Kabir says that intellectual and dialectical books are the web woven by the deft fingers of vidya or book knowledge, whom he represents as a clever woman. She is bare of true experience and shamelessly displays volumes of well-knit words. All run after her, trying to become proficient in learning. She adores the lifeless — letters and words devoid of living experience — and plays on the lyre of the human mind as she pleases: to some she promises liberation through reading, others she threatens with doom if they ignore her. Kabir says that the Saints and devotees of the Lord are indifferent to her, for their knowledge is the outcome of their spiritual experience, not of reading books and scriptures. The Saints depend on what they know, others on what they read.

With her nimble fingers
This woman weaves a web;
If you are truly learned
Then realize the truth:
She wears no dress,
She goes unveiled;
This beloved of all
Adores only the lifeless;
At random she plucks
The strings of the lyre;
To some she forebodes doom,
To some she promises liberation;
To some she brings remorse,
To some she gives joy;
With her nimble fingers
She weaves a web,
But becomes a slave, O Kabir,
Of the slaves of the Lord.

Kabir, p. 308:124
Kar pallav ke bal khelai nāri