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Kabīr
Kabīr’s name is of Arabic origin and is derived from al-Kabīr, meaning “great,” one of the ninety-nine titles of God in the Qur’ān. Kabīr probably lived in or around the holy city of Varanasi, or elsewhere in what is now eastern Uttar Pradesh (he is also frequently associated with the town of Maghar), at some time between the late fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries (traditionally, 1398-1518). He was orphaned or abandoned at birth, and apparently was brought up by a poor Muslim family belonging to the community of julāhās (weavers). In the fifteenth century the julāhās were relatively recent converts to Islam, having previously been low-caste Śaivas. As a boy Kabīr learned the craft of weaving, but at some point in his adolescence he probably found a guru who initiated him into bhakti. This guru may have been Rāmānanda, a famous Vaiṣṇava master of the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century who preached Rāma-bhakti, devotion to Lord Rāma.
After his initiation into bhakti, Kabīr appears to have become famous as a sant (good or holy man, saint), a bhakta (devotionalist), or a vairāgī (a Vaiṣṇava renouncer or ascetic). He also seems to have been popular as an iconoclast, a social satirist, and an uncompromising poet-singer unaffiliated with any particular school, sect, or religion. He criticized Hindus and Muslims alike for their beliefs and practices, and hence may have been persecuted by orthodox pandits and mullas, and even by a prominent local or regional ruler, identified most often as Sikandar Lodī, the sultan of Delhi between 1488 and 1512. Nevertheless, Kabīr acquired a large number of followers from both religions: a popular story tells us that, when he died, the Hindus wanted to cremate him while the Muslims wished to bury him, but when the two quarreling factions lifted up his shroud they discovered only a heap of petals.
Kabīr’s poems and the poems ascribed to him come down to us in a large heterogeneous body that can be divided into four distinct but overlapping traditions. Three of these traditions are based on written works canonized by specific religious institutions. The “northern tradition” consists of the Kabīr poems included in the Guru Granth Sāhib, the holy book of the Sikh community in the Punjab, which was given its basic form at (or just after) the end of the sixteenth century. The “eastern tradition” centers around the Bījak, a substantial collection of Kabīr poems preserved by the Kabīr Panth (the path or sect of Kabīr) and other orders in Varanasi and elsewhere in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, probably since the mid-seventeenth century. The “western tradition” is located around Jaipur, Rajasthan, and contains what is now called the Kabīr Granthāvalī, derived from the manuscripts of the sect of Dādu Dayāl, a late sixteenth-century follower of Kabīr, as well as the Sarbāngī, compiled by Rajjab Dās, believed to be a seventeenth-century follower of Dādu Dāyal. In most cases, the surviving manuscripts in the eastern and western traditions date back only to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The three textual traditions, together with various related sources, attribute more than six thousand poems to Kabīr, only a few dozen of which, at most, are common to all the traditions.
The fourth tradition surrounds the other three on all sides, as it were. It is a mixture of thousands of oral folk versions of Kabīr’s poems and sayings, hundreds of songs set and performed in a variety of musical styles, and anywhere between forty and eighty full-length written works associated unverifiably with his name. This amorphous tradition is still alive in many different parts of the subcontinent, from Bengal and Bihar in the east to Rajasthan and Gujarat in the west, and from the Punjab in the north to Maharashtra in central and western India. In colonial India, the fourth tradition played an important role in nationalist politics, for Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi invoked Kabīr’s poetry, in various ways, as an ideal or model of folk spirituality, social criticism, and secularism. In postcolonial India it has continued to provide writers and theorists, as well as Hindustani classical musicians (especially singers like Kumar Gandharva and Kishori Amonkar), with material for important interventions and innovations.
The heterogeneity of the traditions directly affects the process of reading and interpreting the Kabīr texts at two distinct levels. First, Kabīr’s poems (whichever particular poems we consider his authentic works) do not come to us in a uniform literary language. Different poems may be composed in different languages and dialects, and a single poem may contain more than one dialect or language, or may be composed in a hybrid medium called sant bhāṣā, the specialized and often technical language shared by the nirguṇa saint-poets of north India. In addition, a special group of Kabīr’s poems, called ulaṭabāṃsīs (upsidedown sayings), are written in sandhyā bhāṣā, an “intentional language” in which common words become uncommon symbols, everyday meanings are inverted, and common-sensical “logic” is displaced by paradox, irony, and apparent absurdity. This linguistic diversity prevents us from construing Kabīr’s discourse as a cohesive or homogeneous one.
