About Kabir
Timeline (15th Century)
lift the veilthat obscuresthe heartand thereyou will findwhat you arelooking for

The Praises of GodBy Francis of Assisi(1181 - 1226)English version by Regis J. Armstrong, OFM CAP & Ignatius C. Brady, OFM
You are holy, Lord, the only God, You do wonders.You are strong, You are great, You are the most high,You are the almighty King.You, Holy Father, the King of heaven and earth.You are Three and One, Lord God of gods;You are good, all good, the highest good,Lord, God, living and true.You are love, charity.You are wisdom; You are humility; You are patience;You are beauty; You are meekness; You are security;You are inner peace; You are joy; You are our hope and joy;You are justice; You are moderation, You are all our riches.You are beauty, You are meekness;You are the protector,You are the guardian and defender;You are strength; You are refreshment.You are our hope, You are our faith, You are our charity,You are all our sweetness,You are our eternal life:Great and wonderful Lord,God almighty, Merciful Savior.

The metaphor of a garden to represent one's spiritual awareness is an ancient one used throughout India and the Middle East. Think about a garden for a moment. What is it? First, it is a place where things grow, a place of life. It is the opposite of death, which is the state of nonspirituality. The plants of the garden are rooted in the earth, yet they reach upward toward the light of the sun. On an even subtler level, a garden is a place of nourishment and of beauty. What grows in our spiritual gardens feeds us through its "fruitfulness" and brings beauty, the awareness of harmony to our consciousness. The flowers of the garden represent the spiritual qualities that have opened within us, that in turn cause us to open to the Divine. The flowers are within us, and we are the flowers. From the yogic point of view, the flowers sometimes represent the chakras that open during spiritual awakening. Also, a garden is a place of contemplation and rest. It is a place where we give ourselves permission to simply be, to settle into the present moment. The garden represents the soul at rest in the living presence of the Divine.

Al-Wahhaab

• The Bestower, The One who is Generous in giving plenty without any return. He is everything that benefits whether Halal or Haram.  

By Abu-Said Abil-Kheir(967 - 1049)English version by Vraje Abramian
When the desire for the Friend became real,all existence fell behind.The Beloved wasn't interested in my reasoning,I threw it away and became silent.The sanity I had been taught became a bore,it had to be ushered off.Insane, silent and in bliss,I spend my days with my headat the feet of My Beloved.
-- from Nobody, Son of Nobody: Poems of Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir, Translated by Vraje AbramianAmazon.com

A slumber did my spirit seal;I had no human fears:She seemed a thing that could not feelThe touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force;She neither hears nor sees;Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,With rocks, and stones, and trees.
- William Wordsworth

Thought for the Day:Let your longinglead you. Searching for the DharmaBy Hsu Yun(1839 - 1959)You've traveled up ten thousand steps in search of the Dharma.So many long days in the archives, copying, copying.The gravity of the Tang and the profundity of the Sungmake heavy baggage.Here! I've picked you a bunch of wildflowers.Their meaning is the samebut they're much easier to carry.

Pride, envy, avarice -- these are the sparks have set on fire the souls of man."

okan
Timeline (1758 - 1831)
English version by Stephen Mitchell
First days of spring -- the sky
First days of spring -- the skyis bright blue, the sun huge and warm.Everything's turning green.Carrying my monk's bowl, I walk to the villageto beg for my daily meal.The children spot me at the temple gateand happily crowd around,dragging to my arms till I stop.I put my bowl on a white rock,hang my bag on a branch.First we braid grasses and play tug-of-war,then we take turns singing and keeping a kick-ball in the air:I kick the ball and they sing, they kick and I sing.Time is forgotten, the hours fly.People passing by point at me and laugh:"Why are you acting like such a fool?"I nod my head and don't answer.I could say something, but why?Do you want to know what's in my heart?From the beginning of time: just this! just this!

A common experience of high mystical states is the perception of a flood of light. The onrush of light can be intense, almost overwhelming, or it can be gentle and soothing, but it is associated with a radical expansion of awareness that is often compared with waking up, "awakening."For these reasons, the experience is often compared with the dawn.

People may sit till the cushion is worn through,By Lu Tung Pin(755 - 805)English version by T. C. Lai
People may sit till the cushion is worn through,But never quite know the real Truth:Let me tell about the ultimate Tao:It is here, enshrined within us.

What we see is not the most important.Could dust rise without the invisiblehand of the wind?Could a fan turn without any current?Could lungs breathe without breath?Tell meWhat is the shape of Love?How much does Joy weighwhen held in the palm of your hand?Can you catch the Spirit of Life in a jar?All things seen dependupon the Unseen.All sounds depend upon Silence.All things felt dependupon what is not felt.

A giddy joy comes upon you in the ecstatic state, felt especially as a spreading warmth upon the heart. This is greater and, at the same time subtler, than what is normally called happiness. Happiness is sharp-edged and fleeting, but this joy is filled with peace and completely independent of external circumstances. This quiet bliss is steady and radiant.The welling up of feeling can be so strong that often one reflexively smiles or even laughs out loud. This behavior is one more reason that spiritual ecstasy is often compared with drunkenness.

