Kabir — the weaver, the mystic

Dr Satish  K Kapoor

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Kabir was a mystic, a poet, a saint, and a social reformer, who blended reason with devotion, and pioneered a spiritual movement that was free of irrational beliefs and practices. A weaver by profession, he became a disciple of Sant Ramananda of Banaras, who was an exponent of the nirguna school of bhakti that lays stress on the impersonal aspect of the One Lord. He remained a householder but pursued the life of the spirit.  

Nature of God

Kabir regarded God as transcendent and immanent; free from all conditioning, and limitations of time and space. He is hidden in the hearts of all, like oil in sesame seeds or fire in chakmak- stone. His nature and dimensions are beyond the comprehension of the mind and the senses. To feel his presence, one should withdraw one’s consciousness from the world, and listen to the divine melody within.

Religious iconoclasm                                                                      

Kabir exposed shallowness of theologians, dogmatism of the orthodox and hypocrisy of priests. To him, prayers, pilgrimages and fasting of Hindus and Muslims were mechanical. Counting beads was futile, if the mind wandered in all directions. By wearing the dress of a recluse, one did not become so. He asked maulavis, Muslim divines: ‘Why do you climb the tower and shout at the top of your voice? Is God deaf? The one for whom you are shouting resides in your heart.’ He denounced killing of animals for sports or for eating. ‘Those who kill, will, in turn, be killed’ as per the law of karma. He was against the consumption of intoxicants as they degraded a person.   

Realising God 

Kabir held that God-realization was not possible by karma kanda or observance of rituals. Kabir  regarded mankind as one. He saw creation in the creator, and the creator in creation. Hindus and Muslims were pots of the same clay. Kabir’s opposition to caste and other social evils was full of wit, sarcasm and plain logic.  ‘If birth from a Brahmin makes you Brahmin Why did you not come another way?

Far from promoting a culture of unbelief or skepticism, Kabir tried to separate the truth from untruth, faith from superstition. He spent the last days of his life in Maghar (Uttar Pradesh) to explode the myth that he who died there would be born as donkey. Both Hindus and Muslims lay claim to his heritage, but he belongs to humanity. His dohas, two-line poems, in Hindi, remain popular with the masses. Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred Sikh scripture, carries a selection of his compositions - that prove how spiritually enlightened he was.   

  (Dr Kapoor is a noted educationist, historian and spiritualist.)