I felt like chatting up with Sarvas (AI Powered ChatGPT). But Sarvas is so focused unlike me. I wanted to happily amble having chit chaat with the super brain powered virtual friend of mine.
So, while trying to get a LinkedIn post on Rumi which turned to Buddhist stories on doing the right thing, being kind, and mindful, I landed on the open corridors of the old Madras house veranda.
My present soul, now exists in those past verandas of the old independent Madras house, now turned into a flat flooring strangers unrelated to me. It clearly a setup to loiter around profound deeper meaning about life and its transitory nature.
Kabir’s Dohe and Keats Odes have always fascinated me and there are moments when I experience a sense of connectivity to higher truth that both these poets just causally throw around with rhyme and reason intact.
One leading to another, I wondered if we were to eavesdrop on both these poets from the past as the duo sat down together under the shade of a bitter neem tree, while sipping Jasmine Chai and having a profound conversation then, what should be the outcome of such a meeting.
Keats & Kabir Over Jasmine Chai: A Conversation on Impermanence
[Setting]
A modest courtyard under a neem tree. Late afternoon. A brass teapot rests on a low wooden table. The air carries the soft scent of jasmine. Kabir, in a homespun dhoti, sits cross-legged, weaving words like threads. Keats, dressed in a slightly crumpled poet’s coat, stirs his chai, thoughtful.
Keats:
This chai tastes like a memory — sweet, but it slips away.
Everything I love dissolves, Kabir.
The nightingale’s song, the bloom of the rose,
even my own verses — fading like dew.
Why must beauty be so brief?
Kabir (smiling gently):
Because it is not meant to be held, John.
That which stays forever gathers dust in the soul.
The lotus blooms not to stay,
but to show you how to open.
Keats (leaning in):
But does that not ache you, this vanishing?
To write, to live, to love —
and then watch it all vanish like a dream?
Kabir:
The ache is the gift.
The ache tells you you were awake to the moment.
What fools we are, thinking permanence is the proof of value.
A flame lasts a breath, but can light a hundred lamps.
Keats (nodding slowly):
A thing of beauty is a joy forever…
But, perhaps only because
We know it will not last.
Kabir:
Exactly, my friend.
Joy does not linger in the body — it dances through.
Hold it too tight, and you will strangle the music.
Keats (lifting his cup):
To music that leaves us humming,
to poems that vanish but remain within —
like the scent of jasmine when the wind moves on.
Kabir (clinking his cup gently):
And to the soul’s veranda —
where all things pass,
and yet somehow,
everything arrives.
Together they bring out the profoundness in their conversation. It is interesting to watch and understand with inner reference such lessons. The joy in learning and experiencing that life’s experiences are impermanent and short lived.
Let’s walk on a poetic tightrope between soul and song, between swayam dikhayi and swayam chhupayi. Let’s hold Kabir’s raw, piercing doha in one hand and Keats’ rapturous ode in the other — and see how they echo across centuries and cultures.
Parallel Realms: Kabir and Keats on the Search Within
Kabir says:
“I went in search of the wicked;
I found none.
When I searched within,
I realized — I was the worst of all.”
Keats writes in Ode to a Nightingale:
“Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tramp thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown…”
- Excerpts from both the Poets poems
At first glance, these seem like two vastly different temperaments:
- Kabir, the mystic, turns the lens inward, stripping ego bare, and finding the true villain within.
- Keats, the romantic, listens outward, straining to hear the eternal song that beauty sings — a voice that floats above the mortal coil.
But look again.
Both are seekers. Both are wrestling with illusion — one of outward blame, the other of outward permanence.
The Shared Quest
Kabir sets off to find the source of badness in the world — blame, ugliness, corruption. But the moment he truly looks, the finger flips back. The ego dissolves. The monster isn’t “out there.” It is “me.” The breakthrough is brutal — but honest. Transformative.
Keats, meanwhile, is transfixed by the nightingale — a symbol of eternal beauty, a voice untroubled by death or decay. And yet… beneath the ode’s lush surface lies an ache. He cannot follow the bird. He cannot escape himself. The nightingale is not his salvation — it’s his mirror. It sings because it is beyond him.
Keats yearns to leave the world. Kabir dares to enter it fully.
Keats romanticizes transcendence. Kabir dissects the self.
Both discover that truth does not lie outside — it is rooted in the unbearable presence of self-awareness.
Highlight of Shared Wisdom
- Keats teaches us: Beauty fades, but it sings while it lasts.
- Kabir shows us: Truth stings, but it frees us from illusion.
- Together they whisper: Impermanence is not sorrow — it is soul in motion.
The Meeting Point: Where Song Meets Silence
The nightingale’s song is pure — but unreachable.
The inner eye of Kabir is raw — but liberating.
One shows us the ache of beauty we cannot possess.
The other shows us the sting of truth we cannot deny.
But here’s the magic: Both reveal impermanence as essential.
Keats sees beauty because it fades.
Kabir sees truth because it pierces.
A Dialogue Across Time (Imaginative Fragment)
Keats (whispering):
“I tried to fly with the nightingale, Kabir…
But it vanished beyond the trees.
I’m left with only echoes.”
Kabir (smiling gently):
“Then you have begun to hear rightly, John.
The soul sings most when the ego is silent.
The real bird — is within.”
As the voices of these poets fades away, I realise that I have much to learn from their thoughts and works.
My Takeaway
Life’s impermanence should not be the reason to give up being kind to others. I feel it should inspire us, humans to be more understanding and kind. While at it spending some time reflecting on the self would provide the required perspectives in life.
While being kind and being aware about doing the right thing would help to make us realise that a good life is also filled with right choices made by an individual. Because a human as an understanding and kind person need to make right choices.
But then these choices need not be always right but being aware whether they are or not, helps. While keeping a lookout at the various aspect of the best choice under a circumstantial restraint help us to grow in making better choices as we progress.
One other aspect that would greatly aid the whole process would to be mindful. When the combination of kindness, right action, and mindfulness come together. Understandably human life may never be free from trouble or error. It demonstrates to a person the willingness to shoulder the importance of presence over permanence! Like flowers whose life ends at sundown, it reminds us: it is not the duration of life, but the quality of it that truly matters.
Source: conversation with Sarvas (AI Powered ChatGPT)
Itinerant Storyteller 