“Nature is the God” in the Kabir’s Poetry Kabir was born in 1440. Being a religionist, he was born as a love child of Braman and was raised by a poor factory working couple who were Muslim in Varanashi. He was so poor that he could not get educated so he was illiterate. So he had been living his life as a laborer, not a poet or not a saint. Although his wisdom was not really sophisticated it was not from the systemized education, his poems were attracting everyone. According to him, God is only one, though He has so many different names, and He exists in everyone’s mind, not in the heaven or in the temple. What is needed is to call His name and long for Him continuously, and all the other things, such as taking a bath, going on a pilgrimage, worshiping, penance, ranking discrimination, the authority of the church, are all of no value. Therefore, as a religionist, he did not take a special life style, but had stuck to the life of factory worker. As the poems by Kabir were from his life experiences, they are much more powerful. Although Kabir was not in any of the denominations, he showed what God is and what is sacred through his poems from his life. Therefore, Osho Rajneesh described Kabir as the first flower to inform spring, the premonitory of the future, and the pioneer of the religion of poetry. For Kabir, Nature was the God. He only believed in living existence, like trees, rivers, mountains; not in the temples, churches, and mosques. Kabir called people from the church or the temple and let them go in and glorify their own lives, because God is not really far away. All that is needed is to be awake. Remember Kabir. Kabir was a poet, not a philosopher. He was a mystic. He understood things. It is not true that he knew anything. Kabir was a positive mystic on lives. He had never left his home. He did not leave his wife and children, and had not gone to Himalaya. However, he was the one with enlightenment. He had never escaped from any situation and had been on earth. Be inside the world, because this world itself was the God. Love your life. If you love your life, then you love the God. Be away from the church or the temple, but seek for the God inside yourself and your life freely, Kabir said. However, he does not entirely deny going to the church or the temple. If someone can enjoy being there and can find in it the true happiness, it can also be the heaven for the person. The poems by Kabir give the reader calmness and peacefulness. His poems are not really stimulating the emotion, but are stimulating something in the innate human’s mind. Kabir’s poems give comfort to those who are tired of their lives. Try reading those poems departing from their religious purposes.
Ju-Hyun Park  l.l.f@hanmail.net