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Kahlil Gibran & Sant Kabir
“The mystic consciousness, whether in poetry or in religion, does not easily lend itself to the objective description. In the introspective reports of the mystical experience-- the only testimony we have to work with - there is the repeated despairing admission that it cannot be captured in the net of words. And rightly so, for the mystical experience is not dependent on the world of sense; it transcends the mundane realm of matter; it is opposed to the law of science, and the categories of logic; it escapes the inherent limitations of time and space; it envisages a Reality that is as far beyond the reality that our senses encompass as God is beyond man. Since this is so, the nature of the experience can be neither investigated nor communicated; it must be taken on faith.”
-Charles I. Glicksberg
Most surreally explained by Glicksberg, mysticism in poetry is a form of art devoted to the appreciation, expression, and awareness of the cosmic consciousness in the form of love, devotion, reform, admiration of nature, friendship, and passion.
Many a man has been a practitioner of the art of mystic poetry like Emily Dickinson, Rumi, William Blake, Hafiz, Mirabai, Li Po, P.Yogananda, Meister Eckhart, Aleister Crowley, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, Kalidasa, Ibn Arabi, Amir Khushrow, and many more.
Here we will ponder upon the literary styles and philosophies of two other notable personalities in the world of mystic poetry. They may have never been spoken in the sense of a parallel study but here I am, picking out their similarities that I can’t help but notice even though they lived seven seas away in two vastly different periods of time: Saint Kabir of the 15th-Century and Gibran Kahlil Gibran of the 20th-Century. The former from Benares, India and the latter from Bsharri, Lebanon and later America.
The two had their own way of expressing their vision of the world, of love, of nature, of religion, and many things that would interest a reader.
So with the words of Carl Sandburg, “Poetry is a mystic, sensuous mathematics of fire, smoke-stacks, waffles, pansies, people, and purple sunsets”, let’s dive in!
Kahlil Gibran
Kahlil Gibran Kahlil was an Arab-American poet and painter born January 6, 1883, in Bsharri, Lebanon; who not only revolutionized the Arab-American Literature but also helmed the drift that transformed Oriental Romanticism for the world. He added new pages on eternal love, life, longing, death, nature, religious and social reform, imagination with this his unique form of mysticism. He was majorly inclined towards painting and art; The Prophet has been illustrated by him. He shifted to America in his youth to study, work, write, and paint.
He published 10 Arabic books and 9 English books in his lifetime. The Prophet is one of his most famous works that made him the third best-selling poet. He passed away on 10th April, 1931 but the Romantic revolution he brought about hasn’t died down, it has greatly inspired Arab as well as American writers. The one thing I personally assert about him is, “ Gibran was a gem!”
Gibran’s Literary Styles and Works
Gibran enters the literary scene as a poet rebel and a visionary of sentimental romanticism. Both his Arabic and English works are charged with melodious outbursts with penchants for profound spirituality and mythology. His works deeply admire Nature as he is very well influenced by the picturesque locale of Lebanon.
Gibran introduced an unfettered style of western romanticism in Arabic poetry and helped it evolve from the conventional prosody. Gibran’s romantic philosophy was impacted by what Robin Waterfield called “the Platonizing stream”.
Gibran, while studying in America, was influenced by various artists like William Blake, William Wordsworth, Friedrich Nietzsche, and American romantics like Whitman, Thoreau, and Emerson. His ideals of love, nature, beauty, imagination, and liberty helped him align with his kind. His ideology around poetry is similar to Wordsworth and Shelley: portrayal of a solitary poet being a nature lover.
Paul Nassar said, " Gibran was of the mold of William Blake: both an angry social reformer of old cultural contexts and the prophet of an expanding cosmic consciousness beyond any need of a given cultural context. Most often and fundamentally, however, he emerges as a lonely poet finding solace only in the poetic consciousness or imagination."
Gibran is credited for having birthed a new form of poetry called 'prose poem' with his ingenuity in expression, style, and structure. Additionally, his profound knowledge of myths and mythology from his homeland reflects in his creations. Imagination was indispensable in Gibran’s work. Bred deeply within his sense of imagination and mystical fascination, it was seen in his words and paintings.
His entire oeuvre carries a sense of autonomy, a memoir-like tone with unbridled imagination. He mastered the use of simple, sublime language with the perfect usage of metaphors and other figures of speech to simply enchant his reader with his state of mind.
Gibran, in The Prophet, said about love:
“For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.”
-Gibran Kahlil Gibran
His notable works include The Prophet, The Madman (mystical parables), The Forerunner (Sufi thoughts), Tears and Laughter (romantic themes), The Nymphs of the Valley, Spirits Rebellious (in Arabic; compared to the works of Victor Hugo), Sand and Foam, The Earth Gods, The Wanderer, The Poet, the very well known- Jesus, the Son of Man, and many more.
Gibran’s Philosophy
Young Gibran bore many questions in his mind about the ‘ways of the world.’ He grew up to be an open-minded, fierce social reformer along with being a natural intellectual. His ideologies around religion, unity, God, spirituality, ethics, and more were entirely revolutionary and somewhat influenced by those of his idols.
