(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Kabir was raised by childless Muslim weavers named Niru and Nimma, who found him near Lahara
Tara lake, adjacent to the holy city of Varanasi. But his birth is surrounded by legends. The most
popular belief is that being the supreme power, he appeared in form of a baby. He was never "born" as
such.
He was a Bhakti saint, who sang the ideals of seeing all of humanity as one, his name, Kabir, is often
interpreted as Guru's Grace. He kept himself away from the fundamentalism of all the religions and
explained the root philosophies of spirituality.
A weaver by profession, Kabir ranks among the world's greatest poets. In India, he is perhaps the most
quoted author. The Holy Guru Granth Sahib contains over 500 verses by Kabir. The Sikh community in
particular and others who follow the Holy Granth, hold Kabir, a Bhagat, in high reverence.
Kabir openly criticized all sects and gave a new direction to Indian philosophy. This is due to his
straight forward approach that has a universal appeal. It is for this reason that Kabir is held in high
esteem all over the world. To call Kabir a universal Guru is not an exaggeration.
He is also considered one of the early northern India Sants. One source for modern adaptations of
Kabir's poetry is Robert Bly's The Kabir Book: Forty-Four of the Ecstatic Poems of Kabir. bv
For more details on this topic, see Sant Mat.
Kabir is associated with the Sant Mat, a loosely related group of teachers (Sanskrit: Guru) that assumed
prominence in the northern part of the Indian sub-continent from about the 13th century. Their
teachings are distinguished theologically by inward loving devotion to a divine principle, and socially
by an egalitarianism opposed to the qualitative distinctions of the Hindu caste hierarchy and to the
religious differences between Hindu and Muslim.
The sants were not homogeneous, consisting mostly of these sants' presentation of socio-religious
attitudes based on bhakti (devotion) as described earlier in the Bhagavad Gita.[5] Sharing as few
conventions with each other as with the followers of the traditions they challenged, the sants appear
more as a diverse collection of spiritual personalities than a specific religious tradition, although they
acknowledged a common spiritual root.
The first generation of north Indian sants, (which included Kabir), appeared in the region of Benares in
the mid 15th century. Preceding them were two notable 13th and 14th century figures, Namdev and
Ramananda. The latter, a Vaishnava ascetic, initiated Kabir, Ravidas, and other sants, according to
tradition. Ramananda's story is told differently by his lineage of "Ramanandi" monks, by other Sants
preceding him, and later by the Guru Nanak and subsequent Sikh Gurus. What is known is that
Ramananda accepted students of all castes, a fact that was contested by the orthodox Hindus of that
time, and that his students formed the first generation of Sants.
Philosophies
Kabir was influenced by prevailing religious mood such as old Brahmanic Hinduism, Hindu and
Buddhist Tantrism, teachings of Nath yogis and the personal devotionalism from South India mixed
with imageless God of Islam.[8] The influence of these various doctrines is clearly evident in Kabir's
verses. Even though he is often presented to be synthesizer of Hinduism and Islam: the observation is
held to be a false one.
The basic religious principles he espoused are simple. According to Kabir, all life is an interplay of two
spiritual principles. One is the personal soul (Jivatma) and the other is God (Paramatma). It is Kabir's
view that salvation is the process of bringing into union these two divine principles. The social and
practical manifestation of Kabir's philosophy has rung through the ages. Despite legend that claims
Kabir met with Guru Nanak, their lifespans do not overlap in time. The presence of much of his verse
in Sikh scripture and the fact that Kabir was a predecessor of Nanak has led some western scholars to
mistakenly describe him as a forerunner of Sikhism.