The FountainBy John of the Cross(1542 - 1591)English version by Willis Barnstone
How well I know that flowing spring in black of night.The eternal fountain is unseen.How well I know where she has been in black of night.I do not know her origin.None. Yet in her all things begin in black of night.I know that nothing is so fairand earth and firmament drink there in black of night.I know that none can wade insideto find her bright bottomless tide in black of night.Her shining never has a blur;I know that all light comes from her in black of night.I know her streams converge and swelland nourish people, skies and hell in black of night.The stream whose birth is in this sourceI know has a gigantic force in black of night.The stream from but these two proceedsyet neither one, I know, precedes in black of night.The eternal fountain is unseenin living bread that gives us being in black of night.She calls on all mankind to startto drink her water, though in dark, for black is night.O living fountain that I crave,in bread of life I see her flame in black of night.
-- from To Touch the Sky: Poems of Mystical, Spiritual & Metaphysical Light, Translated by Willis Barnstone

By Yunus Emre(1238 - 1320)
English version by Kabir Helminski & Refik Algan

We encountered the house of realization,we witnessed the body.The whirling skies, the many-layered earth,the seventy-thousand veils,we found in the body.The night and the day, the planets,the words inscribed on the Holy Tablets,the hill that Moses climbed, the Temple,and Israfil's trumpet, we observed in the body.Torah, Psalms, Gospel, Quran --what these books have to say,we found in the body.Everybody says these words of Yunusare true. Truth is wherever you want it.We found it all within the body.


--

The Second Jesus By Gharib Nawaz (1142? - 1236?) English version by Peter Lamborn Wilson and Nasrollah Pourjavady O Lord, it's me: blanked out in divine light and become a horizon of rays flashing from the Essence. My every atom yearned for vision till I fell drunk on the manifestations of lordship. Love polished the rust from my heart's mirror till I began to see the mysteries; I emerged from the darkness of my existence and became what I am (you know me) from the Light of Being: blackened like charcoal dark soul's smoke but mixed with love fires and illumined. Some say the path is difficult; God forgive them! I went so easily: The Holy Spirit breathes his every breath into Mo'in-- who knows? Maybe I'm the second Jesus. -- from The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry, Translated by Peter Lamborn Wilson / Translated by Nasrollah Pourjavady Amazon.com

Between the conscious and the unconscious, the mind has put up a swing:all earth creatures, even the supernovas, sway between these two trees,and it never winds down.Angels, animals, humans, insects by the million, also the wheeling sun and moon;ages go by, and it goes on.Everything is swinging: heaven, earth, water, fire,and the secret one slowly growing a body.Kabir saw that for fifteen seconds, and it made him a servant for life.

-- from The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry

Al-Bari'
The Evolver, The Maker, The Creator who has the Power to turn the entities.

Full near I came unto where dwellethLayla, when I heard her call.That voice, would I might ever hear it!She favored me, and drew me to her,Took me in, into her precinct,With discourse intimate addressed me.She sat me by her, then came closer,Raised the cloak that hid her from me,Made me marvel to distraction,Bewildered me with all her beauty.She took me and amazed me,And hid me in her inmost self,Until I thought that she was I,And my life she took as ransom.She changed me and transfigured me,And marked me with her special sign,Pressed me to her, put me from her,Named me as she is named.Having slain and crumbled me,She steeped the fragments in her blood.Then, after my death, she raised me:My star shines in her firmament.Where is my life, and where my body,Where my willful soul? From herThe truth of these shone out to meSecrets that had been hidden from me.Mine eyes have never seen but her:To naught else can they testify.All meanings in her are comprised.Glory be to her Creator!Thou that beauty wouldst describe,Here is something of her brightnessTake it from me. It is my art.Think it not idle vanity.My Heart lied not when it divulgedThe secret of my meeting her.If nearness unto her effaceth,I still subsist in her substance.

-- from Music of the Sky: An Anthology of Spiritual Poetry, Edited by Patrick Laude / Edited by Barry McDonald

Al-Khaaliq
The Creator, The One who brings everything from non-existence to existence.

hi, just took a shot while I looked around and took my evening stroll

Poor copies out of heaven's originals,
Pale earthly pictures mouldering to decay,
What care although your beauties break and fall,
When that which gave them life endures for aye?

Oh never vex thine heart with idle woes:
All high discourse enchanting the rapt ear,
All gilded landscapes and brave glistering shows
Fade-perish, but it is not as we fear.

Whilst far away the living fountains ply,
each petty brook goes brimful to the main
Since baron nor fountain can for ever die,
Thy fears how foolish, thy lament how vain!

What is this fountain, wouldst thou rightly know?
The Soul whence issue all created things.
Doubtless the rivers shall not cease to flow,
Till silenced are the everlasting springs.

Farewell to sorrow, and with quiet mind
Drink long and deep: let others fondly deem
The channel empty they perchance may find,
Or fathom that unfathomable stream.

The moment thou to this low world wast given,
A ladder stood whereby thou might'st aspire;
And first thy steps, which upward still have striven,
From mineral mounted to the plant; then higher

To animal existence; next, the Man,
With knowledge, reason, faith. Oh wondrous goal!
This body, which a crumb of dust began-
How fairly fashioned the consummate whole!

Yet stay not here thy journey: thou shalt grow
An angel bright and home far off in heaven.
Plod on, plunge last in the great Sea, that so 
Thy little drop make oceans seven times seven.

'The Son of God!' Nay, leave that word unsaid,
Say: 'God is One, the pure, the single Truth.'
What though thy frame be withered, old, and dead,
If the soul keep her fresh immortal youth?

R. A. Nicholson

Al-Mutakabbir

• The Majestic, The One who is clear from the attributes of the creatures and from resembling them.

Al-Jabbaar
The Compeller, The One that nothing happens in His Dominion except that which He willed

Al-Jabbaar
The Compeller, The One that nothing happens in His Dominion except that which He willed