Religion for Gibran was certainly not a game of division and bifurcation. His works focused on normalizing and unifying the oneness in religious sects. To get rid of the religious egotism, discrimination, and social unrest in his times, Gibran emphasized the beauty of brotherhood in men, the mystical union of man and nature in the search of God, and the essence of humanity. He loathed class oppression, sectarianism, violence, religious bigotry, a false sense of civilization. He prophesied the themes of unity in religion, equality between man and woman, freedom, justice, spiritual love, nature, and madness in everything he did. He was almost all consumed in the ideas of love, faith, reason, and patience.
Gibran may have questioned the need for division in religion but he never questioned the existence of God. He respected all religions for having the same essence- a cosmic bond of spiritual love. Christianity was a major source of influence for him and he occupied himself on portraying a different perspective on the life and purpose of Jesus. He openly rebelled against the rotting and rigid laws of the church but believed Christ to be a source of inspiration and a symbol for true humanity. Jesus, the Son of Man (1928) was the longest book Kahlil Gibran wrote, where he portrayed Jesus as a sensitive human being capable of loving, suffering for others seamlessly, and carrying his set of frailties.
His spirituality was considered to be pantheistic- a doctrine that accepts the universe to be the manifestation of God and the existence of nothing but God. His literary genius subverted cultural and religious barriers and infused a zestful consciousness of God and spirit.
Gibran, a lyrical poet with a prophetic flair, turned out to a mystic rebel who believed he had a special cause to accomplish for the betterment and liberation of mankind.
For me, what sums Gibran for us are his words: “I shall be happy when men shall say about me what they said of Blake: “he is a madman.” Madness in art is creation. Madness in poetry is wisdom. Madness in the search for God is the highest form of worship.” Such was the temperament of Gibran: poetic, prophetic, mystic, and rebellious on the field.
Sant Kabir
A 15th-century weaver (jullaaha) who turned out to be a mystic poet-saint who not just unified Hindus and Mohammadens but also impacted generations to come with his multilingual couplets, poems, and philosophies.
Believed to be born in 1440 of Hindu parents and brought up by Muslim parents in Jaunpur, Varanasi; his life is no less than a miracle. Kabir Das gained his early-life indoctrination from a Hindu ascetic Swami Ramananda and no story of Kabir is complete without the mention of how persevering he was as a disciple. With the influence of Ramananda, Kabir Das took to the path of devotion to Lord Vishnu as a manifestation of Nature and Divine love.
He lived his entire life to be a low-caste weaver but parallelly flourished in appealing to the masses with his unassailable ideas and beliefs that led to the creation of ‘Kabir Panth’- a religion followed by millions of North Indians that are followers of his philosophy of life.
His literary genius catalyzed the Bhakti Movement with its impact on the Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims that knew him to be a ferocious social reformer that used satire, irony, and sarcasm to treat people’s mindsets.
He left the world, yet again with a miracle, at Maghar in 1518 but his verses have found their place in common household banter and his genius may never be lost.
Kabir’s Literary Style and Works
Kabir’s works were primarily in two literary genres: rhymed couplets (known as Doha, Sakhi, or shloka) and lyric poems (Shabda, Shabad, Pad, or Bhajan), in addition to the Ramaini and folk song forms. The lyric poems, commonly known as bhajans, vary in meter and are usually six to eighteen lines in length, while the couplets are composed of four half-lines. (Hess, 1987)
Repetition has often been part of Kabir’s poetry and it presented itself as a series of negations, repeated words, or grammatical structures. The repetition helps in furthering the ‘meaning’ and securing a better emotional connection with the listeners.
A Kabir expert and professor, Linda Hess, brought to light the fact that most of Kabir’s verses were directed to the reader in contrast to the works of Mirabai or Surdas whose works were addressed to God or divine power. He, thus, gifted us with a new form and style of Bhaktism or devotional songs/poetry. Not just that, this brings to us his ‘art of rhetoric and satire’. His use of language extends a sense of awareness among his listeners on what’s right and wrong and his hard-hitting yet simple use of sarcasm gets one to exercise his/her intellect in the right direction. Kabir’s use of metaphors, stirring arguments, monologues seem to compel and entirely transfix those who read or listen.
Kabir wrote in almost as many as 5 Indian vernacular languages, namely, Bhojpuri, Rajasthani, Awadhi, Punjabi, and Khadi Boli. It’s not surprising to see that 541 of Kabir’s verses/poems have been included in the Guru Granth Sahib/ Adi Granth (holy text for the Sikhs). On the downside, Hess explained that two of Kabir’s poems that were excluded from the Adi Granth were “Ulat Bansi”. “Both were Ulat Bansi, “upside-down language” poems with outrageous, nonsensical, sometimes shocking imagery” (Hess, 2015). Ulat Bansi are an intriguing category of poems credited to poet-saint Kabir. They are considered bizarre, paradoxical, and yet are a rhetorical teaching tactic that proves meaningful but may not be so simpatico for all.