Second, the heterogeneity of the language and the text goes hand in hand with the heterogeneity of the religious and philosophical content of the Kabīr poems. Whichever tradition we follow, we find a mixture of positions and beliefs, none of which seems to be privileged or immune to criticism from within the text itself. Some poems, for example, draw on Islamic ideas: they may use Qur’ānic monotheism and iconoclasm to attack Hindu “polytheism” and “idol-worship,” or utilize Sufi concepts of dhikr (invocation of God’s name) and ‘ishq (intense personal love for God) to develop the “Hindu” concern with nām-simaran (remembrance of God’s name) and viraha-bhāvanā (the tormented feeling of separation from God as lover). Other poems turn to Buddhism, especially to Buddhist tantrism, emphasizing the notions of “ultimate reality” as emptiness and nirvāṇa as a sahaj stithī (the simple, easy state). A large number of poems also use the technical vocabulary and concepts of tantric yoga, particularly the variety called haṭha yoga, referring frequently to tantric constructions of the human body and yogic exercises designed to achieve bodily immortality and spiritual freedom. The Buddhist, tantric, and yogic references in general help the poet to dismantle the edifice of what is broadly called Hinduism, with many of its long-standing components. Among other things, Kabīr thus unstitches Vedic ritual, brahmanical learning and authority, the logic of the caste system, social and religious conventions based on the Dharmaśāstras (the code books of Hindu ethics and praxis), religious practice based on the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, the ritual and devotional Hinduism of the various Purāṇas, and the Vaiṣṇava theory of the incarnations of Viṣṇu, which are supposed to number ten.
At the same time, even though many poems in the Kabīr traditions attack Hindu institutions on the basis of Islamic, Buddhist, and even tantric and yogic theories and practices, many more accept (with important modifications) the two major forms of Hinduism, Śaivism and Vaiṣṇavism. Thus, a substantial portion of the poetry emphasizes ascetic practice and the concept of God as the satguru or “true master” which seem to echo the Śaiva notion of Śiva as the foremost ascetic and as the ādi-guru or “first master.” A similar proportion of the poetry also stresses the idea that the Godhead which is the object of devotion is King Rāma. This idea conforms to and yet substantially modifies Vaiṣṇava doctrine, because it turns Rāma, an anthropomorphic form of Viṣṇu with attributes, into a deity without attributes (nirguṇa). Because of this vacillation from one system of beliefs and religious context to another, the Kabīr text as a whole seems to maintain a systematic ambiguity or doubt with respect to all the established religious systems of premodern India, using each to question the others in remarkable ways.
The following selection includes six poems from the so-called eastern and western textual traditions, and one complete account of Kabīr’s life, taken from an important eighteenth-century Vaiṣṇava hagiographic work, Priyadās’s Bhaktimsabodhinī. The first poem, “The Simple State,” is clearly a satire on religion as it is practiced in Kabīr’s time by pious brahmans, Hindu ritualists and idol-worshipers, Muslim scholars and teachers, and a variety of ascetics, meditators, pilgrims, and so on, all of whom value outward appearance above anything else. “The Sapling and the Seed” is also a satire, but it is aimed specifically at brahmans, Hindu priests and priestly scholars. If the first poem claims that the purpose of spiritual effort is to attain the sahaj stithī (the simple, easy state), then the second suggests that the goal is nirvāṇa, or the situation of stasis that is both disembodied and everlasting.
The next two poems are more technical. “The Doer and His Deeds” argues from a dualistic viewpoint that an individual’s true self is his or her ultimate principle of identity as an agent of action. However, the true self is essentially different in nature from the actions the individual performs, as also from the fruits, consequences, or products of those actions. As a result, creator and creation are different in kind from each other, as are sky and earth, parent and child, husband and wife, or bindu (point, drop, concentration of energy) and nāda (loud sound, resonance, reverberation). An individual’s “phenomenal self’ may be a slave to his or her deeds, but his or her true self is not. Kabīr’s dualistic argument about agent and action in this poem is a variation on that found, for example, in the Bhagavad Gīta.
