Category: Ravindranath Thakur

कबीर बानी-Poems of Kabir

मुरली बजत अखंड सदा से, तहाँ प्रेम झनकारा है।
प्रेम-हद तजी जब भाई, सत लोक की हद पुनि आई।
उठत सुगंध महा अधिकाई, जाको वार न पारा है।
कोटि भान राग को रूपा, बीन सत-धुन बजै अनूपा ।।

यह मुरली सदा से निरंतर बज रही है, और प्रेम इसकी ध्वनी है। जब मनुष्य प्रेम की सीमाओं से पार निकल जाता है तो सत्यलोक की सीमा आती है। वहाँ सुगंध का अपार विस्तार है। यह राग करोड़ों सूर्यो का रूप धारण कर रहा है। वीणा पर सत्य की अनुपम धुन बज रही है।

कबीर बानी
अली सरदार जाफ़री

The Flute of the infinite is played without ceasing, and its sound is love:
When love renounces all limits, it reaches truth.
How widely the fragrance spreads! It has no end, nothing stands in its way.
The form of this melody is bright like a million suns:
incomparably sounds the veena, the veena of the notes of truth.

by Rabindranath Tagore

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Clouds

Clouds are hills in vapor,
hills are clouds in stones,-
a phantasy in time’s dream.
– – – – – – – – – – — –
Light finds her treasure of colors
through the antagonism of clouds.
* * * * * * * * *
The cloud gives all its gold
to the departing sun
and greets the rising moon
with only a pale smile.
– – – – – – – – – –
Forests,the clouds of earth,
hold up to the sky their silence,
and clouds from above come down
in resonant showers.
* * * * * * * * * *
My clouds, sorrowing in the dark,
forget that they themselves
have hidden the sun.
– – – – – – – – – –
The clouded sky to-day bears the vision
of the shadow of a divine sadness
on the forehead of brooding eternity.
* * * * * * * * * * *
The cloud laughed at the rainbow
saying that it was an upstart
gaudy in its emptiness.
The rainbow calmly answered,
“I am as inevitably real as the sun himself.”
– – – – – – – – – – – –
The rainbow among the clouds may be great
but the little butterfly among the bushes is
greater.

-——Rabindranath Tagore
From ” Lekhan ” [1926] Bilingual and “Sphulinga”[1946]

FIREFLIES–Rabindranath Tagore

Let my love, like sunlight, surround you
and yet give you illumined freedom.
—- —- —- — — —- —- —-
Days are coloured bubbles
that float upon the surface of fathomless
night.
* * * * * * * * *
April, like a child,
writes hieroglyphs on dust with flowers,
wipes them away and forgets.
———- * —– * ———
My heart to-day smiles at its past night of tears
like a wet tree glistening in the sun
after the rain is over.
——-*—*—–*—–*—*—
The fire of pain traces for my soul
a luminous path across her sorrow.
——- —— —- —— —–
My offerings are not for the temple at the end
of the road,
but for the wayside shrines
that surprise me at every bend.
* * * * * * * * * * *
These paper boats of mine are meant to dance
on the ripples of hours,
and not to reach any destination.
——— * —- * — * —–
When death comes and whispers to me,
“Thy days are ended,”
let me say to him, “I have lived in love
and not in mere time.”
He will ask, “Will thy songs remain?”
I shall say, “I know not, but this I know
that often when I sang I found my eternity.”

——Rabindranath Tagore
From ” Lekhan ” [1926] Bilingual and “Sphulinga”[1946]

Poems by KABIR [1440-1518]

 

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My friends, today I want to share works of my favorite poet Kabir. The unique thing about this post is the original Hindi verses are explained by renowned writer Ali Sardar Jafrisahab and English translation is by Shri Rabindranath Tagore, indeed best of both “words”!

 

मन, तू पार उतर कहाँ जैहौ ।
आगे पंथी पंथ न कोई, कूच-मुकाम न पैहौ ।
नहिं तहॆँ नीर, नाव नहि खेवट, ना गुन खैचनहारा ।
धरनी-गगन-कल्प कछु नाहीं, ना कछु वार न पारा ।
नहिं तन, नहिं मन, नहिं अपनपौ सुन्न में सुद्ध न पैहौ ।
बलीवान होय पैठो घट में, बाहीं ठौरे होइहौ ।
बार हि बार बिचार देख मन, अंत कहूँ मत जैहौ ।
कहैं कबीर सब छाडि कलपना, ज्यों के त्यों ठहरैहौ ।

ऐ मेरे दिल,तू पार उतरकर कहाँ जायेगा । तेरे सामने न तो कोई राही है न कोई राह । न कूच है न पडाव । वहाँ न तो पानी है, न कोई नाव, न खेचनहारा । नाव को बांधने के लिए रस्सी भी नहीं है और कोई उसे किनारे खींचने वाला भी नहीं है । पॄथ्वी, आकाश, कल्प [काल] कुछ भी नहीं है ।आर-पार कुछ नहीं है– न तन है न मन, न कोई ऐसी जगह जहाँ आत्मा की प्यास बुझ सके । शून्य के निर्जन विस्तार में कुछ भी तो नहीं है । हिम्मत से काम ले और अपने घट में प्रवेश कर वहीं कोई ठौर-ठिकाना मिलेगा । अच्छी तरह सोच ले, ए मन, कहीं और न जाना । कबीर कहते है कि कल्पना को छोड-छाड कर अपने अस्तित्व में लीन हो जा ।
कबीर बानी -अली सरदार जाफ़री

To what shore would you cross, O my heart? There is no traveler before you, there is no road:
Where is the movement, where is the rest, on that shore?
There is no water; no boat, no boatman, is there;
There is not so much as a rope to tow the boat, nor a man to draw it.
No earth, no sky, no time, no thing, is there: no shore, no ford!
There, there is neither body nor mind: and where is the place that shall still the thirst of the soul?
You shall find naught in that emptiness.
Be strong, and enter into your own body: for there your foothold is firm.
Consider it well, O my heart! go not elsewhere.
Kabir says: ‘Put all imaginations away, and stand fast in that which you are.’

POEMS OF KABIR -Rabindranath Tagore

Where The Mind Is Without Fear

Where The Mind Is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

by Rabindranath Tagore

by Rabindranath Tagore

Those who in the name of faith embrace illusion,
kill and are killed
Even the atheist gets God’s blessings-
Does not boast of his religion;
With reverence he lights the lamp of reason
And pays his homage not to scriptures,
But to the good in man.

The bigot insults his own religion
When he slays a man of another faith
Conduct he judges not in the light of reason;
In the temple he raises the blood-stained banner
And worships the devil in the name of God.

All that is shameful and barbarous through the ages,
Has found a shelter in their temples-
Those they turn into prison;
O,I hear the trumpet call of destruction !
Time comes with her great broom
Sweeping all refuse away.

That which should make man free,
They turn into fetters;
That which should unite,
They turn into sword;
That which should bring love
From the fountain of the Eternal,
They turn into prison

And with its waves they flood the world
They try to cross the river
In a bark riddled with holes,
And yet,in their anguish,whom do they blame?

O Lord,breaking false religion,
Save the blind!
Break! O break
The alter that is drowned in blood.

Let your thunder strike.
into the prison of false religion,
And bring to this unhappy land
The light of knowledge”

-Rabindranath Thakur

I feel it is more relevant today.