Kabir – The Weaver-Singer

T.L. Vaswani, a mystic, poet, philosopher, educationist and humanitarian, was born at Hyderabad (Sind) in 1879. When he attended the World Congress of Religions in Berlin, in 1906, he was only in his twenties. He was Principal of various colleges in India. At 40, he renounced everything to ‘announce the Eternal.’ A prolific writer, Vaswani was the author of over forty books in English and over 200 in Sindhi.

The word Kabir occurs in Hindi literature and means ‘great.’ A truly Great One, indeed, was Kabir. The word Kabir also occurs in the poetry of the great Sindhi poet, Shah Latif. Surdas, Tulsi and Kabir are among the greatest names in Hindi literature. The supreme poet of Hindi literature is Tulsi – almost a contemporary of Shakespeare. Tulsi was adopted by a Rishi, a forest mystic. And Tulsi wrote the matchless story of Sri Rama in matchless Hindi. His book, the ‘Rama Charit Manas,’ reciting the deeds of Sri Rama, was regarded by Mahatma Gandhi as the greatest book in all devotional literature.

Surdas was like Homer, blind. This blind poet of Agra wrote remarkable poems on the life and adventures of Krishna. In his poems is a deep spirit of bhakti or devotion. In one of them he sings of the soul’s mystic separation from the Divine Spouse – Krishna – thus:

Mine eyes rain tears, night and day; for me ’tis the rainy season always for Shyam Sunder is away!

Surdas was born in 1483. Kabir was born in 1440. Tulsi came much later, being born in 1532. A careful student of the literatures of India, Sir George Grierson, ventures to regard Tulsi as the most important figure in the whole of Indian literature.

It cannot be denied that these three poets – Sur, Kabir and Tulsi – appeared in a trying period of India’s history. Sat Yuga, with its emphasis on the Inner Life, had long disappeared. Kali Yuga had set in, as a part of the cycle of time. And Kali Yuga, with its emphasis on the outer world and outer life had dragged the Indian people far away from the Spiritual Vision of India’s rishis. These three Great Poets sang poems of the Inner Life and Spiritual Visions of India. They sang from the very depths of the heart. Kabir’s is a song of the heart. His religion is that of the heart. His message is, essentially, a message of the purified and emancipated heart.

Kabir, a simple weaver of Banaras, had place in His heart for both the Hindu and the Muslim. He was fascinated by the teaching of Ramananda. And though brought up in a Muslim home, He became a devotee of Rama and wrote poems of rare beauty to interpret his religion of the heart. which recognised no temples, no mosques, no idols, no castes, but only God.

When I think of Kabir, I love to think of Him as a weaver with a delicate and smiling face, as a mystic with sparkling eyes. I never think of Kabir as an ascetic with a pale, emaciated face. I love to think of Him as a singer of joy. Kabir was a child of music.

In Kabir I behold a free, radiant spirit, sending out the Love of His heart to Hindus and Muslims alike, to all creatures, including birds and beasts. He has an emotion of tenderness for the entire creation. To Kabir the universe is a swing in which the Lord of creation sits with His creatures to play with them the leela of joy.

In one of His poems, Kabir sings thus: –

God dances in rapture; and when His great joy touches the body and the mind, they cannot contain themselves. He holds all that is within His Eternal Bliss!

Kabir surveyed the situation around Him and He saw Hindus and Muslims quarrelling with one another in the name of religion. He realised that religions which quarrelled with one another, were no better than creeds. Religions, He realised, to be a source of blessings, must reconcile, not fight – must bring together, not antagonise. He saw the pundit and the moulvi daily fighting with one another. He realised that a new, renovated Indian society required a new religion one of brotherhood and peace and Love. In song after song, Kabir sang of this religion of Love.

In song after song was an invocation of a new sermon on the mount, a new voice of compassion and brotherhood. In one of His songs are the following moving words:

I am a child of Ram and Allah; I accept all gurus and pirs. Oh God – whether called Allah or Ram – I live by Thy Holy Name! What avails it to wash your mouth, to count your beads, to bathe in holy streams, to bow in temples, if, while you mutter your prayers, or go on pilgrimages, purity is not in your heart!

