Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
At the root gate, the lowest place inside, I have taken hold of the reins and tied them firm.
I have set the moon, the cool current, above the sun, the warm one, and held it there.
The sun blazes at the western gate.
Up through the central channel, it rises above my head.
Gathered and lifted, your scattered attention rises toward stillness.
Kabir uses the words of yoga here. Yoga has an old inner map of the body. Mool du-aarai is the "root gate," the lowest energy center. Chand and sooraj, moon and sun, are the cooling and the warming currents inside. Pachham du-aarai, the "western gate," is the back of that inner map, along the spine. Mayr dand is the central channel that rises up the spine to the top of the head.
Kabir borrows this language the way he borrows words from many traditions. He uses it to point past the method to the living journey inside. Think of a flashlight whose beam is spread thin across a room. Bring the light together into one beam, and it can reach much farther. That is the heart of this verse: focused attention, rising steadily.
When your thoughts are pulling in a hundred directions, what helps you gather them back into one calm place?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI