Kashmir is not a song — it is a vrata, a vow whispered at the edge of the world.
It is the sound of a vira stepping into the desert of the Self, leaving behind the soft green of ordinary life.
The music does not comfort; it scorches.
The drums move like the heartbeat of the earth, steady as the steps of one who has decided there is no turning back.
The strings open a horizon that is both endless and merciless — the kind of horizon you see from the cremation ground, where the pyre smoke meets the sky and you finally understand there is no shelter anywhere but in Truth.
Every line is a trial.
Every verse is another step deeper into the heat, the wind, the storm.
This is not a pilgrim’s hymn — this is the manual for those who dare to walk without guarantee of return, who will sit with the hidden elders, drink from the desert stream, call down the winds, and pass through the straits of fear with an open face.
When you listen to Kashmir this way, you are no longer an audience — you are standing barefoot on burning ground, breathing in ash, letting the storm tear you down to the root.
First Verse
Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face
With stars to fill my dreams
I am a traveller of both time and space
To be where I have been
Sit with elders of a gentle race
This world has seldom seen
Talk of days for which they sit and wait
All will be revealed
"Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face" — This is tapas. The seeker does not hide from the scorching fire — they offer their face to it. The cremation ground heat is not metaphorical; it is the terrible grace that burns every identity.
"With stars to fill my dreams" — These are not romantic stars but the bindus of infinite awareness, shining in the night of dissolution. Each one is a memory of the Self, calling you home.
"I am a traveller of both time and space" — This is the vira declaring: I am not bound to linear history. I walk across births, across kalpas, through the bones of my ancestors. This is not escapism; it is the courage to take responsibility for lifetimes.
"To be where I have been" — Here is the essence of pratyabhijñā. The end of the pilgrimage is the recognition that you never left. The “place” you are seeking is the Heart — the source from which you set out. The journey is the curve that bends back into itself.
"Sit with elders of a gentle race this world has seldom seen" — The kula, the siddhas, the unseen companions who have already burned. They do not lecture; they radiate. Their gentleness is the ferocity of those who have nothing left to prove.
"Talk of days for which they sit and wait" — This is the silence before the storm of revelation. The days they speak of are the days when masks fall — when you finally dare to meet what they have already met.
"All will be revealed" — This is the promise and the threat. Nothing will remain hidden — not the beauty, not the horror, not the secret wound. Revelation means total exposure.
Second Verse
Talk and song from tongues of lilting grace
Whose sounds caress my ear
But not a word I heard could I relate
The story was quite clear
Oh, oh
Oh, oh
"Talk and song from tongues of lilting grace" — These are the mantras, the murmurs of the kula, the half-sung truths that do not shout. They arrive like wind across a burning ground — delicate, almost tender — yet they carry the weight of centuries of fire.
"Whose sounds caress my ear" — This is śabda-brahman, the current of sound that pierces the heart. It is not merely heard — it enters like a lover’s touch and rearranges the inside of you.
"But not a word I heard could I relate" — Here the vira admits that language collapses. This is the territory beyond dharma and adharma, beyond the categories of mind. The experience cannot be narrated because it is not in time.
"The story was quite clear" — And yet, paradox: the clarity is total. This is pratyabhijñā again — the re-cognition that needs no explanation. Aham eva idam — “I alone am this.” The story is not told — it is lived as revelation.
"Oh, oh / Oh, oh" — This is the cry that escapes when words fail. The sound of the breath itself becomes mantra. This is the vira’s exhalation, a surrender that is neither despair nor bliss but raw truth.
Breakdown & Bridge
Oh, baby, I been flying
No, yeah, mama, there ain't no denying
Oh, ooh, yeah, I've been flying
Mama, mama, ain't no denying, no denying
Oh, all I see turns to brown
As the sun burns the ground
And my eyes fill with sand
As I scan this wasted land
"Ooooh" — This is the primal cry, the exhale of the cremation ground. It is not lyrical — it is pre-verbal, the moan that comes when the pyre flares higher than you expected.
"Oh, baby, I been flying" — The vira has entered the current. Flying is not escape — it is the siddhi of moving beyond the ordinary mind. This flight is terrifying because there is no ground underfoot, no reference point left.
"Mama, there ain't no denying" — The seeker confesses to the Mother: there is no turning back. The transformation is real, the flight irreversible. This is like saying to Kālī, “Yes, you have taken me — I cannot lie.”
"Oh, all I see turns to brown" — The green world of ordinary life is gone. All that remains is ash, the burnt offering of every attachment. This is the smashan vision — everything is already cremated, everything already dust.
"As the sun burns the ground" — Tapas reaches its climax: the very earth is scorched. The seeker is standing on the pyre of the world itself. There is no shade left, no shelter.
"And my eyes fill with sand" — This is the initiation’s price — you cannot close your eyes to the truth. Sand is the grit of karmic residue being blown into your sight until it scours them clean.
