Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 5, 2025
He was posterior to Râmânuja, from whose sect he detached himself, and Kabir was his disciple, apparently his immediate disciple. Some traditions give Prayaga as his birthplace, others Melucote, but the north was the scene of his activity.
There have I seen joy filled to the brim, perfection of joy. He dances in rapture and waves of form arise from His dance. He holds all within his bliss." "What is that?" "It is from the songs of the great Indian mystic Kabir. Let me read you more. It is like the singing of a lark, lost in the infinite of light and heaven."
This constant antagonism of church and prophet, of institutional authority and individual vision, is not only true of Christianity but of all great historical faiths. In the middle ages Kabir and Nanak, and in our own times the leaders of the Brahmo Samaj, break away from and denounce ceremonial Hinduism: again and again the great Sufis have led reforms within Islam.
The house is beautiful; do not touch it; it is riddled by white ants, by dry rot, and it would fall. That is not faith; it is a strange confession; but all who hesitate at changes, I think, make that confession sooner or later. There is a line of Kabir which puts the essence of this: "Penance is not equal to truth, nor is there any sin like untruth."
One turns aside to hide a smile on hearing the pedestrian interpretation given to Ravidas' poem by a Western writer: "He afterwards built a hut, set up in it an idol which he made from a hide, and applied himself to its worship." Ravidas was a brother disciple of the great Kabir. One of Ravidas' exalted chelas was the Rani of Chitor.
In a frenzy he hunted through his kabir, throwing out of it his old work-knife and his rusty spear-head and all the poor things that he kept in his bag. Then he began to moan and weep for his betel-box and gold necklace. By and by he started out to find his lost things.
"This is from the West might not Kabir himself have said it? Certainly he would have felt it. 'Happy is he who seeks not to understand the Mystery of God, but who, merging his spirit into Thine, sings to Thy face, O Lord, like a harp, understanding how difficult it is to know how easy to love Thee. We debate and argue and the Vision passes us by.
We are not quite sure of the date of Kâlidâsa, the Indian Shakespeare, and though the doctrines of Śankara, Kabir, and Nânak still nourish, it is with difficulty that the antiquary collects from the meagre legends clinging to their names a few facts for their biographies. And Kings and Emperors, a class who in Europe can count on being remembered if not esteemed after death, fare even worse.
Yet in spite of these differences the essential doctrines of Tulsi Das, Kabir and Nânak show a great resemblance. They all believe in one deity whom they call by various names, but this deity, though personal, remains of the Indian not of the Semitic type.
Confucius, Longfellow, Plato, the FitzGeraldian Oman Khayyam, Aristotle, Pope, Das Kabir and the Pulambal are drawn upon; the world is placed under tribute from Pekin to the Salt Lake City. A more careless "borrower" to use Emerson's expression, never lifted poetry.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking