Verses
O Avadhuta, age after age we are the yogi. We neither come nor go, and never perish; we are the enjoyer of the unstruck sound.
Verse 1
In every place is our gathering, in every place a festival. We are in all, and all is in us; and yet we remain alone.
Verse 2
We ourselves are the adept and the absorption; we are the silent one and we are the speaker. Showing form, form with attributes and the formless, it is we alone who play.
Verse 3
Kabir says: listen, dear seekers, no desire remains. In my own little hut I move about as myself, and I play in natural, spontaneous freedom.
Verse 4
Background
This pad is attributed to Kabir and belongs to the nirgun bhajan repertoire sung in Malwa and North India; 'Avdhuta' is also the name of a Kabir track on a published Kumar Gandharva release. An avadhuta is a wandering renunciant who has gone beyond worldly convention, and Kabir addresses the listener by that name. The speaker is not a particular person but the self in its own voice, claiming to be a yogi 'age after age': it does not come or go, it has a gathering and a festival in every place, it holds all things and is held in all things, and it is the siddha, the silent one and the speaker alike. The closing verse gives the point in Kabir's signature: no desire is left, and the self wanders in its own small hut, at play in natural freedom. The text here is the Kavita Kosh transcription, which names no manuscript or collection. Because the pad lives in singing, other singers' words may differ.
Did You Know?
Author
Attributed to Kabir (traditionally dated c. 1440–1518); the pad closes with his signature, 'Kahe Kabir'.
Who is speaking
The 'we' of the pad is the self, not a person. The verses say it neither comes nor goes and is present in every place.
Formless and formed
One verse says the self shows form, form-with-attributes and the formless, and plays in all of them. This is the nirgun view in a single line.
The unstruck sound
The first verse calls the self an enjoyer of 'shabda anahat', the sound that is not struck by any instrument.
In performance
A Kabir track called 'Avdhuta' is listed on a published Kumar Gandharva release. Singers' words vary, and the Kavita Kosh page used here gives no manuscript source.
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