The fourth poem, “The Warrior,” uses more obscure concepts from the tantra and yoga traditions, in which the process of controlling the mind is sometimes called “killing the mind,” and the yogi’s final victory over his principal “enemy,” the mind, coincides with his achievement of the sahaj stithī. Kabīr thus personifies the self as a warrior who has to kill the mind (together with the five capacities of sense perception and the five motor organs), in order to achieve final liberation from the otherwise endless sequence of birth, death, and rebirth.
In the poem here entitled “Māyā,” Kabīr returns to somewhat more familiar and accessible ideas. In abstract terms, māyā is the pervasive phenomenon of observable “facts” created playfully (and perhaps even perversely) by God. At the level of ordinary human experience, the universe is nothing but appearances which create the illusion that they constitute reality. Kabīr personifies Māyā as a woman who deceives human beings by seeming real or by simulating reality. In effect, he argues in this poem that if a person realizes that what he or she has been dealing with in the world is merely illusory, mere māyā, then he or she has already broken through the layer of appearances to the truth and to reality.
The final poem in the selection, “The Love of Rāma,” then attempts to define who the true seer of reality is. For Kabīr the true seer is neither a person who obeys brahmanical authority and follows the ritual texts of Hinduism in normal society, nor someone who renounces the everyday world and becomes an ascetic in the forest. Instead, the true seer is a devotee or lover of King Rāma, in this case perhaps simply the well-known incarnation of Viṣṇu.
The selection of translations ends with Priyadās’s eighteenth-century Vaiṣṇava sectarian account of Kabīr. The account is highly archetyped (and stereotyped), and gives Kabīr’s life a pattern we also find in the lives of many other bhakti saints. The bhakta is initially an outcaste or a person of low social origins. He hears a “voice in the sky” and finds a Vaiṣṇava guru or spiritual master by stratagem, and hence starts out on a path of devotion. His devotion is simple (even simplistic) and pleases Viṣṇu, who helps him with divine grace, but also tests him repeatedly and in stages. The devotee persists against social and political opposition, overcomes various obstacles with his goodness and with miraculous deeds, wins over the most powerful worldly antagonists, and resists the most tempting of temptations. He then sees God in his most magnificent form and, with his grace and reciprocal love, “becomes one with him.”
The poems below are translated from originals in P. N. Tiwari, ed., Kabīr granthāvalī, 2 vols. (Allahabad: Hindi Parishad, 1961), and Shukdev Singh, ed., Kabīr Bījak (Allahabad: Nilabh Prakashan, 1972). The biography of Kabir is from Priyadās, Bhaktirasabodhinī, verses 268-81.
Further Reading
For extensive translations, commentaries, and background information on the “eastern” and “western” Kabīr traditions, see Linda Hess and Shukdev Singh, trans., The Bījak of Kabīr (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1983); and Charlotte Vaudeville, Kabīr, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974). For an alternative general discussion, see William J. Dwyer, Bhakti in Kabīr (Patna: Associated Book Agency, 1981).
The Simple State
Santo dekhata jaga baurānā
Listen,
you saints—
I see that the world
is crazy.
When I tell the truth,
people run
to beat me up—
when I tell lies,
they believe me.
I’ve seen
the pious ones,
the ritual-mongers—
they bathe at dawn.
They kill the true self
and worship rocks—
they know nothing.
I’ve seen
many masters and teachers—
they read their books,
their Qur’āns.
They teach many students
their business tricks—
that’s all they know.
They sit at home
in pretentious poses—
their minds are full
of vanity.
They begin to worship
brass and stone—
they’re so proud
of their pilgrimages,
they forget the real thing.
They wear caps and beads,
they paint their brows
with the cosmetics
of holiness.
They forget the true words
and the songs of witness
the moment they’ve sung them—
they haven’t heard
the news of the self.
The Hindu says
Rāma’s dear to him,
the Muslim says it’s Rahīm.
They go to war
and kill each other—
no one knows
the secret of things.
They do their rounds
from door to door,
selling their magic formulas—
they’re vain
about their reputations.
All the students
will drown with their teachers—
at the last moment
they’ll repent.
Kabīr says,
listen,
you saintly men,
forget all this vanity.
I’ve said it so many times
but no one listens—
you must merge into
the simple state
simply.