No wonder the brahmins were infuriated. Some of them sent a courtesan to tempt Him. But He blessed her and she became His disciple. In Banaras, the number continued to increase of those who criticised Kabir and abused Him. How patiently He bore it all! To be patient in the midst of persecution, to smile and be serene when others chastise you – there is the secret of the True Joy which sings in the poems of Kabir. Picture after picture rises before my mind as I think of this simple weaver of Kashi. He weaves at His loom and earns His daily bread and day after day, He serves the humble and the simple, offering food and cloth, offering bread and water to them, in such a simple, loving way that they cling to His Lotus Feet. The proud of purse persecute Him, but the poor ones bless Him. He calls them the poor of Rama. Kabir is devoted, with the beautiful Love of His kindly heart, to the poor and simple ones. With what joy they meet Him! With what joy the peasants and the poor ones come to Him and receive the benediction of his blessed heart! Kabir is a lover of the poor; Kabir is a Spiritual Communist; Kabir is a worshipper of the God of the broken ones.

Kabir’s ethic was simple. He taught:

1. Live justly. Be sincere. Sincerity is the foundation of True Religious Life. Drive deceitfullness out of your hearts.

2. Forget not that God, the Supreme, is a Being whom you cannot chain in words and creeds.

   He is a Nameless Being,

   says Kabir,

   of Whom nought can be said.

   Who can describe Him by the words of the mouth? Who can write Him on paper? Feel Him! Taste Him! And you may know how sweet He is. But you cannot explain Him. Can a dumb person, who tastes a sweet thing, explain how sweet it is? So avoid controversies in Matters Spiritual. Kabir warns against creeds and controversies.

   Drink thy Lord in silence!

   is the teaching emphasised by Him, again and again.

This teaching of Kabir – a re-wording of Kabir of the teaching of the Upanishads – influenced India’s great king, one of the greatest kings of all centuries, Akbar when he said:

Each person, according to his condition, gives the Supreme Being a Name, but in reality to name the Supreme is vain.

Yes, for the Supreme is Nameless.

Kabir, like the great poet of South India, Vamana, spoke disapprovingly of castes and pilgrimages. That poet wrote:

Why do you constantly revile the pariah? Are not his flesh and blood the same as our own? And does not He pervade the pariah? And of what caste is He?

So taught Kabir also.

3. Go within and thy God who greets thee in the heart! Listen to Kabir’s own ravishing words:

I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty! Why wander ye when Water of Life is within you? How sad to think that you go, from forest to forest, in search of what is within you! Go where you will, to Kashi or to Mathura, what do you gain if you do not see the vision within you?

Oh my heart! to what shore would you cross? The Shoreless Infinite is within you! Go where you will: Where will you find the place that may quench the thirst of your souls?

The Waters of Life are within you! Be strong! Be brave! Be heroic! Enter in silence within you! And keep your foothold firm! Ponder well on these words, oh my heart! And look within you! Go not elsewhere! Put all imaginations away! Stand fast in what you really are! And behold what you really are, within you!

No wonder such songs of bewitching beauty passed from mouth to mouth and ravished the hearts of Kabir’s countrymen, Hindus and Muslims alike. No wonder, when this Great Singer and Saint passed on, Hindus and Muslims contended for His body, the Hindus saying,

We shall burn it.

The Muslims saying,

We shall bury it!

And the dispute between them rose to a pitch of hot controversy, when someone wiser perhaps than the rest, raised the cloth that covered the body. When, lo and behold! they saw but heaps of flowers! The body had vanished, only the flowers remained! And some flowers the Hindus took and burnt them in Banaras and some flowers the Muslims took and buried them in Maghar.

