KABIR’S TWO SYLLABLES OF LOVE

 

KABIR’S TWO SYLLABLES OF LOVE

The mystic poet Kabir Das (1440-1518) is known for his rhymed couplets , known as dohas in Hindi. Though he had no schooling, he was a  master poet in this genre. All his couplets which run into hundreds are full of spiritual connotations. They are often quoted both by the educated and the uneducated to illustrate some idea of worldly or unworldly life. His language is simple and easily memorable.  He speaks to man in the street but is no less meaningful to intellectuals. A number of his couplets have found place in Adi Granth , the holy scripture of the Sikhs. Rabindranath Tagore has translated some of his poems into English under the title 100 Poems of Kabir (1915) . Similarly, the Indian godman  Acharya Rajneesh Osho (1931-1990), has shed light on his teachings in a couple of books, one of them being The True Name.      

Kabir was a weaver by occupation. In Persian, his name means great. He spent his early life in a Muslim family, but adopted the Hindu Bhakti poet Ramanand (1400-1476) of the Vaishnavism sect as his guru.

Besides dohas, Kabir composed Bhajans which carry several layers of meanings pertaining to worldly and philosophic comprehension of life. In fact, all hiss poetic outpourings serve as a  treatise on how to live a peaceful social life.

Kabir is a poet of love for all mankind. He is a liberal humanist. What he tells his  readers is the painful outcome of evils like lust, greed, selfishness and impatience. The virtues on which he lays stress are love, compassion, humility, patience, charity , forgiveness, contentment, and absence of vindictiveness.  In one of his couplets he says: When you came into this world, you cried aloud while those who welcomed you burst into laughter. Now do not do any such deed as will make you a fit target of their ridicule.

The title of this write-up is  kabir’s Two Syllables of Love. What  does it mean?  A very simple formula of getting close to God; i.e. there is no need to read innumerable scriptures to understand  God and become worthy of His companionship. God is love and love is God. Any human being who has learnt two and a half words of love and practises them throughout his earthly life becomes eligible for the love of God. All-out devotion to God is the only way to attain redemption and escape from the cycle of births and deaths.

English poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616) says in one of his sonnets: Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds., or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken….Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come; love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom.

It is the above-quoted Shakespearean philosophy of love which the saint poet of India Kabir Das practises personally and recommends to others. His poetry is a plea for eternal love for mankind and  endless devotion to God. To understand the philosophy of this poetry, no body needs to study multiple secular or sacred books. What he really needs is the true comprehension of only two syllables of love to live a perfectly  peaceful life in this world.   

8^th November 2020                                                                             G. R. Kanwal