Gratitude and Surrender || Acharya Prashant, on Saint Kabir (2016)

Acharya Prashant: Among the Indian saints, in the whole galaxy of the saints of the World, Kabir is delightfully special. It is said that he was born a Hindu, but because he was born of a widow, so out of social shame the mother went and kept the baby Kabir by the side of Ganga in Varanasi. A Muslim couple, Neeru and Neema, found the baby by the side of the river and picked him up, raised him. They initiated him into their family profession, which was weaving. Kabir, thus grew up in a Muslim family. Folklore says, he did not study much. He was fortunate to have a Guru, and was initiated by the Guru.

All his life, he lived simply as a weaver. The whole day he would weave, in the evening he would sell his stuff, and even as he would keep weaving, he would keep talking to people. He wrote nothing. All that we have as Kabir’s works, were actually collected after him. In fact it is said that he was illiterate. That may not be true. But what is certain is that he himself was never interested in writing. Kabir was there in the Varanasi of 14th century India, a hotbed of both Hindu and Muslim orthodoxy. And his courage and genius, lies in the fact that he unabashedly attacked both Hindu and Muslim traditions.

Kabir was a victim of malicious propaganda, counter attack, but he stuck to his guns, kept saying what he wanted to say. He dismissed all kinds of religious bigotries, dogmas, superstitions, beliefs, even those that are considered sacred even to this day. If you will go to Kabir you will meet both, a sharp sword that cuts through our prejudices, and a loving heart that embraces you. That is why it is difficult to categorize Kabir, neither can you call him belonging to the Bhakti tradition, nor to the tradition of Gyaan. He belongs to no tradition. He was unique, authentic and original in himself.

He lived in Varanasi, and Hindus have this tradition of going to Varanasi at the time of their death. It is said that if you die by the Ganga, then you receive salvation. And there is another place called Maghar, where if you die, it is said you land up in hell. You know what Kabir did, all his life he lived in Varanasi and at the time of his death, he made it a point to go to Maghar. Even his last breath was a taunt on the way we live.