Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Says Kabir, listen, O mother.
These holy folk with shaven heads have taken away my label of "low." The world had put it on me.
Kabir ends with the real point: love of the One took away a label the world had put on his family.
"These shaven-headed saints have done away with my low social status." In Kabir's world, people were sorted by jaat, caste, the group they were born into. Some were labeled "low" and looked down on. They could not escape that label, however good they were.
But love of the One dissolved it. Once his family belonged to the One, and joined the company of the good-hearted, the old label lost its power. They were not "low" anymore. They were devotees of the One, equal to anyone.
Think of a name tag someone stuck on your back without asking. Kabir says the saints peeled it off. He calls it "ruin" with a smile. It is the happiest ruin there could be.
This is one of the great gifts of the tradition. Love of the One and good company dissolve the labels the world uses to rank people. In the One, there is no "low."
How can belonging to something good and loving free a person from labels that used to hold them down?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI