Kabir

1440 - 1518 / Pratapgar, Uttar Pradesh, India

To What Shore Would You Cross

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.'
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