तु जिस्म के खुश रंग लिबासॊं पे हो नज़ान
मैं रूह को मुह्ताज ए कफ़न देख रहा हूँ
क्या हाल पूछ्ते हो मेरे कारोबार का
आईने बेचता हूँ मैं अन्धों के शहर में
मैं रूह को मुह्ताज ए कफ़न देख रहा हूँ
क्या हाल पूछ्ते हो मेरे कारोबार का
आईने बेचता हूँ मैं अन्धों के शहर में
Roughly it can be translated:
Don’t ask me, sir, what I am doing here.
You are enamoured of the dreamlike psychedelic colours of the body and the mind,
but I can see death knocking at your doors.
You are lost in a dream world, and I can see death approaching every moment closer and closer.
Don’t ask me, sir, about my business here.
I sell mirrors in the city of the blind!
Don’t ask me, sir, what I am doing here.
You are enamoured of the dreamlike psychedelic colours of the body and the mind,
but I can see death knocking at your doors.
You are lost in a dream world, and I can see death approaching every moment closer and closer.
Don’t ask me, sir, about my business here.
I sell mirrors in the city of the blind!
AAINE BECHTA HOON MAIN ANDHON KE SHAHAR MAIN.
I sell mirrors in the city of the blind!
And this is certainly a city of the blind! This whole earth is full of blind people – blind because they
cannot see death approaching, blind because they cannot see that life is evaporating every moment,
blind because they cannot see the momentariness of all that they are accumulating, blind because
they don’t know from where they come, why they come, to where they are destined, blind because
they are not even aware who resides at the innermost core of their being.
When Alexander the Great came to India... and he came at a very right, ripe moment... Buddha
had left his body only three hundred years before; his vibe was still alive. People were still filled
with the joy, with the silence that they have experienced in Buddha. He had gone, the flower has
disappeared, but the fragrance was still in the air, still lingering. It lingered on at least for five hundred
years.
Alexander was very much surprised; he had never felt such quality. He came across many people
he had never come across in his whole life. They were strange – they talked a strange language,
they lived a strange life. He was mystified.
He met a naked fakir and he was so much impressed by the man’s beauty, his grace, his silence, his
bliss, that suddenly he felt his own poverty. And he was the conqueror of that time, the conqueror of
the then known world, the greatest conqueror ever. And he felt his beggarliness before this naked
beggar, because he could see he was empty. And this naked man was overflowing with meaning,
with joy, with splendor.
Alexander begged from this beggar that, ”Give me some gift that can be of help to me!”
The beggar pulled out a small mirror – so goes the story – from his bag, and gave the mirror to
Alexander the Great. Seeing that it is just an ordinary mirror, and very cheap too, Alexander said,
”Do you think this is such a great gift? From a man like you I was expecting something really
miraculous!”
And the naked fakir laughed and he said, ”It is more than you could have ever expected. Keep it
safe for the day when the question arises in you ’Who am I?’ and then look into it.”
Alexander could not resist the temptation. That very night when he was alone, he looked into the
mirror and he was surprised: he saw his original face.
This must be a story, because no mirror can show you your original face – unless that mirror means
meditation. Meditation can show you your original face. The story simply says that the beggar gave
him the secret of meditation; it is a metaphorical way of saying. Meditation is a mirror. All the mirrors
can only show the physical face, but meditation can show you your spiritual face.
And that’s what I am doing here:
AAINE BECHTA HOON MAIN ANDHON KE SHAHAR MAIN.
I am selling mirrors in the city of the blind.
(quoted from I am that, 1980)