Bījak, śabda 4; p. 111
The Sapling and the Seed
Paṇḍita bhūle paḍhe guni bedā
When learned priests
forget their stuff,
they read the good old Vedas—
without their books,
they don’t know
the secret of things.
When they see
someone’s suffering
they pounce on it
with words like “karma,”
they apply their theories
about the stages of life.
They’ve taught the Four Ages
the gāyatrī mantra—
go ask them
whom it has set free.
Whenever they touch someone
they bathe
to purify themselves—
tell them who’s really
the inferior one.
They take great pride
in their many good qualities,
but so much vanity
doesn’t make them any good.
Only the One
who’s the Destroyer of Pride
can deal with their arrogance.
Give up the thought
of being proud of your birth,
look for the text
of nirvāṇa.
You’ll find
the eternal bodiless
resting place
only when the sapling
has spoiled the seed.
Granthāvalī, ramainī 7; vol. 2, pp. 120-21
The Doer and His Deeds
Sādho kartā karam te nyāro
O saints,
the doer is different
from his deeds.
He doesn’t come and go,
he doesn’t die,
he isn’t born—
think this over
with a cool mind.
Just as sky and earth
are two,
so do creator and creation
stand apart.
Just as the point of energy
is held back
from the reverberation,
so is my lord and lover
from me.
Who was the real wife
of the man named Daśaratha,
father of Rāma?
And where did Dasaratha’s father,
Rāma’s grandfather,
come from?
Rādhā and Rukmiṇī
were Kṛṣṇa’s queens,
and Kṛṣṇa was the master
and husband of both,
but he also tasted the love
of sixteen thousand lovers—
who was the one
who did all that?
Vasudeva was Kṛṣṇa’s father,
and Devakī his mother,
but Kṛṣṇa appeared
in the good Nanda’s home.
Kabīr says,
the doer isn’t the one
who has gone and sold himself
as a slave
to his deeds.
Granthāvalī, pada 158; vol. 2, p. 92
The Warrior
Khatrī karai khatriyā dharmā
The warrior does
the warrior’s duty.
His stock of good deeds,
like money lent to others,
truly increases
by one-fourth.
He kills the living
to preserve the living—
he gives up his life,
yet stays alive
and watches all this happen.
The true warrior
is the one
who goes down fighting
to keep his promise
to protect his clan.
He kills the five
enemy-senses
because he knows
the one true self within.
The hermit who has learned
this lesson from his master
overthrows his mind
right then and there.
Drunk on the senses,
his mind falls fighting
the moment he wounds his target.
Only the mind,
that self-crowned king,
dies in the battle—
and not the true self,
which never perishes.
Love is a void without Rāma,
it goes about
lost in itself.
Bījak, ramainī 83; p. 108
Māyā
Māyā mahā ṭhaginī ham jānī
We know
what Māyā is—
the great con-woman,
a companion to con-men.
She wanders all over the world
with her threefold noose,
she sits rocking in each place,
using a sweet tongue.
At Keśava’s place
she masquerades as Kamalā,
in Śiva’s mansion
she’s Bhavānī.
She has settled down
at the priest’s
as an idol,
she has become the holy water
at the pilgrim’s destination.
She has planted herself
at the ascetic’s
as an ascetic woman,
in the king’s palace
she sits on the throne
as a queen.
In some homes
she’s diamond and pearl,
in some she has become
a worthless cowrie shell.
She has moved in
with the common devotee
and become a devotee herself,
she lives with the Muslim man
as his Muslim woman.
Kabīr says, listen,
O holy men—
this is the whole
untold story.
Granthāvali, pada 163; vol. 2, pp. 95-96; Bījak, śabda 59; p. 131
The Love of King Rāma
Mana re sarayau
Dear heart,
don’t do a thing
if you haven’t worshiped
King Rāma.
People hear the words
of the Vedas and the Purāṇas
and begin to nurse
their hopes
for the fruits of action.
All these enlightened people
are engrossed by the moment,
but they blame
the learned priests
for their disappointments.
The ascetic withdraws
into the forest
to master his senses,
and feeds on roots and stems.
So do all those shamans,
singers, scholars, and saints
whose lives are written down
on plaque and parchment—
but it doesn’t make
a jot of difference.
This one is thin and penniless,
he wraps his loins
in a loincloth—
but the love of God
that Nārada had
hasn’t touched his heart or mind.
