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of information, is a scholar who has only read about love. The Hindi word for love is PREM, and in the Hindi alphabet it is made up of two and a half letters. Kabir says to read these two and one-half letters in a book is meaningless. He says they must be experienced through the book of life, that a man must enter the university of life, that he must attend the college of life. This is the only place words like this can be learned.
Although the word PREM is made up of two and one-half letters, Kabir also wishes to indicate another, deeper meaning. Only when a person falls in love with someone do the two and one-half letters of PREM become complete. One letter is for the lover, the second letter is for the beloved and the half is for that something unknown that exists between the two.
Why does Kabir call it half? He could easily have called it three. There is a beautiful reason for calling it half, for indicating that it is incomplete. Kabir says no matter how hard you try, love never becomes complete, never becomes completely full. You are never totally contented with love. You never feel it is enough; you never feel fully satisfied. No matter how much love you feel or make or show, love always remains incomplete. It is like God. God keeps on expanding and expanding, becoming fuller and fuller, and yet his expanding keeps continuing, keeps going on and on and on.
The fact that love always remains incomplete is also an indication of its everlastingness. Remember, whatsoever attains to completion, dies. Completion is death, because then nothing remains to do, nothing remains to be. There is no more movement, no further progress. Anything that becomes complete is certain to die. What else can it become? What else is left? Only something that lives forever is always incomplete, always half -- and no matter how hard you may try to fill it, it will remain incomplete.
To remain incomplete is love's nature. You can strive as hard as you like after satisfaction, but you will see that each satisfaction only makes you more dissatisfied, only makes you crave for more and more. The more you drink, the more your thirst increases. This is not the water
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