I had an extremely busy week which left me with no time to select parallel teachings to this verse.  As I was packing up to leave for class however, I started hearing a Kabir poem so decided to bring that along. And I have to say, it was that poem, more than this next verse, that brought the house down…

27.
A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts
and keeps his mind open to what is.

Thus the Master is available to all people
And doesn’t reject anyone.
He is ready to use all situations
And doesn’t waste anything.
This is called embodying the light.

What is a good man but a bad  man’s teacher?
What is a bad man but a good man’s job?
If you don’t understand this, you will get lost,
However intelligent you are.
It is the great secret.

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think…and think…while you are alive.
What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death.
If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive
do you think
ghosts will do it after?
The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten –
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City
of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life
you will have the face of satisfied desire.
So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!
Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the guest that
does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.
[Robert Bly, The Kabir Book]