His greatest work is the Bijak (the "Seedling"), an idea of the fundamental one. This collection of
poems demonstrates Kabir's own universal view of spirituality. His vocabulary is replete with ideas
regarding Brahman and Hindu ideas of karma and reincarnation. His Hindi was a vernacular,
straightforward kind, much like his philosophies. He often advocated leaving aside the Qur'an and
Vedas and to simply follow Sahaja path, or the Simple/Natural Way to oneness in God. He believed in
the Vedantic concept of atman, but unlike earlier orthodox Vedantins, he followed this philosophy to its
logical end by spurning the Hindu societal caste system and worship of murti, showing clear belief in
both bhakti and sufi ideas. The major part of Kabir's work as a bhagat was collected by the fifth Sikh
guru, Guru Arjan Dev, and forms a part of the Sikh scripture Guru Granth Sahib.
While many ideas reign as to who his living influences were, the only Guru of whom he ever spoke
was Satguru. Kabir never made a mention of any human guru in his life or verses, the only reference
found in his verses is of God as Satguru.
Poetry career
"The poetry of mysticism might be defined on the one hand as a temperamental reaction to the vision
of Reality: on the other, as a form of prophecy. As it is the special vocation of the mystical
consciousness to mediate between two orders, going out in loving adoration towards God and coming
home to tell the secrets of Eternity to other men; so the artistic self-expression of this consciousness has
also a double character. It is love-poetry, but love-poetry which is often written with a missionary
intention. Kabîr's songs are of this kind: out-births at once of rapture and of charity. Written in the
popular Hindi, not in the literary tongue, they were deliberately addressed—like the vernacular poetry
of Jacopone da Todì and Richard Rolle—to the people rather than to the professionally religious class;
and all must be struck by the constant employment in them of imagery drawn from the common life,
the universal experience. It is by the simplest metaphors, by constant appeals to needs, passions,
relations which all men understand--the bridegroom and bride, the guru and disciple, the pilgrim, the
farmer, the migrant bird--that he drives home his intense conviction of the reality of the soul's
intercourse with the Transcendent. There are in his universe no fences between the "natural" and
"supernatural" worlds; everything is a part of the creative Play of God, and therefore--even in its
humblest details—capable of revealing the Player's mind."
His poems resonate with praise for the true guru who reveals the divine through direct experience, and
denounced more usual ways of attempting god-union such as chanting, austerities etc. His verses,
which being illiterate he never expressed in writing and were spoken in vernacular Hindi, often began
with some strongly worded insult to get the attention of passers-by. Kabir has enjoyed a revival of
popularity over the past half century as arguably the most acceptable and understandable of the Indian
saints, with an especial influence over spiritual traditions such as that of Sant Mat and Radha Soami.
Prem Rawat ('Maharaji') also refers frequently to Kabir's songs and poems as the embodiment of deep
wisdom.
(1)
kabi-ra- jab ham paida- hue
jaga han'se ham roye
aisi- karani- kara calo
ham han'se jaga roye
chadariya- jhini- re jhinihe
ra-ma na-ma rasa bhini-
(2)
as.t.a kamala- ka carkha- bana-yapañca
tattva ki- pu-ninava
dasa ma-sa bunana ko la-ge
mu-rakha maili- kinhi-
(3)
jaba mori- cha-dara bana ghara a-yaran'ga
reja ko dinhiaisa-
ran'ga ran'ga- ran'gare ne
la-lo la-la kar dinhi-
(4)
ca-dara od.ha s'an'ka mat kariyo
yeh do dina tumko dinhimu-
rakha loga bheda nahi ja-ne
din din maili- kinhi-
(5)
dhruva prahla-da suda-ma- ne od.hi
s'ukadeva ne nirmala kinhida-
sa kabi-ra ne aisi- odhijyon'
ki- tyon' dhara dinhi-
TRANSLATION
1) Poet Kabir Das says, “When I was born, the world smiled and cried. However, I will do such deeds
that when I leave, I will be the one smiling and the world will be the one crying.” This life is like a very
thin transparent shawl which should be drenched in the holy name of Lord Rama, the Reservoir of
Pleasure.