That one sits
singing holy songs
with great self-satisfaction—
but what God has he seen
or recognized?
Time and death
hack away at the world,
yet everyone describes himself
as a true seer within.
Kabīr says
the only man
who serves a single master
is the one who knows
the love of Rāma.
Granthāvali, pada 86; vol. 2, pp. 50-51
Kabīr
268. Kabīr’s mind was very deep and intense; he was steeped in pure emotion. He seized the feeling of devotion, he gave up caste and sect. A voice in the sky said to him, “Mark your brow with the holy symbol of Rāma, make Rāmānanda your master, wear a string of beads in your neck.” Kabīr said, “Rāmānanda won’t even look at me, he thinks I’m an outcaste.” The voice said, “He goes to bathe in the Gaṅgā. Put yourself in his way.” Rāmānanda came out in the darkness before dawn and was walking along when his foot struck Kabīr. Rāmānanda cried “Rāma!” and Kabīr took up this word as his secret spiritual formula.
269. Kabīr did what the voice had told him to do. He wore the beads and the mark on his brow and sang and prayed. When his mother saw this she was outraged and made a big noise about it. The outcry reached Rāmānanda. Someone came and said to him, “When anyone asks Kabīr who his master is, he mentions your name.” “Get hold of him and bring him here,” Rāmānanda said. When Kabīr was brought there, Rāmānanda sat behind a curtain and asked him, “When did I make you my disciple?” Kabīr. said, “The name of Rāma is the secret formula. This is written in all the manuals of spiritual practice.” Rāmānanda drew aside the curtain. “That’s the true faith,” he said and embraced Kabīr.
270. Kabīr wove cloth on a loom for a living but his heart and mind were set on Rāma. How shall I say it, what can I say, his ways were so different. He remembered nothing else, devotion was so dear to him. Once he stood in the marketplace selling his cloth when a man came up to him and said, “Give it to me, I have nothing to cover my body.” Kabīr began to tear the cloth in half, when the man said, “Half won’t do, give me the whole.” Kabīr replied, “If you’ve set your heart on the whole piece, take it.”
271. Meanwhile, Kabīr’s children, mother, and wife sat watching the path to their home. They were hungry; they wondered, “When will he come home?” He hid himself in the marketplace, wondering, “What will I take home?” When Lord Viṣṇu, who is so quick, who understands everything, and who is the storehouse of grace, realized that Kabīr had the true feeling of devotion, even he fell to wondering. Three days passed like this. Then a man arrived at Kabīr’s house loaded with goods. He left everything there and said, “I’m giving you this for your comfort.” Kabīr’s mother kicked up a fuss, saying, “This is a rich man’s trick. He’ll have us arrested for robbing him. My son never takes anything without first finding out the price.”
272. Two or three men went out in search of Kabīr and brought him back. When Kabīr came home and heard about what had happened, he knew that it was the Lord’s doing. Kabīr had found prosperity and happiness but he thought, “Lord Viṣṇu has been kind to me.” He immediately called in a crowd of [poor, low-caste] devotees and told them to take away everything. He stopped working his loom; he was immersed in great happiness. When the brahmans who were his enemies heard about it, they were agitated and angry and came running. “Why, you weaver,” they said, “you got hold of wealth but you didn’t call us. You gave it all to those low-caste men. You’ll have to leave this place.”
273. “Why should I go away?” asked Kabīr. “Should I steal someone’s wealth and give it to you? I sing about Lord Viṣṇu’s goodness. I haven’t gone and killed someone on the highway.” The brahmans said, “You honored the low-caste devotees. That’s an insult to us. Give us what you have. Or else you can’t live in the same town as us.” “There’s nothing at home,” said Kabīr, “I’ll go to the market. Stay here while I’m gone.” So Kabīr got away from the priests with great difficulty. He went and hid in the marketplace to keep out of trouble. The Lord himself came and brought good things with him. He satisfied the brahmans, who took the things and were happy. Thus Kabīr’s fame went on shining brightly.
274. Then the Lord came in the guise of a brahman to the place where Kabīr was hiding and said to him, “Why are you starving yourself to death? Go to Kabīr’s house. Kabīr gives three pounds of food to anyone who comes to his door. Go there quickly and get some food.” Kabīr came home and saw everything. He immediately became engrossed in the Lord. But with all these new miracles, how could Kabīr remain wise and firm? One auspicious day he went out with a whore. It seemed that he was totally absorbed in her. But you should know that he did this because he was afraid of the huge crowd of followers [that is, Kabīr felt that if his followers saw him with a prostitute they would disavow him].
