Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Kabir says: here is someone who truly understands this playful hymn.
That one keeps the One in their heart, and comes to understand everything that matters.
This one says the riddles open up to love, not to cleverness.
Kabir ends by telling us what the poem was for. Whoever understands this hymn, and keeps repeating the One's Name, comes to understand everything.
The riddles were never meant to be solved like a puzzle. They were meant to open you up, to loosen your grip on the ordinary and turn you toward the One.
And the key is not cleverness. It is love. It is raam ramat, dwelling on the One's Name, keeping the One in your heart. Think of a friend's inside joke. It makes no sense until you are part of the friendship. To a loving heart, all the strange flips make sense at once. That heart has lived the great flip itself: waking up, being turned inside out by love, and finding the world wonderful again. Understand that, Kabir says, and you understand everything worth understanding.
Of all Kabir's playful impossible pictures, which one makes you most curious or delighted?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI