ram kabir

ram kabir
bodeli
alikherva

Kabir Lived a Simple Life

He 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, 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, Tersteegen the ribbon-maker, he 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, 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 inconveniently clear-sighted poet as mere substitutes for reality; as he said, "The Purana and the Koran are mere words."

The Last Days of Kabir's Life

Kabir's Varansi was the very center of Hindu priestly influence, which made him subject to considerable persecution. There is a well-known legend about a beautiful courtesan, who was sent by Brahmins to tempt Kabir's virtue. Another tale talks of Kabir being brought before the Emperor Sikandar Lodi, and charged with claiming the possession of divine powers. He was banished from Varanasi in 1495 when he was nearly 60 years old. Thereafter, he moved about throughout northern India with his disciples; continuing in exile a life of an apostle and a poet of love. Kabir died at Maghar near Gorakhpur in 1518.

The Legend of Kabir's Last Rites

A beautiful legend tells us that after his 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 the 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.

Based on Evelyn Underhill's introduction in  translated by Rabindranath Tagore and published by The Macmillan Company, New york