Kabir — "To what shore would you cross, O my heart? there is no traveller before you, the…"
To what shore would you cross, O my heart? there is no traveller before you, there is no road: Where is the movement, where is the rest, on that shore? There is no water; no boat, no boatman, is there; There is not so much as a rope to tow the boat, nor a man to draw it. No earth, no sky, no time, no thing, is there: no shore, no ford! There, there is neither body nor mind: and where is the place that shall still the thirst of the soul? You shall find naught in that emptiness.
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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
Describing the profound and ungraspable nature of the ultimate spiritual destination, from his poetry (Songs of Kabir).
