Why Did Sufi Poets Like Kabir Emphasize Love in Bhakti?

Acharya Prashant

5 min
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Why Did Sufi Poets Like Kabir Emphasize Love in Bhakti?
The saints don't display affection at all. Affection actually means disease. Affection means disease. The saints have no affection. The saints have love and love has nothing to do with affection. Affection and affliction go together. It is not affection that characterizes a saint. It is love that characterizes him. Affection and dryness, they go together. Together always. And affection and love, they never go together. So you have to be very clear about what accompanies what. This summary has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation

Questioner Acharya Ji, I have been listening to Sufi and Bhakti poetry. Despite being intellectuals and scholars, for example, Kabir Sahab and Kushro, they put emphasis on affection rather than smartness, cunningness and intellect. Is that because generally intellectuals are considered detached and to explore the opposite, they now are putting more emphasis to affection?

Acharya Prashant: No, not at all. In fact, intellect and attachment and the normal kind of affection, they go together. You know what is the dictionary meaning of affection? You'll be surprised. What is affection? Just check the pure meaning. The common meaning is affection means love. Figure out and let me know.

Intellect can be very, very attached. In fact, intellect will be attached. So, it is not as if intellect and affection are opposite of each other. No, if you want to understand the words that belong to these two dimensions, you will have to consider the respective sets.

What goes with intellect? Attachment, ego, exploitation, the usual kind of emotional relationship. What goes with intelligence? Love. So it is not as if love is the opposite of intellect. Real love comes with intelligence. With intellect you do have love. The false kind of love. And my hunch is that when you say affection, you are referring to the very false kind of love that does not go against intellect, that goes with intellect.

The false kind of love accompanies the intellect very smoothly. The common notion is if you are an intellectual then you are dry and if you're not an intellectual then you are wet. Whatever that means. No, not true. Not true. The plane of intellect is the plane of duality. You are dry one moment just to be drenched to the next. They are not opposites. They belong to the same plane.

The one that you see as very dry in the office will be very wet the moment he reaches home. In fact, all the hours of dryness will make him even more eager to get wet. These two go hand in hand. They are not things of different dimensions. They belong to the same plane. Kindly do not see differences where there are none.

Intellect and affection go hand in hand. Intellect and one kind of love. They go hand in hand because they both belong to the ego. They both belong to the ego. So, they do go hand in hand. What does not go with intellect is real love, not affection. Real love comes with intelligence. That's a different plane.

So in your normal life, in your normal observation, experience. You have, as you say, dry people and wet people. They are one and the same. No difference at all. The one who is very wet for his family members, let's say, will be very dry towards the rest of the world. Is that not so? And the one who is dry is dry only because his wet ambitions could not be fulfilled. So now he is frustrated against life and acting very dry.

But the more dry he acts, the more he's proving that he's desperate to get wet. And that's why he is acting so dry. In fact, he is communicating it to the entire universe. I'm unhappy. That's why I'm dry. And I'll continue to act dry till you fulfill my desires. And the day something rains on him, all his dryness is gone.

In fact, his dryness is just to attract the rains. No, it's a very tested, proven script. Act extremely dry and then there will be an opportunity to get wet. Act extremely pricey. Chances are you will be picked. Act very reluctant, ‘I don't want to. I don't want anything from you,’ chances are you will be paid and also laid. Just act reluctant, ‘I don't want this.’ No, no.

These dualities, they all belong to the same plane. The fool and the saint, they do not belong to the same plane. In your question you named a few saints and you said they display affection. Is affection then the opposite of intellect? No no no no.

The saints don't display affection at all. Affection actually means disease. Affection means disease. The saints have no affection. The saints have love and love has nothing to do with affection. Affection and affliction go together. It is not affection that characterizes a saint. It is love that characterizes him. Affection and dryness, they go together. Together always. And affection and love, they never go together. So you have to be very clear about what accompanies what.

This article has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation from transcriptions of sessions by Acharya Prashant
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