2) The eight lotuses is the spinning wheel using the five earthly elements to make the chadar (the
body). In nine or ten months, the chadar is completed; however, the fools will destroy it.
3) When the chadar is completed, it is sent to the dyer -rang rej-(the spiritual master) to color it. The
dyer (the spiritual master) colored it as such that it is all red (the color of self-realization).
4) Do not have doubts or fears while wearing this chadar. It is only given to you for two days and it is
temporary too. The foolish people do not understand the temporariness of this chadar, and they day by
day destroy it.
5) Great devotees such as Dhruva Maharaja, Prahlad Maharaja, Sudama, and Sukadev Goswami have
worn this chadar as well as purified their chadars as well other chadars (souls). The servant, Kabir
Dasa, is attempting to wear this chadar as given to him originally by his guru.
Religious
Kabir did not classify himself as Hindu or Muslim, Sufi or Bhakta. The legends surrounding his
lifetime attest to his strong aversion to established religions. From his poems, expressed in homely
metaphors and religious symbols drawn indifferently from Hindu and Muslim belief, it is impossible to
say of their author that he was Brâhman or Sûfî, Vedântist or Vaishnavite. He is, as he says himself, "at
once the child of Allah and of Râm." In fact, Kabir always insisted on the concept of Koi bole Ram
Ram Koi Khudai..., which means that someone may chant the Hindu name of God and someone may
chant the Muslim name of God, but God is the one who made the whole world.
In Kabir's wide and rapturous vision of the universe he never loses touch with the common life. His
feet are firmly planted upon earth; his lofty and passionate apprehensions are perpetually controlled by
the activity of a sane and vigorous intellect, by the alert commonsense so often found in persons of real
mystical genius. The constant insistence on simplicity and directness, the hatred of all abstractions and
philosophizings, the ruthless criticism of external religion: these are amongst his most marked
characteristics. God is the Root whence all manifestations, "material" and "spiritual," alike proceed;
and God is the only need of man: "Happiness shall be yours when you come to the Root." Hence, to
those who keep their eye on the "one thing needful," denominations, creeds, ceremonies, the
conclusions of philosophy, the disciplines of asceticism, are matters of comparative indifference. They
represent merely the different angles from which the soul may approach that simple union with Brahma
which is its goal, and are useful only insofar as they contribute to this consummation. So thoroughgoing
is Kabîr's eclecticism, that he seems by turns Vedântist and Vaishnavite, Pantheist and
Transcendentalist, Brahmin and Sûfî. In the effort to tell the truth about that ineffable apprehension, so
vast and yet so near, which controls his life, he seizes and twines together—as he might have woven
together contrasting threads upon his loom—symbols and ideas drawn from the most violent and
conflicting philosophies and faiths.
His birth and death are surrounded by legends, as nothing certain is known about his birth or death. He
grew up in a Muslim weaver family, but some say he was really son of a Brahmin widow and was
adopted by a childless couple.
One popular legend of his death, which is even taught in schools in India (although in more of a moral
context than a historical one), says that after his death his Muslim and Hindu devotees fought over his
proper burial rites. The problem arose since Muslim custom called for the burial of their dead, whereas
Hindus cremated their dead. The scene is depicted as two groups fighting around his coffin one
claiming that Kabir was a Hindu, and the other claiming that Kabir was a Muslim. However, when they
finally open Kabir's coffin, they found the body missing. Instead there was a small book in which the
Hindus and Muslims wrote all his sayings that they could remember; some even say a bunch of his
favourite flowers were placed. The legend goes on to state that the fighting was resolved, and both
groups looked upon the miracle as an act of divine intervention. In Maghar, his tomb or Dargah and
Sama-dhi Mandir still stand side by side.
Another legend surrounding Kabir is that shortly before death he bathed in both the river Ganges and
Karmnasha to wash away both his good deeds and his sins.
Kabir is revered as Satguru by the Kabirpanthi spiritual group, based in Maghar.
