Inside the clay jug are canyons and pine

mountains, and the maker of canyons and pine

mountains!

All seven oceans are inside, and hundreds of millions

of stars.

The acid that tests gold is there, and the one who

judges jewels.

And the music from the strings no one touches, and

the source of all water.

If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth:

Friend, listen: the God whom I love is inside.

-Kabir

One of the best things about poetry is that it’s meaning grows as we grow. I have lived in and around these words for a long time, and some poems, like this one, are hard to crack. The first time I read this poem I was blown away by the last line while the rest of the poem left me cold, it felt like a lot of wasted words. But over the years this poem keeps finding the places where I hide. Without realizing it these words have taken up residence within me, and now I see this as one of the most delicate love letters ever written to the soul. I know, love is an overused word, and very often misused, rarely do we come close to the depths and mystery of this emotion. Most of the time we end up settling for glimmers and glimpses. We love everything without really loving anything. A new style, a movie, a vacation, but even the romantic love we have for our partner can never hold a match to the kind of love that’s possible for the larger mystery that resides within, a delicate and illusive feeling that’s at the foundation of all of life. It is this kind of love the poem is talking about, and it would do us good to become more acquainted with it.

This is the kind of love religion, psychology, and even the self-help movement try to introduce us to, but in the end this kind of love defies words, explaination, and even rational understanding. There are times it can just grab hold of us, and if we’re lucky, it doesn’t let go. This is a kind of love that we can’t manipulate, maybe that’s why it can be so difficult to experience it, we aren’t use to what it’s asking from us. We try to love the mystery like we would love another person, our parents, or even God. But that’s not what this kind of love means. It’s not an accessible layer, or a love that puts on a show for the ego to display a deeper or more accomplished capacity in comparison to others. This kind of love is not a pyrotechnic display, but rather a delicate surrender of descending into the depths of what’s unknown, prepared to lose everything we thought was important or necessary, and just love what we find there. The love that’s described in this poem applies when there is no more trying, no more attempt to be what we think we ought to be, or do what we think we ought to be doing. These are words that just tell us the truth of what is, all we have to do is be open and listen. This love is real, penetrating, and so deep that the enormity of it could wash us away.

We can’t get to this kind of love from the surface of judgement or comparison. That keeps us too small. It makes us believe we will be left empty if we give too much away. When we approach this kind of love there are no measuring sticks, no gauges, no more than and no less than. This love does not have parameters, it’s not better or worse, worthy or unworthy, or until death do us part. It is just an energy that is equally everywhere at all times waiting for us to make contact. If we can put ourselves in that context and open completely to it, let it fall all around us, we will level the entire playing field where everything carries the same weight, deserving this same love, and miraculously we will be there too. We are part of the greater act of loving, we are the love, the loved, and the acid that tests gold.

Here’s to letting more of this kind of love into our lives.

kb