Page 12 - Kanalaamudham Newsletter Vol 6.2021 Final

KANALAAMUDHAM 12 Volume 6/2021

Kabir's Songs Are His Greatest Teachings

It is by his wonderful songs, the spontaneous expressions of his vision and his love, and not by
the didactic teachings associated with his name, that Kabir makes his immortal appeal to the

heart. In these poems, a wide range of mystical emotion is brought into play—expressed in
homely metaphors and religious symbols drawn without distinction from Hindu and Islamic
beliefs.

Kabir Lived a Simple Life

Kabir may or may not have submitted to the traditional education of the Hindu or the Sufi contemplative
and never adopted the life of an ascetic. Side-by-side with his interior life of adoration and its artistic
expression in music and words, he lived the sane and diligent life of a craftsman. Kabir was a weaver, a

simple and unlettered man who earned his living at the loom. Like Paul the tentmaker, Boehme the
cobbler, Bunyan the tinker, and Tersteegen the ribbon-maker, Kabir knew how to combine vision and

industry. And it was from out of the heart of the common life of a married man and the father of a family
that he sang his rapturous lyrics of divine love.

Kabir's Mystical Poetry Was Rooted in Life and Reality
Kabir's works corroborate the traditional story of his life. Again and again, he extols the life of home and

the value and reality of diurnal existence with its opportunities for love and renunciation. The "simple

union" with Divine Reality was independent both of ritual and of bodily austerities; the God whom he
proclaimed was "neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash." Those who sought Him needed not to go far; for He
awaited discovery everywhere, more accessible to "the washerwoman and the carpenter" than to the self-

righteous holy man. Therefore, the whole apparatus of piety, Hindu and Muslim alike—the temple and

mosque, idol and holy water, scriptures and priests—were denounced by this clear-sighted poet as mere
substitutes for reality. As he said, "The Purana and the Koran are mere words."

Was Kabir a Hindu or a Muslim?

Hindus called him Kabir Das, but it is impossible to say whether Kabir was Brahmin or Sufi, Vedantist or
Vaishnavite. He is, as he says himself, "at once the child of Allah and of Ram." Kabir was a hater of
religious exclusivism and sought above all things to initiate human beings into liberty as the children of

God. Kabir remained the disciple of Ramananda for years, joining in the theological and philosophical
arguments which his master held with all the great Mullahs and Brahmins of his day. Thus, he became

acquainted with both Hindu and Sufi philosophy.

The Legend of Kabir's Last Rites
A beautiful legend tells us that after Kabir's death, his Muslim and Hindu disciples disputed the

possession of his body—which the Muslims wished to bury; the Hindus, to burn. As they argued
together, Kabir appeared before them and told them to lift the shroud and look at that which lay beneath.
They did so, and found in place of the corpse a heap of flowers, half of which were buried by the

Muslims at Maghar and half carried by the Hindus to the holy city of Varanasi to be burned—a fitting
conclusion to a life which had made fragrant the most beautiful doctrines of two great creeds.