Kabir Poetry
Kabir was raised by childless Muslim weavers named Niru and Nimma, who found him near Lahara
Tara lake, adjacent to the holy city of Varanasi. But his birth is surrounded by legends. The most
popular belief is that being the supreme power, he appeared in form of a baby. He was never "born" as
such.
He was a Bhakti saint, who sang the ideals of seeing all of humanity as one, his name, Kabir, is often
interpreted as Guru's Grace. He kept himself away from the fundamentalism of all the religions and
explained the root philosophies of spirituality.
A weaver by profession, Kabir ranks among the world's greatest poets. In India, he is perhaps the most
quoted author. The Holy Guru Granth Sahib contains over 500 verses by Kabir. The Sikh community in
particular and others who follow the Holy Granth, hold Kabir, a Bhagat, in high reverence.
Kabir openly criticized all sects and gave a new direction to Indian philosophy. This is due to his
straight forward approach that has a universal appeal. It is for this reason that Kabir is held in high
esteem all over the world. To call Kabir a universal Guru is not an exaggeration.
He is also considered one of the early northern India Sants. One source for modern adaptations of
Kabir's poetry is Robert Bly's The Kabir Book: Forty-Four of the Ecstatic Poems of Kabir. bv
For more details on this topic, see Sant Mat.
Kabir is associated with the Sant Mat, a loosely related group of teachers (Sanskrit: Guru) that assumed
prominence in the northern part of the Indian sub-continent from about the 13th century. Their
teachings are distinguished theologically by inward loving devotion to a divine principle, and socially
by an egalitarianism opposed to the qualitative distinctions of the Hindu caste hierarchy and to the
religious differences between Hindu and Muslim.
The sants were not homogeneous, consisting mostly of these sants' presentation of socio-religious
attitudes based on bhakti (devotion) as described earlier in the Bhagavad Gita.[5] Sharing as few
conventions with each other as with the followers of the traditions they challenged, the sants appear
more as a diverse collection of spiritual personalities than a specific religious tradition, although they
acknowledged a common spiritual root.
The first generation of north Indian sants, (which included Kabir), appeared in the region of Benares in
the mid 15th century. Preceding them were two notable 13th and 14th century figures, Namdev and
Ramananda. The latter, a Vaishnava ascetic, initiated Kabir, Ravidas, and other sants, according to
tradition. Ramananda's story is told differently by his lineage of "Ramanandi" monks, by other Sants
preceding him, and later by the Guru Nanak and subsequent Sikh Gurus. What is known is that
Ramananda accepted students of all castes, a fact that was contested by the orthodox Hindus of that
time, and that his students formed the first generation of Sants.
Philosophies
Kabir was influenced by prevailing religious mood such as old Brahmanic Hinduism, Hindu and
Buddhist Tantrism, teachings of Nath yogis and the personal devotionalism from South India mixed
with imageless God of Islam.[8] The influence of these various doctrines is clearly evident in Kabir's
verses. Even though he is often presented to be synthesizer of Hinduism and Islam: the observation is
held to be a false one.
The basic religious principles he espoused are simple. According to Kabir, all life is an interplay of two
spiritual principles. One is the personal soul (Jivatma) and the other is God (Paramatma). It is Kabir's
view that salvation is the process of bringing into union these two divine principles. The social and
practical manifestation of Kabir's philosophy has rung through the ages. Despite legend that claims
Kabir met with Guru Nanak, their lifespans do not overlap in time. The presence of much of his verse
in Sikh scripture and the fact that Kabir was a predecessor of Nanak has led some western scholars to
mistakenly describe him as a forerunner of Sikhism.
