Some are born great and some attain greatness. This adage is applicable to the life of Saint Kabir who lived and preached divine love in the 15th Century India. Born - and orphaned early in childhood - in a Brahman family of Banaras on Jaitha Samwat, 1455, Kabir was discovered and brought up by an issueless couple Ali (Neeru) and Neema, Muslim weaver by profession. They named the child as Kabir, and given Islamic education, not withstanding his love for all faiths. Kabir was married to Loi from whom he got a son named ‘Kamal’.

In those days Kashi in North India was known as the temple of learning. In Banaras Kabir had the early opportunity of meeting saints and scholars. He felt free to discuss the profundity of human existence and aspirations, and express his ideas with them. From his very childhood, Kabir used to think about the sufferings of humanity. Kabir tried to free the society from the clutches of ritualism and casteism. The Bhakti movement which had been initiated by Ramanuja and Ramananda in the South was sprear-headed in the North by Kabir. Who happened to become a staunch follower of Ramanand. Most Kabir hymns have been compiled by his disciples, namely, Dharam Dass and Surat Gopal in ‘KABIR BIJAK’. Kabir was against idol worship and the elaborate pantheon of Hinduism. He adopted the path of Nirguna Bhagti. It is often said about Kabir that he never stuck to one single ideal, rather he swung across the gamut of free thought, often displeasing the priestly class. Sometime he talks about Sarguna Brahma under the influence of Puranas, sometime he seems to be discussing about Advaita and Avataras, attached to no fixed set of beliefs. He asked his pupils to lead a simple life. Luxarious life leads one to destruction. According to Kabir :-

It is a common knowledge that one suffers for one’s deeds. However, good entails even more sufferings for the mind than the doing of evil. Says Kabir. They who know not, sleep the soundest sleep but I who know suffer!’. This was not, however, a plea for ignorance. It only emphasizes that they who seek good deliberately court pain. Kabir was revolutionary and renunciatory in his thoughts. He was outspoken and known as ‘Fakkar’. He did not want to live in poverty : and in prayer he demanded nourishment - daily bread - from God and ask for a comfortable couch to lie upon. Says Kabir:

Contemplate thy Lord in the same way as did Dhruva and Prahlada dwelt on one God. O thou support of the helpless, I lean on thee alone.

Saint Kabir discarded exploitative and meaningless rituals and beliefs which had been invented by priestly classes. It was a common belief that those who die at Kashi achieve Moksha, and to die at Maghar meant denial of Moksha. Seing his end near, Kabir left Kashi and went to Maghar - a place 15 K.M. away from Gorakhpur in U.P. - where he died in Samvat 1575. All this was done just to make common people aware of their blind faith.

Kabir was a practical man. He chose his own path without caring for his opponents. He told people that whole universe is created by one almighty God, so we should not find fault with others. What is good and what is evil is therefore judged in terms of the absolute and not what passes for it in the current coin of social behaviour. Why hate men merely because they are different; let us realise that in God’s multitudinous universe, every flower is meant to be different; no bird song is alike - and yet each bird has a right to give expression to its inner nature. To hate another - or to admire oneself - is the worst of sins and a sure denial of God. Kabir says :-

"First God created his light and from it were all men made. Yea, from God’s light came the whole universe. So whom shall we call good, whom bad?"

In his inimitable simplicity Kabir explained that man’s life is like a bubble in water. An over-ripe fruit cannot but fall to the ground. That is its destiny; that is the price one must pay for one’s growth, fulfillment, and regeneration. The knots are tied, but to be loosened. His folksy language has special appeal. He was so humble in mind that he was ready to give away everything in the name of God. He says :-

"He would give away his life to the one who, even in dream-state, babbles out the name of God. One cannot find God by pretense or by making a false show. Says Kabir: ‘O Mullah, why mounteth thou on to the minaret of the mosque to cry out thy prayers: thy God is not deaf’. Though for the initiate, rituals and utterance may bring some emotional satisfaction and awaken spiritual urges, he who seeks to rise higher to attain intuitive experience has to get in to deeper waters. This world is the creation of God. It is with his word that God stampeth all his creation. Says Kabir:

‘I have nothing of myself. Everything is Thine. What, if I return to you whatever is bestowed on me!’

Kabir’s hymns, some 541 in all, are entered in the holy Guru Granth Sahib. The number of hymns of Saint Kabir are the maximum of the hymns of Bhagtas incorporated in Guru Granth, after the Gurus. This shows the universality of Kabir’s thoughts as also the catholicity of the Sikh Scriptures.

It can rightly be said that Kabir worked for equality and social justice. He devoted his life for the sake of suffering humanity and preached all to lead a simple life. Undoubtedly the contemporary society owes much to Kabir. We should try to follow the path shown to us by Saint Kabir. This is the true homage which we can pay to this great saint.