Kabir — "Oh, how may I ever express that secret word? O how can I say He is not like this…"
Oh, how may I ever express that secret word? O how can I say He is not like this, and He is like that? If I say that He is within me, the universe is ashamed: If I say that He is without me, it is falsehood. He makes the inner and the outer worlds to be indivisibly one; The conscious and the unconscious, both are His footstools. He is neither manifest nor hidden, He is neither revealed nor unrevealed: There are no words to tell that which He is.
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Indian mystic poet whose verses (preserved in the Sikh Guru Granth Sahib and the Hindu Bhakti tradition) attacked both Hindu and Islamic orthodoxy.
Closely associated with
Guru Nanak (founder of Sikhism, who incorporated Kabir's verses).
For an intellectual contrast, see
Brahmanical priesthood, the ritualistic Hindu establishment of his era — Kabir's poetry is the founding text of bhakti devotional rebellion against ritualistic Hinduism — his verses ridicule caste, ritual purity, and priestly mediation as religious theatre.
Details
Articulating the inexpressible and paradoxical nature of the divine, from his poetry (Dohas).
