Lal Ded
Fourteenth-century Kashmiri Shaiva mystic and poet, the most beloved spiritual figure of Kashmir. Born around 1320 to a Brahmin family in Pampore and married into another by twelve, she fled an unhappy marriage to wander the valley as a renunciate, naked and singing — and her short verse-sayings, called vakhs, became the founding texts of Kashmiri vernacular literature. Equally claimed by Hindus, Muslims, and Sufis, her teachings blend the radical non-dualism of Kashmir Shaivism with the ecstatic devotional fervor of the Bhakti movement. Her vakhs are still recited daily by ordinary Kashmiris, six centuries later.
104
quotes in library
Quotes by Lal Ded
104 quotes“To know the Self, give up everything. To give up everything, know the Self.”
paradoxI, Lalla
“The pilgrim arrives at the temple. The temple is the heart.”
pilgrimageNaked Song
“In the heart of unity, all paths converge.”
unityI, Lalla
“The Lord is in every breath. Whoever forgets to breathe, forgets the Lord.”
breathNaked Song
“Lalla is gone. Only the Self remains.”
dissolutionI, Lalla
“What is meditation? The mind in the heart. The breath in the mind. The Self in the breath.”
meditationNaked Song
“To the eye of unity, there is no other. Even my body is the Lord.”
unityNaked Song
“In the silence between the breaths, He whispers.”
breathNaked Song
“My beloved is closer than my own thought. He is the thinker.”
intimacyI, Lalla
“Whoever calls Him by a thousand names calls the One.”
namesNaked Song
“In the temple of my body, He sits. In the temple of my breath, He sings.”
templeNaked Song
“To know the Self is to forget the not-Self. The not-Self was always a misunderstanding.”
selfI, Lalla
“Some say He is in heaven. Some say He is in the heart. Both are right. Heaven is the heart.”
heartI, Lalla
“What I have given to others, I have given to the Self.”
givingNaked Song
“Lalla's breath is His breath. Lalla's word is His word. Lalla is His.”
identityNaked Song
“In the cremation ground, I sat without fear. The body burns. The Self does not.”
deathI, Lalla
“My only ornament is my naked truth.”
truthI, Lalla
“The pundits search the scriptures. Lalla searches her heart. Both find the same Lord.”
pathsNaked Song
“What is real cannot be lost. What is unreal cannot be found.”
realityI, Lalla
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