His greatest work is the Bijak (the "Seedling"), an idea of the fundamental one. This collection of
poems demonstrates Kabir's own universal view of spirituality. His vocabulary is replete with ideas
regarding Brahman and Hindu ideas of karma and reincarnation. His Hindi was a vernacular,
straightforward kind, much like his philosophies. He often advocated leaving aside the Qur'an and
Vedas and to simply follow Sahaja path, or the Simple/Natural Way to oneness in God. He believed in
the Vedantic concept of atman, but unlike earlier orthodox Vedantins, he followed this philosophy to its
logical end by spurning the Hindu societal caste system and worship of murti, showing clear belief in
both bhakti and sufi ideas. The major part of Kabir's work as a bhagat was collected by the fifth Sikh
guru, Guru Arjan Dev, and forms a part of the Sikh scripture Guru Granth Sahib.
While many ideas reign as to who his living influences were, the only Guru of whom he ever spoke
was Satguru. Kabir never made a mention of any human guru in his life or verses, the only reference
found in his verses is of God as Satguru.
Poetry career
"The poetry of mysticism might be defined on the one hand as a temperamental reaction to the vision
of Reality: on the other, as a form of prophecy. As it is the special vocation of the mystical
consciousness to mediate between two orders, going out in loving adoration towards God and coming
home to tell the secrets of Eternity to other men; so the artistic self-expression of this consciousness has
also a double character. It is love-poetry, but love-poetry which is often written with a missionary
intention. Kabîr's songs are of this kind: out-births at once of rapture and of charity. Written in the
popular Hindi, not in the literary tongue, they were deliberately addressed—like the vernacular poetry
of Jacopone da Todì and Richard Rolle—to the people rather than to the professionally religious class;
and all must be struck by the constant employment in them of imagery drawn from the common life,
the universal experience. It is by the simplest metaphors, by constant appeals to needs, passions,
relations which all men understand--the bridegroom and bride, the guru and disciple, the pilgrim, the
farmer, the migrant bird--that he drives home his intense conviction of the reality of the soul's
intercourse with the Transcendent. There are in his universe no fences between the "natural" and
"supernatural" worlds; everything is a part of the creative Play of God, and therefore--even in its
humblest details—capable of revealing the Player's mind."
His poems resonate with praise for the true guru who reveals the divine through direct experience, and
denounced more usual ways of attempting god-union such as chanting, austerities etc. His verses,
which being illiterate he never expressed in writing and were spoken in vernacular Hindi, often began
with some strongly worded insult to get the attention of passers-by. Kabir has enjoyed a revival of
popularity over the past half century as arguably the most acceptable and understandable of the Indian
saints, with an especial influence over spiritual traditions such as that of Sant Mat and Radha Soami.
Prem Rawat ('Maharaji') also refers frequently to Kabir's songs and poems as the embodiment of deep
wisdom.
(1)
kabi-ra- jab ham paida- hue
jaga han'se ham roye
aisi- karani- kara calo
ham han'se jaga roye
chadariya- jhini- re jhinihe
ra-ma na-ma rasa bhini-
(2)
as.t.a kamala- ka carkha- bana-yapañca
tattva ki- pu-ninava
dasa ma-sa bunana ko la-ge
mu-rakha maili- kinhi-
(3)
jaba mori- cha-dara bana ghara a-yaran'ga
reja ko dinhiaisa-
ran'ga ran'ga- ran'gare ne
la-lo la-la kar dinhi-
(4)
ca-dara od.ha s'an'ka mat kariyo
yeh do dina tumko dinhimu-
rakha loga bheda nahi ja-ne
din din maili- kinhi-
(5)
dhruva prahla-da suda-ma- ne od.hi
s'ukadeva ne nirmala kinhida-
sa kabi-ra ne aisi- odhijyon'
ki- tyon' dhara dinhi-
TRANSLATION
1) Poet Kabir Das says, “When I was born, the world smiled and cried. However, I will do such deeds
that when I leave, I will be the one smiling and the world will be the one crying.” This life is like a very
thin transparent shawl which should be drenched in the holy name of Lord Rama, the Reservoir of
Pleasure.
