SUFI WISDOM

I went looking for Him
And lost myself;
The drop merged with the Sea --
Who can find it now?

Looking and looking for Him
I lost myself;
The Sea merged with the drop --
Who can find it now?

Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

In this poem the Sea is, of course, a metaphor for God, the vast reality which includes each of us as individual drops.

Kabir says, "I went looking for Him..." The drop went looking for the Sea. There is an absurdity in that. How can a drop go looking for the Sea? The drop is already IN the Sea, part of it. In discovering the Sea, the drop recognizes that the Sea is water, just as the drop itself is water. Water within water. Finally recognizing this, how can the drop maintain the illusion of separation? There is no dividing line between water and water -- no skin, no barrier, no separation. The drop loses its false sense of being a drop. It loses itself, it loses its 'dropness,' and merges with the immense continuity of the Sea.

At that point there is no separate self, no one to go seeking. "Who can find it now?" There is only the Sea and no one to go looking for it.

still the body
still the mind
still the voice inside

in silence
feel the stillness move

friends
this feeling
cannot be imagined




O Slave, liberate yourself.

Where are you, and where's your home,
find it in your lifetime, man.

If you fail to wake up now,
you'll be helpless when the end comes.

Says Kabir, listen, O wise one,
the siege of Death is hard to withstand