THE ONLY REALITY

 
The ability to exercise constant control over one's low desires is no mean achievement. Success in establishing a lasting sublimation of all desires is indeed a greater one. But the greatest is the burning away of all one's desires once and for all, which divine love alone can do. As there is never any show about divine love, this "burning" in love is always without "smoke," i.e., without show.

There are times when an outward expression of God-love may amount to heroism, but to make at any time a mere show of one's love for God, for the sake of show, amounts to an insult to God. That is why Kabir says that in the act of meditation when one assumes an asan (posture) to meditate upon God, one should at that time learn to avoid making any display such as the swaying motion of one's body, even if it is only for one's own gratification.

As compared with dreams, the physical life is indeed a reality. Similarly, compared with the reality of the path, the world and all worldly life is vacant dreaming on the part of man. But as the world and all of its experiences are illusory, so is the spiritual path that leads to Reality. The former may be termed false illusion and latter real illusion. Nevertheless, despite the vast difference between them, they are both illusions, for God alone is the only Reality.