जाति न पूछो साधु की, पूछ लीजिये ज्ञान

Kabir wrote the famous doha years ago long before this consumerism, advertisement and media industry was created to make us to believe and create need for the things we don't need. Damn the line is too straight forward without any meaning and context and sounds way out of place.

Let me try to raise a point here.

What does a man with a big car say a Rolls Royce and a big beach house indicate to you. Mind it you haven't seen the man yet and you just see him driving out of a mansion into this big car. With our times and our mindset I wouldn't be surprized if a whole lot of us would associate him to be rich and powerful.

Let us take another scenario. Let us assume I have just started to make some decent money and I can afford a nice big sedan with a big engine and nice chrome. Should I buy it? Yes no one stops me. The car companies would be happy to sell me one and would love to project that I would feel more valuable once I have the car. But the key question is should I buy it just beacuse they want me to and condition my mind via advertising to buy.

Hell NO ! This is corrupting our mind.

Yeah it's called marketing too.

Slowly we have all been conditioned by all the advertising and promotion to believe that we need the things. Our wallets, our share of mind, our value system have all been programmed to respect for example big cars and big houses even if they are on loan !

We have been programmed to believe that if we can afford it or if we think we should afford it we should buy it. 

This creates many problems:

a) We consume more than we need and never bother about sharing
b) We often consume directly or indirectly someone else's share
c) We believe and prmote the philosophy that more the better
d) By not questioning the motive ours kids fail to see the difference and the fine print. The conditioning becomes stronger and stronger without questioning over time.
e) For example rich families who can afford food waste a lot of food just beacuse they can afford to do so while millions die of hunger.

So hundreds of years ago Saint Kabir saw this coming and said let us not waste on things that don't really matter and the way it can be achieved is by not associating value with them.

जाति न पूछो साधु की, पूछ लीजिये ज्ञान,
मोल करो तरवार का, पड़ा रहन दो म्यान।

Literally translated it means that one should not ask a holy man about his caste because he has already renounced it and it is his past. What should be discussed with him and asked is the knowledge that he has acquired after he became enlightened. This knowledge is the real value and should define him. This is on the same lines that the real value is of the sword and the casing that holds it and is carried in has negligible utility. However beautiful is the casing and expensive still it has zero worth and value when the real need and time to draw a sword comes.