Kabir and the Buffalo

Dadi: "Guddu, if someone begged you to help them see God, what would you do?"

Guddu: "I don't know... pray with them?"

Dadi: "Saint Kabir did something very unexpected. Let me tell you about the buffalo."

Guddu: "A buffalo? What does a buffalo have to do with seeing God?"

Dadi: "A young man named Ram Das desperately wanted to see God. He begged Kabir, "Please, help me have a vision of the Divine!" Kabir finally agreed, but with strange instructions."

Guddu: "What instructions?"

Dadi: ""Prepare a great feast. Invite all the saints from surrounding areas. Everyone will gather in two days." Ram Das was so excited! He sold everything he owned to buy food and prepare the meal."

Guddu: "That's a lot of sacrifice!"

Dadi: "Dozens of holy men arrived. But Kabir made one rule: "No one eats until God appears before Ram Das.""

Guddu: "So they waited?"

Dadi: "And waited. Morning passed. Noon passed. Afternoon passed. No God. People got hungry. Some got angry. "This is ridiculous!" they muttered. "Kabir is making fools of us all!""

Guddu: "Poor Ram Das!"

Dadi: "Then - CRASH! A buffalo burst into the kitchen! It knocked over everything - destroyed the food, broke the cooking equipment, pulled down the stoves with its horns. The whole place became covered in dung!"

Guddu: "What a disaster!"

Dadi: "The hungry guests lost their patience. Ram Das was furious! He grabbed a heavy stick and started beating the buffalo mercilessly. Everyone joined in, cursing Kabir for bringing them there, cursing the buffalo that ruined their feast."

Guddu: "They hurt the animal?"

Dadi: "Badly. The wounded buffalo, bleeding and crying, ran limping toward a corner of the garden where Kabir was staying quietly."

Guddu: "What did Kabir do?"

Dadi: "*(voice soft)* He was hugging the buffalo and weeping. Tears streamed down his face as he said, "O my Lord, you received wounds you didn't even have when you fought the demon Ravana or the evil Kansa. O my Lord, I am so pained to see this...""

Guddu: "*(shocked)* The buffalo WAS God?!"

Dadi: "In that instant, everyone's heart transformed. They realized what they had done. The Divine had come - not as a glorious vision in the sky, but as a simple animal in their midst. And they had beaten Him."

Guddu: "That's... that's heartbreaking!"

Dadi: "But here's the miracle, beta. As they understood, their consciousness shifted. Suddenly, they saw God everywhere - in the buffalo, in each other, in the stones, in the air. "Dualism was gone," the story says. "Nothing remained except God.""

Guddu: "They got their vision after all?"

Dadi: "A much deeper one than they expected! They didn't see God appearing dramatically from the heavens. They learned that God is ALREADY here - in every creature, every being, every moment."

Guddu: "Why did God come as a buffalo?"

Dadi: "That was Kabir's teaching. We expect God in temples and ceremonies. We miss God in the ordinary - in animals, in servants, in the inconvenient moments. The buffalo was a test: could they see divinity in something that seemed like a nuisance?"

Guddu: "And they failed?"

Dadi: "At first. But their failure became their teaching. They couldn't forget that they had beaten God. That memory transformed them forever."

Guddu: "Dadi, does that mean God could be in... anything?"

Dadi: "That's exactly what Kabir taught. The cow wandering in the street. The stray dog. The person who annoys you. Even the buffalo that ruins your feast. If you can learn to see the Divine in the difficult, you've learned to truly see."

Guddu: "I'll try to be kinder to animals, Dadi."

Dadi: "And to people. And to yourself. God is playing all the roles, beta. The trick is to recognize the Player behind every part."