When help comes, just don’t resist || Acharya Prashant, on Guru Kabir (2019)
Tohi more lagan lagaye re fakirwa
Sovat hi main apne mandir mein Shabd baan mari jagaye re fakirwa
Tohi more lagan lagaye re fakirwa
Doobat hi bhav ke saagar mein Bahinyan pakari samajhaye re fakirwa
Tohi more lagan lagaye re fakirwa
Ek vachan vachan nahi duja, bandhan mohe chhudaye re fakirwa
Tohi more lagan lagaye re fakirwa
Kahat kabir suno bhai sadho Pranan pran samaye re fakirwa
Tohi more lagan lagaye re fakirwa
Translation:
You linked us together, o fakir!
I was deep asleep in my temple. Your arrows of words, struck my ear and woke me up.
You linked us together, o fakir!
I was drowning in the sea of vice, you pulled me out by my arm.
You linked us together, o fakir!
You speak only one word, and talk of nothing else. Your council sank into my heart and in moments, freed me from earthly bonds.
You linked us together, o fakir!
Says Kabir- O gentle soul listen! The fakir embraced me in a hug and pressed my heart close to his.
You linked us together, o fakir!
~ Guru Kabir Sahib
Question: Acharya Ji, Pranaam! How can my heart too sing with you Acharya Ji? Please explain these lines by Guru Kabir Sahib.
Acharya Prashant Ji: In the entire verse Jyothi, does the seeker do anything?
There is a woman who is ostensibly singing this song with respect to a Fakir. Between the two of them, please see who is the doer. We will go line-by-line. You tell me: Who is the mover of things? Who holds the responsibility to do things?
*Tohi more lagan lagaye re fakirwa*(You linked us together, o fakir!)
Who did this? Fakirwa (The Fakir).
*Sovat hi main apne mandir mein*Shabd baan mari jagaye re fakirwa
*(I was deep asleep in my temple.*Your arrows of words, struck my ear and woke me up).
Who did this? Fakirwa (The Fakir).
*Doobat hi bhav ke saagar mein*Bahinyan pakari samajhaye re fakirwa
*(I was drowning in the sea of vice,*you pulled me out by my arm).
Who did this? Fakirwa (The Fakir).
*Ek vachan vachan nahi duja,*tum moh se bandh chhudaye re fakirwa
*(You speak only one word, and talk nothing else.*Your council sank into my heart and in moments, freed me from earthly bonds).
Who did this? Fakirwa (The Fakir).
*Kahat kabir suno bhai sadho*Pranan pran samaye re fakirwa
*(Says Kabir- O gentle soul listen!*The fakir embraced me in a hug and pressed my heart close to his).
Who did this? Fakirwa (The Fakir).
And see Jyothi (the questioner) , what you are asking. “How can my heart too sing with you Acharya Ji?” Is the lady in the verse demanding anything, wishing anything, doing anything?
What causes her Liberation? Her non-doership. The fact that she is not even desiring or demanding, let alone doing. What has she done? Nothing. And that is what is needed of you Jyothi. Do nothing. So when the Fakir wakes you up from your slumber, do nothing. Just wake up.
*Sovat hi main apne mandir mein*Shabd baan mari jagaye re fakirwa
*(I was deep asleep in my temple.*Your arrows of words, struck my ear and woke me up).
So you are sleeping in your so-called ‘temple’. This is such a subtle satire on the places we call as ‘our temples’. What are our temples? Places where we can sleep. Places where we can sleep.
*Sovat hi main apne mandir mein*Shabd baan mari jagaye re fakirwa
*(I was deep asleep in my temple.*Your arrows of words, struck my ear and woke me up).
So, this lady is first of all in her own self-professed, self-constructed temple. So according to her the place must already be Holy. And not only is she already in a Holy place, she is blissfully lost in sleep there.
Now this Fakir comes over and hits her with an arrow.
*Shabd baan mari jagaye re fakirwa.*(Your arrows of words, struck my ear and woke me up).
What profanity! Close to humiliation. And that too with a woman. This Fakir chap is shooting arrows at a sleeping woman, and that too at a Holy place.
*Sovat hi main apne mandir mein*Shabd baan mari jagaye re fakirwa
*(I was deep asleep in my temple.*Your arrows of words, struck my ear and woke me up).
There is a lot that this woman could have done in such a situation. There is lot that could have happened through her by way of reaction. She could have become very angry. She could have lodged an FIR. The Fakir dude would have been behind bars.
(laughter)
He would have forgotten all about his bows and arrows. But he took the liberty of hitting this woman with his sharp words – Shabd baan (Arrows of sharp words). And all that the woman did was that she did nothing, she just accepted.
That’s your role.
You would be sleeping in your cozy temples, and you would be ruthlessly shaken up, woken up. The arrows hit hard, they pierce. You have all the reasons to complain and run away, even retaliate. Don’t do anything.
When the Fakir is anyway taking the responsibility to do a lot of things, then your responsibility is to simply let him do what he wants to do. Do not forget that the woman in the verse does nothing. She just co-operates. She just co-operates.
So, just co-operate. See what the Fakir is doing.
Do not resist him, co-operate him silently.
*Doobat hi bhav ke saagar mein*Bahinyan pakari samajhaye re fakirwa
*(I was drowning in the sea of vice,*you pulled me out by my arm).
On her own, what was she doing? Drowning. Now she has already done what she could do. The net result of all her expertise, of all her wisdom is that she is found drowning. That’s the sum total of her life – drowning in bhavsagar , drowning in the ocean called ‘the world’.
And the Fakir comes over, the same chap again.
