Showing posts with label kabir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kabir. Show all posts

Monday, May 30, 2011

Sketchbook scraps: from the 'Learning with Kabir' workshop


"This is the house of love, not a bed of roses.
Cut off your head,
place it on the floor,
then come and sit in it."


On 'nyara':
Linda Hess: The meaning is 'different' or 'other'. Utterly other. Not just different, but different from anything we can conceive.

Bits of 'Sakhiya va ghar sab se nyara':

that house is utterly other...

there's no grief or joy, no truth of lie, no field of good and evil.
there's no moon or sun, no day or night, but brilliance without light.

no wisdom, no meditation, no recitation, no renunciation, no Veda, Quran, or sacred song.
action, possession, social convention, all gone.

where that one lives, there's nothing.
kabir says, I've got it!
if you catch my hint, you find the same place --
no place.




Every day I die singing (Ashok Vajpeyi)
He said, I'm a practitioner of the most perishable art: every day I die singing. That Kumar Gandharva who was singing, that raga Tilak Kamod he sang -- both are dead. Tomorrow again Tilak Koamod will be sung, and Kumar gandharva will sing, but not the same. In music whatever has happened once, by whatever person, may happen again, by that person again, but not the same.

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Prahladji: guru is wisdom, or a 'samajh' -- not necessarily a person.

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We're quick to challenge the authority of a guru, of someone outside, but don't seem to challenge the authority of experience. By this I mean our own particular limited experiences, our opinions, our feelings. The importance of an unconditioned voice (Krishnamurti, the Buddha, Kabir, etc) strikes me. Merely bouncing things off each other or our experience might limit enquiry to the field of experience?

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Kabir wasn't interested in domination.

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Words stronger than bullets.

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The distinction between debate and dialogue.

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Kishori Amonkar: You
render a raaga. You do not conquer/control it; you submit to it.

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Relativising everything: there is your truth, my truth, a million truths, and therefore no truth at all!

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"I set out to find evil and found no evil one.
I searched my own self and found no one as evil as I."

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Art/music that arises from suffering and art that arises from silence: Is there a difference?

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Prahladji: Teach them songs. Teach the younger ones songs about love and unity. Teach the older ones songs about the conflict in the world.

:)

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Vishakha shared a lovely story about a leaf and a clay ball, which I will share with you through the little illustrated book I'm making for a friend! :). Here's one page:

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Kabir at Shibumi

On Thursday, Shabnam and Arati spent the morning at Shibumi. The day was a wonderful mix of things: singing, painting, drama, discussion. We've put up a lot of photographs and videos along with something Arati wrote, on the Shibumi blog.

Every single painting the children made was so vibrant and beautiful! We should organise more painting in school. There's less pressure of trying to make things look perfectly as they should: everything is just blotches of colour! :)




Sunday, February 7, 2010

Faith

Ever since I attended the 'Learning with Kabir' workshop, I have been wondering about faith. Usually the word 'faith' is associated with belief, passivity, rigidity. Clearly, Kabir wasn't speaking of that sort of faith. Although what was said about faith rang very true, there was something I hadn't completely understood then.

Today, suddenly, the word fell into place perfectly! Faith is what allows the deepening of enquiry. Faith is the strong, clear feeling that truth lies here… in the negation of the self, or the discovery of the true self of interdependence and impermanence -- whatever one terms it. Faith is what allows me, when I come across something that Krishnamurti or the Buddha or somebody else says that does not make perfect sense yet, to hold it in my mind rather than trying to evaluate it right away and perhaps discarding it.

Faith is in truth, in the Teachings, not so much in a particular person who appears enlightened. So faith in this sense is not passive: it brings about observation and awareness from moment to moment. There seems to be an element of memory in faith. Something pricks you and you suddenly jump up in attention -- is that prick memory or something quite different?

You can forever be debating this theory or that, wondering whether you really want to let go of this self that offers so much pleasure and security, postponing, living in confusion. Faith is commitment to truth, despite confusion and all other movements of the mind. It is diving in. When confusion arises, it is faith that causes you to step back to see the trappings of the self. Then you are no longer caught in the confusion.

I will tentatively say that the source of this faith does not seem important. Reading or listening to somebody, meeting someone whose life and presence shakes you up, your own mind or culture, something mysterious perhaps… faith seems to come about differently for different people.

For me, I know it is irreversible. I can see clearly truth of the Teachings: there is no doubt about it; and it is not merely an opinion I am holding on to.

It does seem important for faith not to be blind belief or the seeking of security, but perhaps even an initial faith that is not based on a clear sense of truth is a good thing. If one is drawn to the Teachings enough to cause actual exploration, perhaps that is all that matters?