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Details of the birth of Kabir or Kabirdas is not clearly
known to us. A Bhakti
saint, who sang
the ideals of seeing all of humanity as one, his name, Kabir, is often
interpreted as Guru's Grace. According to the legend, childless
Muslim weavers named Niru and Nimma found him near Lahara Tara
lake, adjacent to the holy city of Varanasi by, and adopted him. A weaver by profession, Kabir ranks among
the world's greatest poets. Back home in India, he is perhaps the most
quoted author. The Holy Guru Granth Sahib contains over 500 verses by
Kabir. The Sikh community in particular and others who follow the Holy
Granth, hold Kabir in the same reverence as the other ten Gurus.
Although he was drawn deeply into spiritual life, he openly criticized all sects and gave a new direction to the
Indian philosophy, with his straight forward approach on various
aspects of human existence. It is for this reason that Kabir is held in
high esteem all over the world. To call Kabir a universal Guru is not
an over exaggeration. Kabir is also considered one of the early
northern India Sants. He lived to be 120 years old.
Kabir was associated with the Sant Mat, a loosely related group of
teachers (Sanskrit: Guru) that assumed prominence in the northern part
of the Indian sub-continent from about the 13th century. Their
teachings were distinguished theologically by inward loving devotion
to a divine principle, and socially by an egalitarianism opposed to
the qualitative distinctions of the Hindu caste hierarchy and to the
religious differences between Hindu and Muslim.
The Sants were not homogeneous, consisting mostly of these Sants'
presentation of socio-religious attitudes based on bhakti (devotion)
as described a thousand years earlier in the Bhagavad Gita. Sharing as
few conventions with each other as with the followers of the
traditions they challenged, the Sants appear more as a diverse
collection of spiritual personalities than a specific religious
tradition, although they acknowledged a common spiritual root. The
first generation of north Indian Sants, (which included Kabir),
appeared in the region of Benares in the mid 15th century. Preceding
them were two notable 13th and 14th century figures, Namdev and
Ramananda. The latter, a Vaishnava ascetic, initiated Kabir, Raidas,
and other Sants, according to tradition. Ramanand's story is told
differently by his lineage of "Ramanandi" monks, by other
Sants preceding him, and later by the Guru Nanak and subsequent Sikh
Gurus. What is known is that Ramananda accepted students of all
castes, a fact that was contested by the orthodox Hindus of that time,
and that his students formed the first generation of Sants.
His Teachings and Philosophy
Kabir was influenced by prevailing religious mood such as old
Brahmanic Hinduism, Hindu and Buddhist Tantrism, teachings of Nath
yogis and the personal devotinalism from South India mixed with
imageless God of Islam. The influence of these various doctrines is
clearly evident in Kabir's verses. Eventhough he is often presented to
be synthesizer of Hinduism and Islam: the observation is held to be a
false one.
The basic religious principles he espouses are simple. According to
Kabir, all life is an interplay of two spiritual principles. One is
the personal soul (Jivatma) and the other is God (Paramatma). It is
Kabir's view that salvation is the process of bringing into union
these two divine principles. The social and practical manifestation of
Kabir's philosophy has rung through the ages. It represented a
synthesis of Hindu, and Muslim concepts. From Hinduism he accepts the
concept of reincarnation and the law of Karma. From Islam he takes the
outer practices of Indian Sufi ascetics and Sufi mysticism. Not only
has Kabir influenced Muslims and Hindus but he is one of the major
inspirations behind Sikhism as well. Despite legend that claims Kabir
met with Guru Nanak, their lifespans do not overlap in time. The
presence of much of his verse in Sikh scripture and the fact that
Kabir was a predecessor of Nanak has led some western scholars to
mistakenly describe him as a forerunner of Sikhism.
His greatest work is the Bijak (that is, the Seedling), an idea of
the fundamental one. This collection of poems demonstrates Kabir's own
universal view of spirituality. His vocabulary is replete with ideas
regarding Brahman and Hindu ideas of karma and reincarnation. His
Hindi was a vernacular, straightforward kind, much like his
philosophies. He often advocated leaving aside the Qur'an and Vedas
and to simply follow Sahaja path, or the Simple/Natural Way to oneness
in God. He believed in the Vedantic concept of atman, but unlike
earlier orthodox Vedantins, he followed this philosophy to its logical
end by spurning the Hindu societal caste system and worship of murti,
showing clear belief in both bhakti and sufi ideas. The major part of
Kabir's work as a Bhagat was collected by the fifth Sikh guru, Guru
Arjan Dev, and forms a part of the holy Sikh scripture "Guru
Granth Sahib".
While many ideas reign as to who his living influences were, the
only Guru of whom he ever spoke was Satguru. Kabir never made a
mention of any human guru in his life or verses, the only reference
found in his verses is of God as Satguru. Traditionally a Vaishnav
saint, Ramananda, is held to be his guru.
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