Songs of Kabir · 80 of 100

LXXIX: I Am neither pious nor ungodly, I live neither by law nor by sense,

LXXIX III. 66. nâ main dharmî nahîn adharmî

I AM neither pious nor ungodly, I live neither by law nor by sense, I am neither a speaker nor hearer, I am neither a servant nor master, I am neither bond nor free, I am neither detached nor attached. I am far from none: I am near to none. I shall go neither to hell nor to heaven. I do all works; yet I am apart from all works. Few comprehend my meaning: he who can comprehend it, he sits unmoved. Kabîr seeks neither to establish nor to destroy.

Insight · 2

The song of the one who has stepped out of categories. Neither pious nor ungodly, neither servant nor master, neither bond nor free, neither detached nor attached. The person free of all roles — who does all works, yet is apart from all works. This is the state the Bhagavad Gita calls karma yoga at its peak — action without the doer. Few comprehend, says Kabir. The one who comprehends sits unmoved. The final line is a quiet signature: "Kabir seeks neither to establish nor to destroy." He isn't trying to win anything anymore.Bhagavad Gita 4.18-20.

Few comprehend my meaning: he who can comprehend it, he sits unmoved. This final line — sitting unmoved — is the direct parallel of the stable samadhi of the Bhagavad Gita 2.54-72, the sthita-prajna, the one of established wisdom. Arjuna asks Krishna what the marks of the realized one are, and Krishna's answer is a portrait of someone who cannot be shaken by pleasure or pain. Epictetus's Enchiridion — a Greek slave-philosopher Kabir would not have read but whose conclusions he shares — makes the same case for the Stoic sage. The still-seated one is the completion of the path.Bhagavad Gita 2.54-72; Epictetus, Enchiridion 1.