a view of the chakki and my passing thoughts on the matter

Chakki Hath
Originally uploaded by shane5ab

this is a foto of the chakki. call it grindstone or flour-mill . This was meant to go with the blog post about churning and the kabir doha there.( but taking permissions from the photographer makes it another post)

चलती चक्की देख के दिया कबीरा रोये
दो पाटन के बीच में, बाकी बचा न कोए 
chalti chakki dekh ke, diya kabira roye

do paatan ke beech mmain, baaki bacha na koye.

In this context; though I have interpreted the lines differently in the previous blogpost, one would be reminded that according to tradition in India, the path of the householder is considered the highest for any human being. Kabir himself chose to be a householder and not just a jogi with no family.

Reason?

A householder is always split between opposites- in demands on his/her time or energy. For eg. a son may be split between the love of his parents or his children, a woman maybe torn between the love of her own parents or parents-in-law (I am deliberately taking the patriarchal view here, because tradition demands that a woman leave her parents' home to go into her husband's. In reality, this is a journey of the individual soul where it is split from the supreme. As this is a longer discussion I cannot do it here. The home of the 'beloved'/husband is union with divine- the original meaning of yoga. Marriage is the union of the opposites within the same human being- the merger of polarities, into a unified Self)

So according the social tradition, those who have been through the grindstone of life, come and bless the ones who are newly getting in there (this foto is showing festivities surrounding marriage in a neighbourhood. click the foto link to read the explanation offered by the photographer) Implying, that now you are ready to be pounded by life, but when you do get crushed at least something useful will come out of it. You will be more useful as flour than as grain and you will be of use to someone: to fulfill some of their needs. So we who have been through the grind ourselves welcome you and bless you to come into the highest that a human being could be- a householder.

So why does Kabir have to weep over the subject?

I guess he says so because the process of grinding is a very painful exercise, where every second of time you are repeatedly being crushed from here- there and you are being annhilated by the world around you: to fit you from your singular self to a self which is more integrated and better suited for the needs of society, starting from the smallest unit of it- the family. What else could it be? (I am sure, the scholars in Hindi or Philosophy would have something more to say. Cannot be entirely different here)