this is written as i confront with sadness little knowledge amongst villagers, slums and urban elite in tn about kabir, and being asked am i not worried that i am married to a muslim. sadness at my mulsim female friend, asked by her company why she wears the dress she has chosen. any knowledge of kabir centers or hindu-mulsim unity spaces in south india, not the elite kind. my friend narmada told me of a temple where a women goddes married to a mulsim (or was it the other way around) sadness of a divided world where there is no humanism left ranjani _________________________________________________________________________________ http://www.publishaletter.com/readletter.jsp?plid=27653Dear Editor: With the world rocks in tremors of the aftermath of US imperialism and undemocratic invasion of Pakistan and killing of Osama (while not glorifying his violent paths), fall out tsunami and nuclear explosion in Japan and the persistent inequalities of race, caste, class, ethnicity, religion, patriarchy, sexual/gender identities amidst unfettered capitalism, it is perhaps time to revisit Kabir. His greatest work is the Bijak (the "Seedling"), an idea of the fundamental one. This collection of poems elucidates Kabir's universal view of spirituality. Though his vocabulary is replete with Hindu spiritual concepts, such as Brahman, karma and reincarnation, he vehemently opposed dogmas, both in Hinduism and in Islam. His Hindi was a vernacular, straightforward kind, much like his philosophies. He often advocated leaving aside the Qur'an and Vedas and simply following Sahaja path, or the Simple/Natural Way to oneness in God. He believed in the Vedantic concept of atman, but unlike earlier orthodox Vedantins, he followed this philosophy to its logical end by spurning the Hindu societal caste system and worship of murti, showing clear belief in both bhakti and Sufi ideas. The major part of Kabir's work as a bhagat was collected by the fifth Sikh guru, Guru Arjan Dev, and forms a part of the Sikh scripture Guru Granth (Sahib.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabir) Perhaps it is time to popularize Kabir, and ask what Kabir scholars, poets and followers what is the spiritual, economic, social and political order he may have suggested were he alive today to save human species from pathways to disaster.
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