275. When the saints saw this they were afraid for Kabīr, but the evil men were pleased. Then Kabīr was struck by a different idea. He went with the whore to the place where the king was holding court. The king did not extend Kabīr any courtesy. Then Kabīr did something amazing. He scooped up some holy water in his hand and poured it on the ground. The king wondered about it, then asked him, “Why did you do that?” Kabīr said, “I saved a priest in Jagannath Puri from burning his leg.” The king was incredulous. He sent a man to the city of Jagannath Puri. The man came back with the news and said, “He told the truth.”
276. The king said to the queen, “What Kabīr said turned out to be true. There was a fire. Now tell me what we should do.” The queen said, “The only way out is to submit to him.” The king and queen went to seek Kabīr’s protection. The king carried a big heavy load of grass on his head and tied an axe around his neck. They passed through the marketplace and lost all honor and respect. The king kept cringing all the while at the thought, “I did an evil thing [in not being respectful to Kabīr].” Kabīr saw the king in the distance coming and got very upset. He rose and came up to the king and said, “Put down your burden. I’m not angry with you.”
277. When the brahmans became aware of Kabīr’s influence, they were filled with envy and hatred. They went and complained to the emperor Sikandar Lodī. Kabīr’s enemies went in a large group with his mother, who had joined them. They shouted loudly, “This man has made the whole town unhappy.” The emperor said, “Arrest him and bring him here. I want to see what kind of a trickster he is. I’ll wipe out his self-esteem. I’m a tough ruler, I’ll have him put in tight chains.” Kabīr was brought in and made to stand before the emperor. The emperor’s [Muslim] judge said, “Salaam to the emperor.” Kabīr replied, “I don’t know how to salaam. All I know is Rāma. His feet [pada, also songs, texts] are my support in moments of danger.”
278. Kabīr was put in chains and thrown into the Gaṅgā. But he came out and stood on the bank. The people said, “He knows some magic formula.” Then wood was heaped on him and set on fire. But another miracle took place. Kabīr’s body glowed so much it even put gold to shame. These methods were unsuccessful, and yet those people did not submit to Kabīr. They brought a mad elephant to overwhelm him. But the elephant would not even come close to him. It bellowed and gave up and ran away. This happened because the Lord sat before Kabīr in the form of a lion and drove away the elephant.
279. When the emperor saw this he jumped up and fell at Kabīr’s feet, and the people lost their fight when they saw these miracles. “Save me from God’s anger,” cried the emperor, “don’t perform any more miracles. Take what you want: villages, towns, the whole land. You can have many pleasurable things.” Kabīr said, “I only want Rāma, who is one and whom I worship all day long. I want and value nothing else, since everything else is full of millions of defects and diseases.” Kabīr thus won and came home. All the holy men met him and expressed their love for him. Only men who love the Lord like this are worth singing about.
280. The brahmans were embarrassed and furious. Then they chose four brahmans, painted their faces, and put beautiful clothes on them. These four men went even to the remotest towns and villages. They asked about all the holy men who lived there. They falsely used Kabīr’s name and invited everyone to a feast. All the holy men turned up [at Kabīr’s home] when they heard about it. When this happened, Kabīr went away. But the Lord came running, since he travels in the four directions for the sake of his saints and devotees. He put on the guise of Kabīr and sat in different places at the feast. Kabīr himself came back and mingled with the crowd. The Lord fed them all and brought them great happiness.
281. A beautifully dressed celestial woman once came down to lure Kabīr. But when she saw how engrossed he was in God, she went back to heaven. Her tricks did not work. Lord Viṣṇu then came and manifested his four-armed form before Kabīr. Kabīr thus found the fulfillment his eyes had sought. He was truly fortunate. The Lord placed his hand on Kabīr’s head and said, “Come to my home, bring your body with you. Sing of my goodness. Live as you wish, take what you want. Your mind is steeped in the true emotion [of bhakti].” Kabīr then went to Maghar. He showed the people there what true devotion is. In the end he asked for huge quantities of flowers. He lay down on them and became one with God. That was what his love was like.