The Moon Shines Within
VI. I. 83. (p. 49)
The moon shines within me
but I cannot see it!
The moon and the sun are both there.
The drums of eternity pulse within my body
but I cannot hear them!
So long as all the talk is of me and mine,
my works are nothing.
When I drop all that, then the real work gets done.
For work has no other purpose
than gaining knowledge.
And when real knowledge comes,
then the work is put away.
The flower blooms for the fruit.
When the fruit comes, the flower withers.
The musk is within the deer,
but it seeks not within itself —
it wanders in search of green grass.
version of Kabir by Lorin Roche. Working from Tagore’s 1915 Songs of Kabir.