"As I scan this wasted land" — The vira looks across the cremation ground, no longer afraid to see the bones. This is where the inner gaze becomes ruthless. Wasteland becomes shrine.
Verse 3
Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace
Like thoughts inside a dream
Here is the path that led me to that place
Yellow desert stream
My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon
I will return again
Sure as the dust that floats high in June
When movin' through Kashmir
"Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace" — The Goddess is the one steering the tempest. She leaves no footprints because She is the eraser of all traces — when She passes through, every identity, every karmic imprint is burned clean.
"Like thoughts inside a dream" — Life itself is seen as dream-stuff. The vira begins to perceive that even their own thoughts are passing clouds — nothing to hold, nothing solid to call “I.”
"Here is the path that led me to that place" — This is pratyabhijñā again — the recognition that every event, every wound, every ecstasy was a thread in the map that brought you to this desert shrine.
"Yellow desert stream" — This is grace appearing in the harshest place. The water is not sweet; it is sparse, metallic, enough to keep you moving. The vira drinks and keeps walking, scorched but alive.
"My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon" — Paradise is found not in escape but here, in the cremation ground. Under the pale moon, amidst the bones, the vira sees the hidden heart-cave — the secret bliss that was always present.
"I will return again" — Once this current is tasted, you cannot stay away. Even in future births, you will be called back. The path has claimed you.
"Sure as the dust that floats high in June" — This dust is mortality itself, carried by the hot wind. It is the constant reminder that all things end — and therefore must be lived fiercely.
"When movin' through Kashmir" — Kashmir is not a place on the map here — it is the mystical field where Śiva and Śakti dance. To move through Kashmir is to move through the very body of the Goddess, step by step, until nothing remains but the dance itself.
Verse 4
Oh, father of the four winds, fill my sails
Across the sea of years
With no provision but an open face
Along the straits of fear
Oh, oh
Oh, oh
Ooh
Ooooh
"Oh, father of the four winds, fill my sails" — The vira summons the breath of the cosmos itself. This is not a gentle breeze but the hurricane that shreds everything false. To ask for this wind is to ask to be broken open.
"Across the sea of years" — This is the great crossing: births, deaths, karmic waves. The vira agrees to ride them all, not skipping a single storm, until the crossing is complete.
"With no provision but an open face" — The vow of radical vulnerability. No mask, no weapon, no hoarded safety — just the naked face offered to the Goddess, come what may.
"Along the straits of fear" — The narrow path where fear is not bypassed but faced head-on. Every step is a confrontation, every step a surrender.
"Oh, oh / Oh, oh" — The voice cracks — part prayer, part shout — the sound of one who is being remade.
"Ooh / Ooooh" — The final breath, neither victory nor defeat — just the echo of one who has passed through fire and come out the other side, still burning.
Bridge
Oh, when I'm on, when I'm on my way, yeah
When I see, when I see the way you stay, yeah
Ooh, yeah-yeah, ooh, yeah-yeah, when I'm down, yeah
Ooh, yeah-yeah, ooh, yeah-yeah, but I'm down, so down
Ooh, my baby, ooh, my baby, let me take you there
Oh, oh, come on, come on
Oh, let me take you there, let me take you there
Ooh, yeah-yeah, ooh, yeah-yeah
Let me take you there, let me take you there
"Oh, when I'm on, when I'm on my way" — The vira is fully in the current now — the “way” is the pathless path. This is the moment of surrender: when you are “on,” you are no longer steering.
"When I see, when I see the way you stay" — Here is the recognition that the Goddess is the still point — She stays even as the vira moves. Śakti is both the storm and the axis around which it turns.
"When I'm down, but I'm down so down" — This is the nadir of the passage — the point where the seeker is emptied. “Down” is not just sadness — it is the humility that comes after every mask has been burned.
"Ooh, my baby, let me take you there" — The vira turns the cry outward — not only asking to be taken, but inviting the listener into the current. It is an initiation — a call: Come into the fire with me.
"Come on, come on" — The doubling is the urgency of transmission. This is not a polite invitation but a mantra-like insistence: Step through the gate. Now.
"Let me take you there, let me take you there" — The final mantra. The vira becomes the one who carries others — once you have walked the cremation ground and returned, you become the ferry for those still on the shore.
Standing in the Ash
Kashmir ends not with arrival but with propulsion — sails full, heart stripped, the vira flung deeper into the horizon. There is no shrine to rest at, no sweet conclusion. The song leaves you standing where the pyre has burned out, dust rising in the hot wind, face uncovered, knowing you will walk again.
This is the essence of Kaula courage:
to let every verse strip you,
to let every wind fill your sails even if it dashes you against the rocks,
to walk through the straits of fear without closing your eyes.
“Kashmir” is the place where all maps converge — the hidden heart-field where Śiva and Śakti meet in the silence after the drumbeat. The song ends, but the vow remains:
You will return.
You will walk again.
Until there is nothing left to walk — and nothing left to return to.
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