2) The eight lotuses is the spinning wheel using the five earthly elements to make the chadar (the
body). In nine or ten months, the chadar is completed; however, the fools will destroy it.
3) When the chadar is completed, it is sent to the dyer -rang rej-(the spiritual master) to color it. The
dyer (the spiritual master) colored it as such that it is all red (the color of self-realization).
4) Do not have doubts or fears while wearing this chadar. It is only given to you for two days and it is
temporary too. The foolish people do not understand the temporariness of this chadar, and they day by
day destroy it.
5) Great devotees such as Dhruva Maharaja, Prahlad Maharaja, Sudama, and Sukadev Goswami have
worn this chadar as well as purified their chadars as well other chadars (souls). The servant, Kabir
Dasa, is attempting to wear this chadar as given to him originally by his guru.
Religious
Kabir did not classify himself as Hindu or Muslim, Sufi or Bhakta. The legends surrounding his
lifetime attest to his strong aversion to established religions. From his poems, expressed in homely
metaphors and religious symbols drawn indifferently from Hindu and Muslim belief, it is impossible to
say of their author that he was Brâhman or Sûfî, Vedântist or Vaishnavite. He is, as he says himself, "at
once the child of Allah and of Râm." In fact, Kabir always insisted on the concept of Koi bole Ram
Ram Koi Khudai..., which means that someone may chant the Hindu name of God and someone may
chant the Muslim name of God, but God is the one who made the whole world.
In Kabir's wide and rapturous vision of the universe he never loses touch with the common life. His
feet are firmly planted upon earth; his lofty and passionate apprehensions are perpetually controlled by
the activity of a sane and vigorous intellect, by the alert commonsense so often found in persons of real
mystical genius. The constant insistence on simplicity and directness, the hatred of all abstractions and
philosophizings, the ruthless criticism of external religion: these are amongst his most marked
characteristics. God is the Root whence all manifestations, "material" and "spiritual," alike proceed;
and God is the only need of man: "Happiness shall be yours when you come to the Root." Hence, to
those who keep their eye on the "one thing needful," denominations, creeds, ceremonies, the
conclusions of philosophy, the disciplines of asceticism, are matters of comparative indifference. They
represent merely the different angles from which the soul may approach that simple union with Brahma
which is its goal, and are useful only insofar as they contribute to this consummation. So thoroughgoing
is Kabîr's eclecticism, that he seems by turns Vedântist and Vaishnavite, Pantheist and
Transcendentalist, Brahmin and Sûfî. In the effort to tell the truth about that ineffable apprehension, so
vast and yet so near, which controls his life, he seizes and twines together—as he might have woven
together contrasting threads upon his loom—symbols and ideas drawn from the most violent and
conflicting philosophies and faiths.
His birth and death are surrounded by legends, as nothing certain is known about his birth or death. He
grew up in a Muslim weaver family, but some say he was really son of a Brahmin widow and was
adopted by a childless couple.
One popular legend of his death, which is even taught in schools in India (although in more of a moral
context than a historical one), says that after his death his Muslim and Hindu devotees fought over his
proper burial rites. The problem arose since Muslim custom called for the burial of their dead, whereas
Hindus cremated their dead. The scene is depicted as two groups fighting around his coffin one
claiming that Kabir was a Hindu, and the other claiming that Kabir was a Muslim. However, when they
finally open Kabir's coffin, they found the body missing. Instead there was a small book in which the
Hindus and Muslims wrote all his sayings that they could remember; some even say a bunch of his
favourite flowers were placed. The legend goes on to state that the fighting was resolved, and both
groups looked upon the miracle as an act of divine intervention. In Maghar, his tomb or Dargah and
Sama-dhi Mandir still stand side by side.
Another legend surrounding Kabir is that shortly before death he bathed in both the river Ganges and
Karmnasha to wash away both his good deeds and his sins.
Kabir is revered as Satguru by the Kabirpanthi spiritual group, based in Maghar.
Kabir Poetry
.jpg)
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