The ineffable tale of that final simple state:
it’s utterly different.
It can’t be weighed on a scale, can’t be whittled down.
It doesn’t feel heavy and doesn’t feel light.
It has no rain, no sea, no sun or shade.
It doesn’t contain creation or destruction.
No life, no death exist in it, no grief, no joy.
Both solitude and blissful union are absent from it.
It has no up or down, no high or low.
It doesn’t contain either night or day.
There’s no water, no air, no fire that flares again and again.
The True Master permeates everything there.
The Eternal One remains unmoving, imperceptible, unknowable.
You can attain Him with the Guru’s grace.
Kabir says, sacrifice yourself to the Guru, and remain ensconced in the true community.
Kabir
Refrain: sahaja ki akatha kathā hai nirāri
Verse 1: taha pāvasa sindhu dhūpa nahi chhahĩa
Ādi Granth, Rāga Gaudī, shabad 48
The Weaver’s Song
Translated by Vinay Dharwadker
I return again and again to Kabir’s songs – he who couldn’t be pinned down by tradition, who points to that which is beyond words. This weavers song points so eloquently to that beyond all expression. Yet lays a trail of breadcrumbs to follow ….
Kabir, the mystic poet
Kabir, who lived around 1440 to 1518 is one of the towering figures of India spirituality. I love his poems which blend both Hindu Bhakti and Sufi themes into a seamless devotional whole. In his life he transcended boundaries, and was critical of formalism in religion, rejecting ritualism, idolatry and dogmatism. He was all about the direct experience of the divine, and the inward search for truth. Not only are his songs revered and sung within Hinduism and Sufism to this day, but 200 songs were also incorporated into the Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred text of the Sikhs.
His constant reference to Nirguna Bhakti – devotion to a formless God – really speaks to me, as there’s a direct stepping off point there towards Emptiness and Primordial Purity. His poetry constantly emphasises the illusion of duality, pointing to the nonduality of self and other.
Perhaps most interesting to me was his emphasis on God as a loving presence, despite seeing God as entirely formless, and beyond all characteristics. How beautiful this juxtaposition – there being absolutely nothing whatsoever that you can grasp onto in the ultimate, yet that utter formlessness giving forth to endless love and presence!
In Dzogchen and Mahamudra there is this parallel theme of utter emptiness, without any ground at all, yet that emptiness is luminous and aware, and from which springs forth the endless display of magical expression – the ebb and flow of appearances. I clearly see why this is not the same thing as Kabir points to, if you take the philosophical positions at their word. Yet for me Kabir’s songs point me directly to Rigpa, as close enough to instantly evoke that recognition, regardless of the philosophical differences behind his words.
The ineffable tale of that final simple state
The ineffable tale of that final simple state:
it’s utterly different.
I used to read these things in the teachings, and imagine some mystical state far away and far beyond what my ordinary experience was. How wonderous this must be – a blaze of glorious light and brilliance, like ordinary reality ramped out x1000! Yet how marvelous this Rigpa is, pointing to that which is indeed utterly different. Not different because it’s different to every ordinary experience, as a ‘better’ experience. But different because it’s not of the nature of those experiences which come and go, which have characteristics, and which can be grasped as objects of awareness.
This open, empty awareness is primordially pure, forever untainted by whatever arises and forever unimproved by whatever glorious experience we have. Unlike every single experience we have ever had, this does not come and go, and has nothing whatsoever we can grasp. Something else entirely. Yet has been here all the time, silently bearing witness to the comings and goings – indeed, giving birth to those coming and goings, and being none other than those comings and goings as well!
No life, no death exist in it, no grief, no joy
It can’t be weighed on a scale, can’t be whittled down.
It doesn’t feel heavy and doesn’t feel light.
It has no rain, no sea, no sun or shade.
It doesn’t contain creation or destruction.
No life, no death exist in it, no grief, no joy.
This empty luminosity is beyond all characteristics, though we call it empty and we call it luminous. It never arises, as it’s primordially present, beyond coming and going entirely. Resting in this Rigpa, there is no life or death, and though grief and joy seem to arise, nowhere can they be found at all. A marvelous display of magical illusion, yet silent, still and pure beyond pure.
You can try to look and understand Rigpa, but every time you do you slide off into creating fabrication, creating a verisimilitude of it, yet one that is entirely conceptual and created. Endlessly we can seek to grasp and endlessly we create conceptual illusion, dualistic objects to be grasped by self and attention. Yet all the while this groundless ground and its radiant luminosity stand untouched by our efforts and primordially pure.
So stop. Relax and allow this recognition to arise.
Both solitude and blissful union are absent from it.
Both solitude and blissful union are absent from it.
It has no up or down, no high or low.
It doesn’t contain either night or day.
There’s no water, no air, no fire that flares again and again.
When resting in Rigpa you cannot say that you are entirely separate from the endless display of appearances. Not can you say that you are in union with them, with multiplicity.
This luminous emptiness is nondual in nature – not single, not multiple. Not nothing, not something. Entirely beyond those dualistic categories that the mind deals in.
How wondrous this state which lies entirely beyond, yet all of existence miraculously display within it.
Nothing is ultimately better or worse in this emptiness, regardless of how skillful or unskillful the thought or action. Yes, those things count at their own level. They count very much indeed. Yet the primordial ground remains forever beyond the limitations of mental elaborations and free from all comings and goings.
The True Master permeates everything
The True Master permeates everything there.
The Eternal One remains unmoving, imperceptible, unknowable.
You can attain Him with the Guru’s grace.
Kabir says, sacrifice yourself to the Guru, and remain ensconced in the true community.
This natural, unchanging purity is the essence of all experience, and so the True Master permeates all that arises in your mind. Nothing is other than this primordial base, yet the base remains forever unmoved by that which appears to move through it.
Imperceptible and unknowable to the ordinary mind, it cannot be grasped as a concept, however rarified and subtle you try to make those concepts. It’s just something else altogether, yet so close and so near you’ve overlooked it all your life – grasping as you did at the ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ that make up their endless parade.
Let go of all that, and notice what gives birth to it all – right here, right now. It’s nowhere else but here, but lies beyond here and there, beyond now and not now.
What beautiful expression:
sacrifice yourself to the Guru, and remain ensconced in the true community.
This Primordial Ground you realise is none other than the Guru, and has been calling you always, from beginningless beyond timesness. Beyond here and there.
Always here, always calling.
Drop that which beguiles you.
And listen to what calls you!
