Kabir Quotes (1440-1518)

“Bones burn, the wood burns, the one lighting the pyre burns And so does the one seeing them all burn, from whom may I seek solace . . .”

“When you meet the true Guru, He will awaken your heart; He will tell you the secret of love and detachment, and then you will know indeed that He transcends this universe.”

“Issues on women and children rights particularly as they reflect their empowerment for self - which include protection and participation, equal opportunity to basic and social services cum education and health.....”

“O servant, where dost thou seek Me? Lo! I am beside thee. I am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash: Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and renunciation. If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt meet Me in a moment of time.”

“It is needless to ask of a saint the caste to which he belongs; For the priest, the warrior. the tradesman, and all the thirty-six castes, alike are seeking for God. It is but folly to ask what the caste of a saint may be; The barber has sought God, the washerwoman, and the carpenter — Even Raidas was a seeker after God.”

“Poets like Jayasi, Rahim, and Raskhan are rare phenomena. So are saints like Kabir, Nanak and Gharib Das. They attempted a synthesis of the two cultural streams in the field of literature in their own way. But their endeavours were severly limited and short-lived. They failed to be popular amongst and influence the Muslims.”

“I have it on good authority that Kabir's thought is Hindu through and through. The fable that Kabir brought a synthesis between Islam and Hinduism, does not survive a comparison between his works and the Quran. That Kabir was a simple weaver who produced lofty poetry just like that, is another fable for children of socialists : Kabir was well-read and knew his classics. There are hardly any Muslims in the Kabirpanth, and it is only the Hindus who venerate him. The simplest proof that his contribution to Indian culture was un-Islamic, is that he was persecuted for his Kafir ideas by the Muslim ruler Sikandar Lodi.”

“While there is evidence that both Hindus and Muslims were ready to assault Kabir physically during his lifetime, they have since his death been ready to assault each other over the privilege of claiming him as their own. … Some modern commentators have tried to present Kabir as a synthesizer of Hinduism and Islam; but the picture is a false one. While drawing on various traditions as he saw fit, Kabir emphatically declared his independence from both the major religions of his countrymen, vigorously attacked the follies of both, and tried to kindle the fire of similar autonomy and courage in those who claimed to be his disciples.”

“The basis of Kabir’s belief was not, as has been commonly supposed, Vaisnava bhakti or Sufism but tantric yoga. Kabir’s name is certainly a Muslim one, but it has always been clear that his knowledge of Islam was relatively slight. In contrast to this there is a wealth of hatha-yoga terminology and a thought-structure with obvious resemblances to that of the Naths. In the light of this contrast the theory that Kabir belonged to a caste which had recently been converted from tantric yoga to Islam is at once convincing.”

“The contrast of Kabir’s intimate Hindu thought, writings and ritual with the purely superficial knowledge of Moslem belief revealed in the Bijak is too striking to be ignored.”

“Kabir belongs to that small group of supreme mystics amongst whom St. Augustine, Ruysbroeck, and the Sufi poet Jalalu'ddin Rumi are perhaps the chief who have achieved that which we might call the synthetic vision of God. These have resolved the perpetual opposition between the personal and impersonal, the transcendent and immanent, static and dynamic aspects of the Divine Nature; between the Absolute of philosophy and the "sure true Friend" of devotional religion. They have done this, not by taking these apparently incompatible concepts one after the other; but by ascending to a height of spiritual intuition at which they are, as Ruysbroeck said, "melted and merged in the Unity," and perceived as the completing opposites of a perfect Whole.”