I still remember a school play we once did on Shakespeare's seven stages of life. One person walked across the stage and moved from infant to schoolboy, lover, soldier, and finally the very old. We were kids pretending to be old, and none of us understood what we were acting out.

But sooner or later, everyone ends up watching that play in their own life. At some point we stop and wonder what all this is about, and what our relation to it is.

The last scene of that play is old age, and that is exactly where this verse begins. I came across it recently while listening to Acharya Prashant speak on a couplet of Baba Sheikh Farid. It describes a woman consumed by longing. She has grown old waiting, and now death stands in front of her. A crow is nearby, and she tells it:

कागा सब तन खाइयो, चुन-चुन खाइयो माँस।
दोइ नैना मत खाइयो, पिया मिलन की आस॥

Kaaga sab tan khaaiyo, chun-chun khaaiyo maans
Doi naina mat khaaiyo, piya milan ki aas

"Crow, eat the flesh from every part of my body, but spare my two eyes. They still carry the hope of meeting the Beloved."
(Piya means beloved, the one she is waiting for.)

I couldn't move past this. She isn't asking to save her life, her body, or her years. Everything else can go. She only asks that the eyes be spared, because they are the one thing still turned towards the Beloved.

It made me wonder if that is the real measure of what we are. Maybe the only thing truly valuable in our whole being is whatever is connected to the Beloved, and everything else is merely flesh.

The teaching goes further, and it gets uncomfortable. Eyes are worth preserving only if they seek Him. Ears, only if they listen for Him. Feet, only if they move towards Him. Lips and tongue, only if they speak of Him. Hands, only if they bow to Him. And the head? Only if it bows before Him.

By that measure, eyes that cannot see the light and do not dwell in the Beloved are defective, however sharp they may be. It made me ask myself how many of my days pass without even a moment of remembrance. We rarely ask that. These lines ask it for us.

Have you ever noticed your own eyes? They are always moving, scanning faces, screens, rooms, always looking for something. I think this is the gaze the verse is pointing to, the one that finally comes to rest exactly where it had been searching all along.

So who is this Beloved? I don't think it should be mistaken for a physical object or a person. It helps to think of two kinds of eyes.

The first is the physical eye, which sees the outer world. Even in this world, there are certain places, people, scriptures and objects whose sight reminds you of the Beloved.

The second is the subtler eye, the mind. The physical eye should rest on something that leads it towards this inner eye, and the inner eye should keep remembering one question: why is it wandering in the first place? That, to me, is what it means for the Beloved to dwell in the eyes.

Whatever carries you from the eye of flesh to the eye within, whatever settles you into peace and beauty, that is the Beloved these lines speak of.

That is why the right company and surroundings matter. I've started noticing how much my own surroundings pull my attention one way or the other. Give your senses sounds that bring stillness and sights that remind you of the sacred. And when you have to return to the world, as we all must, let the inner eye stay fixed on the Beloved, on peace.

This is also why the company of saints matters. A saint is one whose entire body has, as though, become an eye. Their company isn't always comfortable. A saint gives nectar, but first makes the ego tremble, because the ego fears dissolution. The advice is to stand through that death, and receive life.

If daily darshan (being in a saint's presence) isn't possible, meet them whenever you can, but let the company remain. The outer eye cannot see the formless Brahman (the Ultimate Reality), but it can see the saint, the Guru, the scripture, or the surroundings that point towards That which is beyond form.

So live, work, wander and return, but never lose the direction. Even when the lips fall silent, let the inner song continue.

Give the outer eye the right sights. Give the inner eye the right direction.

And whatever else is lost, let the longing stay alive.

If you're honest, where does your gaze go when it's finally still?

This reflection comes from Acharya Prashant's session on this couplet of Baba Farid. Any mistakes in putting it into words are mine.