is there: no shore, no ford!

There, there is neither body nor mind: and where is the place

that shall still the thirst of the soul? You shall find naught

in that emptiness.

Be strong, and enter into your own body: for there your foothold

is firm. Consider it well, O my heart! go not elsewhere,

Kabîr says: "Put all imaginations away, and stand fast in that

which you are."

Kabir

From: Songs Of Kabir

Translated by Rabindranath Tagore

New York, The Macmillan Company 1915