Raag Bhairao, Shabad (three stanzas with rahau), Bhagat Kabir
My meditation rests on my own inmost self; the Tenth Gate opens onto the endless.
The Arc
An inward, contemplative hymn built on the vocabulary of yoga's inner geography. It opens with the 'City of the One,' a high inner place where clear understanding lives and grasping ('mine, mine') is seen through. The rahau names the practice plainly: attention turned to the inmost self, with the Name as true wisdom. The middle stanza uses the yogic map — root center, the cooling 'moon' and heating 'sun' currents, the central channel rising to the crown — to picture gathering scattered energy and lifting it toward stillness. The final stanza climbs past the senses' gates to the dasvaa duaar, the Tenth Gate, which opens onto the boundless. Throughout, Kabir borrows the yogis' technical language the way he borrowed the Mullah's terms — to point past the method to the living inner journey.
Key Vocabulary
Siv kee puree — the city of the One (a high inner place of awareness). Bu-dh saar — sublime understanding. Ee-t oo-t — here and beyond (this world and the next). Nij pad — one's own inmost ground/self. Dhi-aan — meditation, focused attention. Barahm gi-aan — divine wisdom. Mool duaar — the root center. Rav / chand — sun / moon (the heating and cooling inner currents). Mayr dand — the central channel (sushumna). Dasvaa duaar — the Tenth Gate (the inner opening beyond the nine bodily gates). Ant na paar — no end or limit.
Themes and Cross-Connections
Kabir often speaks to yogis in their own idiom, honoring the depth of their inner practice while pointing beyond mere technique to the One — parallel to his address to the Mullah in 2441 and his redefinition of yogi/Hindu/Muslim in 2448. The Tenth Gate and the inner ascent are recurring GGS images for the meeting of the finite self with the boundless; the hymn's insistence that real wisdom is nij pad (found within) rhymes with 2444's 'searching within, I met the One.'
For Raag Bhairao
Bhairao's alert, inward intensity suits a hymn of concentrated meditation. The raag's wakeful character matches the theme of gathering and lifting attention rather than dispersing it — a music of focus opening onto vastness.
Translation Notes
— Interfaith/tradition: the yogic vocabulary (chakras, nadis, the Tenth Gate) is rendered respectfully as a real inner science, with Kabir using it — as he uses Muslim and Hindu terms elsewhere — to point past technique to the One; flagged. — Esoteric body-imagery kept non-frightening and made accessible to children as 'gathering and lifting scattered attention,' with the technical map noted but not dwelt on. — Siv kee puree rendered as an inner place, not a sectarian claim, keeping it evenhanded. — No wellbeing hazards; the 'you only die claiming mine' line handled as a gentle release from grasping, not as fear.
My meditation rests on my own inmost self; the Tenth Gate opens onto the endless.
The Arc
An inward, contemplative hymn built on the vocabulary of yoga's inner geography. It opens with the 'City of the One,' a high inner place where clear understanding lives and grasping ('mine, mine') is seen through. The rahau names the practice plainly: attention turned to the inmost self, with the Name as true wisdom. The middle stanza uses the yogic map — root center, the cooling 'moon' and heating 'sun' currents, the central channel rising to the crown — to picture gathering scattered energy and lifting it toward stillness. The final stanza climbs past the senses' gates to the dasvaa duaar, the Tenth Gate, which opens onto the boundless. Throughout, Kabir borrows the yogis' technical language the way he borrowed the Mullah's terms — to point past the method to the living inner journey.
Key Vocabulary
Siv kee puree — the city of the One (a high inner place of awareness). Bu-dh saar — sublime understanding. Ee-t oo-t — here and beyond (this world and the next). Nij pad — one's own inmost ground/self. Dhi-aan — meditation, focused attention. Barahm gi-aan — divine wisdom. Mool duaar — the root center. Rav / chand — sun / moon (the heating and cooling inner currents). Mayr dand — the central channel (sushumna). Dasvaa duaar — the Tenth Gate (the inner opening beyond the nine bodily gates). Ant na paar — no end or limit.
Themes and Cross-Connections
Kabir often speaks to yogis in their own idiom, honoring the depth of their inner practice while pointing beyond mere technique to the One — parallel to his address to the Mullah in 2441 and his redefinition of yogi/Hindu/Muslim in 2448. The Tenth Gate and the inner ascent are recurring GGS images for the meeting of the finite self with the boundless; the hymn's insistence that real wisdom is nij pad (found within) rhymes with 2444's 'searching within, I met the One.'
For Raag Bhairao
Bhairao's alert, inward intensity suits a hymn of concentrated meditation. The raag's wakeful character matches the theme of gathering and lifting attention rather than dispersing it — a music of focus opening onto vastness.
Translation Notes
— Interfaith/tradition: the yogic vocabulary (chakras, nadis, the Tenth Gate) is rendered respectfully as a real inner science, with Kabir using it — as he uses Muslim and Hindu terms elsewhere — to point past technique to the One; flagged. — Esoteric body-imagery kept non-frightening and made accessible to children as 'gathering and lifting scattered attention,' with the technical map noted but not dwelt on. — Siv kee puree rendered as an inner place, not a sectarian claim, keeping it evenhanded. — No wellbeing hazards; the 'you only die claiming mine' line handled as a gentle release from grasping, not as fear.