and telling of beads!

Leave you this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom do you worship in the dark corner of the temple with the doors all shut? Open your eyes and see you it God is not before you! While reading the poem we get reminded of the local adage, Ati bhakti chorer lakhan, mann changa to kathauti mei Ganga, (Too much devotion the sign of a thief, If the heart is pure the Ganges is in the wooden bowl). There is no need for extra show. One needs it not to show that one is too much religious. All that glitters is not gold, a man donning the saffron clothes may be a thief in disguise, may not be a holy man. Some try to over show it that they are so much religious and godly, but are never, never. A girl with a rudraksha rosary into the hands may be a Rajneeshite, a Rajneesh ashramite. A girl with a tulsimala around her neck may be a Vaishnavite sevadasi. Kabirdas is right is saying, God is by you and you keep searching Him elsewhere. Tagore here warns to be hypocritical and pontifical. God is not in unnecessary rites and rituals.

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!
Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut?
Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!

God is there where the tiller is tilling the land, working it hard, getting fatigued with daylong labour, sweating and bearing the brunt of, where the ploughman is ploughing the field. God is in karma, not in dharma only. God is in action, not in sitting idle and passing time. The world is for the men of action. Those who labour can change their destiny. Fatalism and lethargy cannot take us far. Have you seen the path makers? How do they keep struggling, working hard under heat and dust? They keep working under the scorching sun and the shower too. Swirling dust stains their clothes. For whom doo they work it? Have you thought it about? What do they get it for? Can you like them?

Muha mei Ram bagal mei cchuri: Sweet words in the mouth but daggers by your side; this should not be. Rama must be in your word and action.

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground
and where the path maker is breaking stones.
He is with them in sun and in shower,
and his garment is covered with dust.
Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!

Deliverance, where does lie it deliverance? How to be delivered from the bonds of Maya if Maya is the root of Creation? We have to live in here, we have to die in here and there is no escape out of. The binding of Maya can never be cut even though we try to cut it. It is not bairagya that he wants to take to. Where will you go if we have to live it here? But how to live should be the thing of our concern rather than being pessimistic and gloomy.

Deliverance?
Where is this deliverance to be found?
Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation;
he is bound with us all for ever.

Come out of your coterie of thought and idea. See the world outside leaving aside your flowers and incense. A dhongi, we mean a pretender can never see God. What will it be if your clothes get stained and dusty? Try to see Him through your labour and sweats. Leave you your meditations and try to serve you personally. How long will you keep showing? Keep you off your tulsimala, rosary and rather than doing japa, do you some work which may be useful to mankind. Shrama, shrama-dana, the poet talks of it here rather than lethargy, religiosity, fatalism, soothsaying, Godliness, inaction and lethargy.

How long will you keep meditating? Try to do you some work too. God is not only in meditations. See you the people around you, the world around you. How do the things keep on going? God is not in chanting and your japa merely. Do not try to look religious and Godly. God is in good actions, thoughts and ideas. Keep you doing. Your God is not yours. Mind it.

Do not talk you of a flawed pundit and his ritualistic punditism. The ponga pundit and the dhongi baba, leave you, leave you their company, of the astrologers and palmists too. Try you your luck, try to change your fate and the fate of man too with your karma which is but your dharma. Try to be a karma yogi and mind it that karma is your dharma and nothing else.

Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense!
What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained?
Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.