Here the 16th c. CE Punjabi mystic and poet Mira bai dismisses those who seek God through pilgrimages and external observances. Why look elsewhere, she asks, for what is already present around us and within us? For more about Mira bai, see this earlier post.

To hear that a fish is thirsty in water,
I am amused and am moved to laughter.

Man, without realising his true self,
Roams now to Mathura, now to Kashi.*
Renouncing all, he wanders in quest of God;
Defeated, he drifts in the world’s ocean vast.

But Mira, through the Path of Sahaj,
Has met her dear Eternal Lord.

*Mathura and Kashi are places of pilgrimage in India.
**The path of Sahaj, also called Shabd yoga or the yoga of the Sound Current, teaches a way of centralising the soul current, leading ultimately to the direct experience of self-realization and God consciousness.

Translation V.K. Sethi