And he holds her by the arm. Now this could as well be constructed as exploiting a lady in distress. “Just because she is in a bad situation, you are taking liberties with her. How dare you? Was there consent?”
The lady does nothing. She simply lets the Fakir do what he must. If she does something, not only would she drown, chances are she would also pull the Fakir down with herself.
Your role is to allow yourself to be saved. Your role is to not to hamper the rescue. Your role, I repeat, is to co-operate.
*Ek vachan vachan nahi duja,*tum moh se bandh chhudaye re fakirwa
*(You speak only one word, and talk nothing else.*Your council sank into my heart and in moments, freed me from earthly bonds).
So the lady must be talking of a lot of things, like any commoner, like any worldly person. We talk of a lot of things. Our universe is rich and diverse in our estimate. There are so many things, there is so much to gossip about, there is so much to call our attention.
So we are full of stuff. We talk of this, we talk of that. And then comes over the Fakir, and he talks of nothing but the One.
*Ek vachan vachan nahi duja,*(You speak only one word, and talk nothing else).
And the lady must have felt irritated, right? You are talking of the spicy stuff in the latest South Indian restaurant. Yes! You are saying, “Special Rasam,” and he says, “Ram (the Lord).” You say, “No, No. Rasam.” He says, “Ram (the Lord).”
*Ek vachan vachan nahi duja,*(You speak only one word, and talk nothing else).
Very boring. Isn’t that? The lady could have run away. The lady is talking of this and that. She says, “Uttapam,” he says, “No, Uttam (the Ultimate).”
(laughter)
She didn’t run away. What did she do? She did nothing. She is talking of Jupiter and Saturn, then the Fakir says, “Ram .” She is talking of left and right, and the Fakir says, “Ram .” There were genuine reasons to declare the Fakir insane. What did the lady do? She did not declare the Fakir insane.
He had just one answer to every question, “*Ek vachan vachan nahi duja.*” Whereas the questions were apparently very diverse, the answer was always one. What was the answer? “Ram .”
The lady could have abandoned the Fakir saying, “He is the false one. Because he has no specific solutions to problems of life, so he keeps repeating the same, old, one, hackneyed, rotten answer. He is stuck at one point, he knows nothing.”
But she didn’t abandon him. She stayed put. What did she do? She stayed put even though the Fakir never gave answers that satisfied her intellect.
*Ek vachan vachan nahi duja,*(You speak only one word, and talk nothing else).
Answers are pre-determined. Doesn’t matter what you ask, you will get just one answer. One answer in various forms, in various words, just to entertain you a little. The Fakir too apparently has one minor weakness, he doesn’t want to let you go. He doesn’t want to be too blatant with you, otherwise you would feel disappointed, and would go away.
So instead of “Ram ,” he sometimes says, “Ayodhyapati (King of Ayodhya),” and you feel satisfied. You say, “This time there was a different answer.” And the next time he says, “Kaushalyanandan (son of Kaushalya),” you feel nice. And the next time he says, “Dashrathputra (son of Dashratha),” and you say, “Now he is making sense.”
It just so happens that the word ‘Ram’ has a million synonyms, so the Fakir can keep you engaged for a very long time. But essentially he is saying just one thing – Ek vachan vachan nahi duja.
Even if you see through his trick, stay put. That’s what is needed of you.
*Ek vachan vachan nahi duja,*tum moh se bandh chhudaye re fakirwa
*(You speak only one word, and talk nothing else.*Your council sank into my heart and in moments, freed me from earthly bonds).
After you have been liberated of the bondages, then you are able to call bandh (bondage) as ‘*bandh*‘. After Liberation, bandh (bondage) is ‘*bandh*‘. Before Liberation, bandh (bondage) is kamarband (waistband). Very attractive. What other kinds of ‘bandh (bands)’ are there? Name the ornaments. There must be many. Waistband, armband, hairband.
After Liberation, you are able to call a bondage as a ‘bondage’. Before Liberation, a bondage is a thing to be celebrated. It is a spice of life, it is a jewel. It adds to you. It makes you shine.
Right?
Only after Liberation do waistband and armband become bandh (bondage). So when the Fakir was robbing her of her waistband, she could have shouted, “Thief, thief. My precious jewellery is being stolen. The bugger merely looks like an ascetic, in reality he is very fond of my gold. See he is taking away all my gold!”
It is only after you are liberated of it, will you realise that that which you thought of, and called as ‘gold’ was merely the chain that enslaved you.
What did the lady do when the bandh (band) was removed? She just kept quiet, and probably also co-operated. You see Fakirs are not very skilled in matters of ladies ornaments. So it would have been very difficult for the Fakir to remove all the intricate pieces of jewellery. He will not know how to open stuff and where the locks are. So she would have definitely co-operated.
Without her co-operation the Fakir would not have been able to remove all the stuff hanging about her. She co-operated. She made the Fakirs task easier. She didn’t resist She didn’t shout, “Help! Help!” She could have done that.
So what are you to do Jyoti (the questioner) ? Just don’t raise an alarm.
*Kahat kabir suno bhai sadho*Pranan pran samaye re fakirwa
*(Says Kabir- O gentle soul listen!*The fakir embraced me in a hug and pressed my heart close to his).
That will happen. That will happen.
But the Fakir is not going to force things. He is not going to dictate matters. He requires your co-operation. His wish is eternal, it is your wish that is missing. His wish is anyway present.
When your wish gets aligned to his wish, then the divine hug will materialise.
Till then just practice the art of co-operation.
Co-operating, co-operating, one day you will learn Surrender!
