Kabir's attack on religious rituals

by Guest Wed Mar 21, 2012 2:54 am

Any suggestion that Kabir attempted any kind of synthesis of hinduism and Islam has to be rejected when one reads him. Rather, he was clearly striving for an independent point of view and urging everyone to think independently rather then follow some rituals or superstitions or scriptural knowledge deemed to be infallible.

Kabir's poems from the book 'Songs of Kabir' (translator: Arvind Meherotra).

---
Running up minarets,
Calling out to the faithful
Five times a day,
What's your problem, muezzin?

Can't you see you're a walking
Mosque yourself?
Your mind's your Mecca;
Your body the Ka'aba
That you face when you pray;
Anything you say
is an utterance from heaven.
Cut the throat of desire,
not a poor goat's, if you must.

Kabir says, I'm possessed,
just don't ask me how
it happened or when.

----
The gardener's wife
cuts short the brief life
of the flowers and offers them
to a lifeless stone idol
that a sculptor carved
feet on its chest
chisel in hand.

Had the idol been alive
it would have
lashed out at the sculptor
it would have seen through the priest
who grabs all the food
the faithful bring
leaving the scraps to the idol.

Not one, not two,
but everyone's a sucker,
says Kabir. Not me.

by Guest Wed Mar 21, 2012 2:59 am

Listen carefully,
Neither the Vedas
Nor the Quran
will teach you this:
put the bit in its mouth,
The saddle on its back,
Your foot in the stirrup,
and ride your wild runaway mind
All the way to heaven.

by chameli Wed Mar 21, 2012 3:45 pm

these i understood perfectly

very very beautiful

ride your wild runaway mind
All the way to heaven. wah wah

by Guest Wed Mar 21, 2012 3:49 pm

A good article about Kabir and the Bhakti movement (and Meherotra's translation):

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/books/review/book-review-songs-of-kabir-by-translated-by-arvind-krishna-mehrotra.html?pagewanted=all

by chameli Wed Mar 21, 2012 3:59 pm

Mehrotra looking enlightened and resembling Poet Laureate Rabindranath Tagore has given a lovely rendition of Sant Kabir's bhakti movement

thanks for this, Rashmun

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Kabir's attack on religious rituals

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