Kabir - The Unnameable - Version A Poem by Michael Maxwell Steer

The name that can't be uttered is unique.
How then to comprehend the formless?
What name for the circle that has no circumference?

Name reflects form: form defines name.
Form permits clarity: clarity illuminates form.
Duality manifests form: form propagates duality.

The formless is seed: form its fruit.
Knowledge is the branch, this hidden name its root.
See the winter root within the summer tree:
marvel that cause and effect are so mysterious.

Life is not in root alone or flower:
but in the sap that flows between each hour.
Pleasure lies everywhere. Happiness
lies nowhere but at your nameless root.

Seek where you are fertile, resolve your nature:
in each upheaval see growth husbanding you.
Throu form seek the formless:
within duality conceive unity.

The unspelled name pervades all matter:
yet is visible only in a beating heart.
Encountering the name transcends language:
yet is felt only in a beating heart.
The resolution of this paradox ends all enquiry:
yet answers only in a beating heart.


Original poem by the 15thC mystical poet Kabir (Bk3.69) , translated by Rabindranath Tagore and Kshiti Mohan Sen (#80) . Versed by MMS 6/12/10