कबीरा एक ना जाणिया, बहू जाने क्या होय? एक ते सब होत हैं, सब ते एक ना होय!
Kabira Ek Na Janiya, Bahu Jaane Kya Hoye? Ek te Sab Hoth Hain, Sab te Ek Na Hoye!
Kabir says, you don’t know ‘One’ what is the use of knowing everything and anything else? Everything comes from ‘One’, not the other way round!
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It is Kabir’s inimitable style to evoke ambiguities, even in this doha (couplet) he talks about a certain ‘one’ and exhorts to know the one. He almost rejects all the ones who know everything but one. My earthy mind wasn’t prepared to take Kabir’s argument without–what we call–tarqa, deliberation. Hence I began to cogitate. The more I did so, the more I found myself entangled in Kabir’s vani ; a trait unique to Kabir. I did not want to conclude anything by just one reading of the couplet. I did not want to take whatever he said as true. This time, not so easily.
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I am one, you are one, I come from one place, so do you, you go to the same place, so do I! One beginning, one ending. Kabir says “One”. Isn’t it really obvious? The world being referred to as one organism, eating, living and leaving; bit by bit. What I needed to understand is if Kabir meant anything beyond what I understood. I do not doubt that he did. He knows better. I extrapolated this idea to include some more beings. We, as students of science have been told since day one that “Energy cannot be created nor be destroyed, it can only be transformed from one form to another”. Hasn’t science stayed firm on this concept since eons? It never gave up on believing or proving this. Therefore if you derived some equation or thought of some experiment that defied this law it would simply mean that your concept is wrong! The one, which drives everything in this existence cannot be created, cannot be destroyed, it just stays there forever manifesting in different forms, Kabir knew this ‘One’? Perhaps he did, considering Kabir seemed to know a lot many things beyond the scope of the age he lived in. Did Kabir know about the Big Bang Theory too? “Everything evolves from one not the other way round”?
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“One life to live”, they all say. I do not believe in it. I believe that we are born now, we live now, we will be born again. Like time is a cart wheel or Kabir’s grinding stone. There are many theories to support this and I think the one most important thing to learn for the believers of life being one is that they don’t get a second chance and be it love or hate they have to finish it this one time. Unfortunately, many of us take it even more lightly. If I began to believe that life is just one and if something confirmed it to me then I would grab every moment and probably even panic that I wouldn’t get a chance to better my Karma. For the ones who think life is only a one time journey, Kabir might be trying to say, “if life is just one, you fool! aren’t you screwing it up by doing everything else other than taking care of the one life? Everything is because of this one life and not because of anything else!”. If he meant this then we get the message.
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GOD. The ever elusive one. The one who some partially “believe” in, others don’t and rest “experience”. Kabir, from his poetry, seems to be very sure about the ‘one’. Is he simply, like other mystics of his time, exhorting us to believe that there is just one God? The omnipotent, the ultimate? Seeing the present day scenario, where hatred between followers of different religions seems hard to leave, only this argument seems to be logical. Religions have always dictated some laws and have exercised authority to make sure these laws are followed. But what if Kabir was just trying to tell us that you are the one who has a choice ultimately. You are the ‘one’ who chooses to be tyrannized by these laws and lawmakers or walk free. You are the one who makes everything (law of Karma yada yada yada) and not the other way round?
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Perhaps Kabir is reiterating that people and situations can only be won by love? Love keeps us all together- One! We have been reading, discussing, singing, dancing, realizing love! Some time I wonder that isn’t this the only thing we expect from everybody and everything? A little love? In Kabir, I have found new meanings of ‘One’. We are all one, we become one, our search is for the same one, we will all meet that one some day, we all need just the same one thing, we all are capable of giving the same one thing to one another, there is nothing we can call ours expect for this one quality, we all are driven by the same one, when we are made up of so many same things and all of it boils down to one, how different can each one of us be anyway? Kabira Ek Na Janiya, Bahu Jane Kya Hoye! If you don’t know this (one) what is the use of knowing anything else?
This post is the result of a conversation I had with a friend. I think I was successful in converting her into a Kabir enthusiast. Or was it me? Kabir himself slips so stealthily into our houses and lives and in no time, he is our own (and we are Kabir’s “fool”) :p
