Spiritual Stories

Author(s): Raman Maharshi
Publisher: Ramanasramam Tiruvannamalai

Page 58

50
KAMAL, SON OF
SAINT KABIR
A devotee asked, “Can the place between the eyebrows be said to be the seat of the Self?” Bhagavan replied, “The fact is that a sadhaka may have his experience at any centre or chakra on which he concentrates his mind. But, that particular place of his experience does not for that reason become ipso facto, the seat of the Self. There is an interesting story about Kamal, the son of Saint Kabir, which serves as an illustration to show that the head (and a part of the space between the eyebrows) cannot be considered the seat of the Self.”
KABIR WAS INTENSELY devoted to Sri Rama, and he never failed to feed those who sang the praise of the Lord with devotion. On one occasion, however, it so happened that he had not the wherewithal to provide food for a large gathering of devotees. For him, however, there could be no alternative except that he must somehow make every necessary arrangement before the next morning. So he and his son set out at night to secure the required provisions.
The story goes that after the father and son had removed the provisions from a merchant's house through a hole they made in the wall, the son went in again just to wake up the household and tell them, as a matter of principle, that their house had been burgled. When, having roused the household, the boy tried to make good his escape through the hole and join his father on the other side, his body got stuck in the aperture. To avoid being identified by the pursuing household (because, if detected, there