INTRODUCTION
forgets the common life. His feet are firmly planted upon earth; his lofty and passionate apprehensions are perpetually controlled by the activity of a sane and vigorous intellect, by the alert common sense so often found in persons of real mystical genius. The constant insistence on simplicity and directness, the hatred of all abstractions and philosophizings,[1] the ruthless criticism of external religion: these are amongst his most marked characteristics God is the Root whence all manifestations, "material" and "spiritual," alike proceed; and God is the only need of man "happiness shall be yours when you come to the Root."[2] Hence to those who keep their eye on the "one thing needful," denominations, creeds, ceremonies, the conclusions of philosophy, the disciplines of asceticism, are matters of comparative indifference. They represent merely the different angles from which the soul may approach that simple union with Brahma which is its goal; and are useful only in so far as they contribute to this consummation. So thoroughgoing is Kabir's eclecticism, that he seems by turns Vedantist and Vaishnavite, Pantheist and Transcendentalist, Brahman and Sufi. In the effort to tell the truth about that ineffable apprehension, so vast and yet so near, which controls his life, he seizes and twines together as he might have woven together contrasting threads upon his loom – symbols and ideas drawn from the most violent and conflicting philosophies and faiths. All are needed, if he is ever to suggest the character of that One whom the Upanishad called "the Sun-coloured Being who is beyond this Darkness": as all the colours of the sþectrum are needed if we would demonstrate the simple richness of white light. In thus adapting traditional materials to his own use he follows a method common amongst the mystics; who seldom exhibit any special love for originality of form. They will pour their wine into almost any vessel that comes to hand: generally using by preference – and lifting to new levels of beauty and significance - the religious or philosophic formulae current in their own day. Thus we find that some of Kabir's finest poems have as their subjects the commonplaces of Hindu philosophy and religion: the Lila, or Sport, of God, the Ocean of Bliss, the Bird of the Soul, Maya, the Hundred-petalled Lotus, and the "Formless Form." Many, again, are soaked in Sufi imagery and feeling. Others use as their material the ordinary surroundings and incidents of Indian life: the temple bells, the ceremony of the lamps, marriage, suttee, pilgrimage, the characters of the seasons; all felt by him in their mystical aspect, as sacraments of the soul's relation with Brahma. In many of these a particularly beautiful and intimate feeling for Nature is shown.[3]
In the collection of songs here translated there will be found examples which illustrate nearly every aspect of