But the songs of this singer of the secret shining in the heart within passed on from mouth to mouth among the people. And the songs of Kabir sang again in the heart of him, who came from Kabir’s own country of the Soul: the songs re-sang in the heart of Guru Nanak. And Kabir and Nanak blended into one and in matchless melody made a music of the Holy Spirit that moveth in the heart within.

In is this religion – of the Spirit – which India needs today, this Religion of Love, not the materialistic communism of the West – this Religion of the Heart, which India, in the coming days, will pass on to the nations as a gift from Kabir and Nanak and the great galaxy of India’s Saints and fakirs and singers of Love and compassion. It is the Religion of the Heart which includes and transcends the religion of works. This Religion of the Heart will blend action with silence and prayer. This Religion of the Heart will teach that the chanting of words in temples or mosques is of little value compared to the True Prayer of service and sacrifice. This Religion of Heart, renouncing the externals of worship, will turn away from the temples and the mosques and the churches, which are untrue to the law of poverty and renunciation, when they amass wealth in the face of hunger and starvation around. And the Religion of the Heart, as Kabir taught again and again, will be the Religion of mercy to all creatures.

Implanted deep in the heart of Kabir was compassion for all creatures. And He made it a rule that abstinence from flesh diet was incumbent on everyone who would be a member of His Satsang or community.

Kabir heard the voice of suffering. The vibrations of an invisible lyre seemed to descend on His soul from the very stars.

Kill not creatures,

He said;

and do not make the flesh an article of your food!

Kabir felt that in touching the creature, He was touching God. To Kabir, as to St Francis, birds and beasts were brothers and sisters. He greeted them and poured upon them the Love of His heart. Kabir was bred in a Muslim family; yet to Him the cow was sacred and every creature was sacred.

To three things, primarily, was Kabir’s life dedicated

1. Service of the poor;

2. manual labour, work by hand; and

3. singing Ram Naam from the depths of the heart to the Beloved Who shineth in the heart within.

The greatest of Kabir’s disciples was Dhani Dharam Das. He was a rich merchant and he spent his wealth

1. in spreaners ding the faith of his Master;

2. in the service of widows and orphans, of priso, and pilgrims – and he did it all in a spirit of joy;

3. and out of the depths of joy in his heart he, too, sang songs of wondrous beauty songs to the Beloved.

Orthodox priests and orthodox mullahs, alas! opposed Kabir. Kabir, Who was a preacher of peace, not hatred, who endeavoured to unite classes and communities, Hindus and Muslims, in the one service of God and the people, felt that His presence in Kashi was an eye-sore to many influential people. Kabir felt He should peacefully leave Kashi. When He actually was leaving Kashi for Maghar, to spend there the last days of His life, how the people – the poor and afflicted ones – crowded together to touch His blessed feet! Some tried to induce Him to stay in Kashi.

He opened His arms to embrace them, then went on His way of silent service and healing, saying, –

Sri Rama calleth me to Maghar. May you all live in the Light of Rama! To Him I go. Forget not that in Maghar is He and He is in Kishi, too! And may He bless you all!

Is not Kabir a Voice of the Ancient Wisdom? I know not what would have become of the religion of the rishis if Kabir and Nanak and Dadu and Rajab and Sikh Gurus and a few others, who appeared in the dispensation of Saints and Bhaktas, had not renewed it and restored it to its place in the heart of Hindusthan? Through their lives and teaching they renewed the Inner Life of India and, inspired by the truth of reconciliation, brotherhood and Love, they transformed the social life of countless men and women. Kabir and Nanak became prophets of a new religious renaissance. And Nanak’s followers passed on toe torch of this new renaissance to many countries. The torch was aflame for more than three centuries and still flickers in the hearts of many bhaktas and seekers of God. And I can but trust that this new renaissance will not be lost in the secular movements of today, but will continue ever more and more to grow in the new epoch that awaits us.

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Footnote: Extract from ‘Prophets and Saints,’ by T.L. Vaswani. By courtesy of Jaico Publishing House, 125, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Bombay-1.