— Songs of Kabir, I.82 (tr. Rabindranath Tagore, 1915)
About this quote
Kabir’s most famous image, from the songs collected in Songs of Kabir (I.82), translated by Rabindranath Tagore in 1915. The fish thirsting in water is the human being searching for God while standing in God — wandering ‘from forest to forest’ after what was never absent.
Kabir (15th century) was a weaver of Benares, claimed by Hindus and Muslims alike and owned by neither — his poems mock the search for the sacred anywhere but within.
