Kabir ranks among the world’s greatest poets. He lived in the Indian city of Benares about a hundred years before Shakespeare, his life spanning most, if not all, of the 15th century.

With joy and sorrow

Kabir urged introspection:


You were born on Earth as human,
Why are you in slumber now?
Take care of yourself;
Yourself is what you have to know.
The learned pundit gives discourse,
Not knowing God is near;
He does not know God dwells in him,
So seeks him here and there.


He urged us to get past the maya that surrounds us:


I am looking at you,
You at him,
Kabir asks, how to solve
This puzzle —
You, he and I?
And:
To live for sons and wealth,
For belongings and health,
O Kabir, is to be like the bird
Which during one night’s stay
Starts loving the tree.



One commentator of some insight, V.K. Sethi, sums up Kabir’s character:

“His living on his own honest earnings, his simplicity and purity, had a powerful impact on those who came in contact with him. His spiritual insight and personal charm kept even his opponents spellbound at times. Endowed with great spiritual power, attracting the rich and the poor, the learned and the simple to the circle of his disciples, he was yet humble and unassuming.”


Unlike many saints, Kabir was a writer. He left his words for us in his own hand. There is no doubt about what he said. In English, we are blessed to have had many of Kabir’s poems translated for our understanding by the great Indian novelist and playwright Rabindranath Tagore, also a realized soul.

It is estimated that Kabir wrote approximately two thousand bhajans and fifteen hundred couplets. Since, like many saints, his life has been wrapped in a cloak of legend, of miracles and of stories, it is best to approach a true understanding of Kabir through his own words:

Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
You will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms, nor synagogues, nor in cathedrals:
not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables,
When you really look for me, you will see me instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

I said to the wanting-creature inside me:
What is this river you want to cross?
There are no travellers on the river-road, and no road.
Do you see anyone moving about on that bank, or nesting?
There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman.
There is no tow rope either, and no one to pull it.
There is no ground, no sky, no time, no bank, no ford!
And there is no body, and no mind!
Do you believe there is some place that will make the soul less thirsty?
In that great absence you will find nothing,
Be strong then, and enter into your own body;
there you have a solid place for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don’t go off somewhere else!
Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are.



This word “sahaj” is in many of Kabir’s poems. He describes that state of perfect balance where one is closest to God:


Where there is neither sea nor rains,
Nor sun nor shade;
Where there is neither creation
Nor dissolution;
Where prevails neither life nor death,
Nor pain nor pleasure;
Beyond the states of Sunn and trance;
Beyond words, O friend,
Is that unique state of Sahaj.
It can be neither weighed
Nor exhausted,
Is neither heavy nor light;
It has no upper regions
Nor lower ones;
It knows not the dawn of day
Nor the gloom of night;
Where there is neither wind
Nor water nor fire,
There abides the perfect Master.
It is inaccessible,
It is, and it will ever be;
Attain it through the Master’s grace.
Sayeth Kabir: I surrender myself
At the feet of my Master,
I remain absorbed
In his true company.


This state of oneness with the Divine is Kabir’s state of sahaj, his “verdure of bliss” where there is no separation. He writes:

I am in all
All that is, is I
The different forms in existence
Are my myriad manifestations,
Yet I am apart from all.
Call me Kabir,
Call me Ramrai [God the Emperor],
It is one and the same.
I am not a child,
I am not old,
And the glow of youth
Never can touch me.
I go not at anyone’s bidding
Nor come at anyone’s command.
In my state of Sahaj
I am in the verdure of bliss
Call me Kabir,
Call me Ramrai,
It is one and the same.
My covering is a single sheet
And people sneer at me:
My weaver’s calling inspires no respect;
My dress is tattered,
Patched at ten places —
Yet beyond the three attributes
Beyond the region of the ‘fruit’ [the law of karma]
I dwell in the realm of bliss;
Thus have I acquired the name Ramrai.
I see the entire world,
The world cannot see me;
Such is the unique state
that Kabir has attained.
Call me Kabir,
Call me Ramrai,
It is one and the same.

 

Kabir described the details of the subtle system. He uses an analogy familiar to a weaver:

O Servant of God, where do the Ida, Pingala and Sushumna nadis go when the thread of life breaks?
One who holds the thread is beyond time, but where does he live?
The thread is neither tied nor breaks.
Who is the master and who is the servant?
Only He knows his secret as He is the Eternal.
What is the warp [lengthwise threads] and what is the weft [cross threads]?
What are the threads from which the chadar [cloth] is woven?
Ida and Pingala are the warp and weft.
Sushumna are the threads from which the chadar is woven.
Eight are the Lotuses and ten are the spinning wheels.
Five are the elements and three the qualities of the chadar.


V.K. Sethi writes, “For over seventy years Kabir had taught the path of God-realization, raising the voice of truth despite slander and criticism. Many Muslims, and Hindus of all castes, had joined the fold of his disciples. His simple exposition of spiritual truth in the language of the masses, his analysis of the existing forms of worship, his message emphasizing self-realization while living, and above all, his personal magnetism drew true seekers to his door. But the orthodox could not be deprived of their hold on the people. Their coin, embossed with orthodoxy on the one side and formalism on the other, had been declared counterfeit by Kabir, a coin that world never gain entry into the Lord’s Treasury.”

Kabir’s death was the last lesson of his life, but his poetry lives on to guide us always.

In India it is believed that if one dies in the holy city of Benares salvation is guaranteed and escape from the cycle of rebirth will follow. Many Hindus journey to Benares with this purpose. Kabir lived his life in Benares, but as death approached he decided to journey to the village of Maghar, a particularly arid and ill-fated settlement. “What difference is there,” he said, “between Benares and barren Maghar if God be in the heart?”

When he died, it is said, Maghur’s usually dry stream was restored to a year-round river of water. The popular stigma attached to the village vanished, but, as is often the pattern with humans, a dispute arose over the body of the poet. The Hindu and Muslim camps among his disciples both wanted his remains. The Muslims wanted to bury the body. The Hindus wanted to cremate it. When the cloth was removed there was no body to be seen— only flowers.

The Muslims buried their half. The Hindus burned theirs.

The lesson was there, but was it heeded?


Kabir is Sahaj:
Self-realization is my saddle;
In the stirrup of Sahaj
I place my foot and ride,
Astride the steed of my mind.
Come, my steed, I’ll take you
On a trip to heaven;
If you balk
I’ll urge you on
With the whip of divine love.
Says Kabir: The adept riders
Remain aloof from both
The Vedas and the Koran.