It is believed that Kabir used the ‘Shabda’ or lyrical poem format to redress social, religious, and political grievances. While ‘Sakhi’ or rhymed couplets were for more important and cosmic, spiritual tools that soothed the ascetic. Another rarely used format ‘ramaini’ was a long prose-like poetic form that Kabir used to repudiate religious orthodox beliefs, common in his time.
Literary works attributed to Kabir include Kabir Bijak, Kabir Parachai, Sakhi Granth, Adi Granth (Sikh), and Kabir Granthawali (Rajasthan).
Kabir’s Philosophy
A fascinating personality in the history of Indian Mysticism, Kabir; his philosophy is often described as a ‘syncretic synthesis of Hinduism and Islam.’ Kabir was a fierce social and religious reformer, he lived his entire life unifying Hindus and Muslims; fighting the caste system, class oppression, and orthodox customs that prevailed around him.
His major philosophies included:
Rejection of major religious traditions.
Criticism of all forms of external worship of both Brahmanical Hinduism and Islam.
Criticism of priestly classes and the caste system.
Belief in a formless Supreme God (Nirgun).
Emphasis on Bhakti or devotion to achieve salvation.
Kabir declared that God is one, supreme, and exists within the manifestation of each of us; all we must do is seek it. He pushed people to move beyond the boundaries, divisions, and hypocrisies of religion and orthodox tradition. He used the art of rhetoric and his hard-hitting sarcastic flair to mock not only the orthodox Hindu customary but also the Sufi and Muslim seers. He mocked not just their existence but each tradition he found faulty.
For Hindus who believed in idol worship he said:
“ Pahan puje hari mile, toh mein puju pahar,
Tate yeh chaaki bhali, pees khaye sansar"
-Sant Kabir
He condemned idol worship and believed in a formless, all-pervading almighty that existed within. He taunts the Hindus that pray to an idol in the search of God and iterates that a flour millstone at one’s house is more useful than a stone idol since it at least fills people’s stomachs.
He mocked the Muslims by saying:
“Kankar-pathar jod ke, masjid laye banaye,
Taa chadha mulla baang de, kya behra hua khuday?”
-Sant Kabir
He mocks the ‘Mulla’ (Islamic priest) for standing atop the masjid and shouting out the ‘Azaan’ (prayer). Kabir questions the validity of such an act by asking if Allah (God) has turned deaf and so the priest must shout. He goes into the intricacies of such customs and rituals to bring out their futility.
He says for the Hindu tradition of sacrificing hair:
“Kesaun kaha bigaadiya, je munde sau baar.
Mann ko kaahe na mundiye, jaa mai base vikaar.”
-Sant Kabir
He wonders why one must sacrifice and shave their heads so often. He chides us to once-in-a-while look within and clean(shave) our insides, where all human vices lie.
Kabir uses his words to enunciate the formless divine that lies beyond words. Nirgun (literally, “without attributes”) names the view that God cannot be positively conceived and should not be worshiped through images or other visual forms (Hawley and Juergensmeyer, 2004)
For the formless divine, he says:
“ Jaise til mein tel hai, jyon chakmak mein aag,
Tera Sai tujh mein, jaag sake toh jaag.”
-Sant Kabir
Kabir teaches us that just like there is oil in the sesame seed, and a bright spark in every fire, our God lies within us and it is our choice to wake up to him and go within.
Kabir lived in an era where the poetry and perfervid philosophy of the Persian mystics like Sadi, Attar, Rumi, Hafiz created a formidable influence on the Indian religious and philosophical thought, he lived to inspire a commingling of the mystic Sufi thought with the traditional theology of Brahmanism. We can also safely contend that Kabir was triumphant in blending the influence of Jewish, Hellenistic, and Christian thought down in his poems. (Linda Hess)
He proudly asserted that he was “at once the child of Allah and of Ram.” It indeed is difficult to categorize him as a Brahmin or Sufi or Vaishnavite or Vedantist. His life, works, beliefs were all impassioned to the act of wiping out boundaries and divisions, whether religious or social, and devoted to his love and euphoric innate friendship with the Supreme Universal Being in the prism of all metaphysicality and transcendent reality.
Most ignore the fact that the growth of his spiritual genius did not follow the traditional route of Oriental Mysticism, for he was no ascetic. A mere weaver, who wrote poetry, made music, and the father a family who eulogized the quality of ethics in diurnal existence, changed the wave of religious identification and brought to us creations of mystic madness.
A Common Ground
Oftentimes, my heart wonders, what would the conversation be if Kabir and Kahlil met?
Somewhere between night and day, by the river, so to say:
“What’s the source of thy beauty, and what’s the beat of thy soul?”
And both reply at noontide: “the divine infinite, the one who sifts my soul.”
And in awe and wonder, they speak, converse through summer and fall,
Talking of Oneness, Nature, Friendship, Love, Life, Family, and thy God’s call.
And they must speak of the Divine like he’s the man/woman they know alike:
Kabir utters, “I am neither in Kaaba, nor in Kailash: Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga or renunciation. If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me, thou shalt meet me in a moment of time. Kabir says, “Oh Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath!”
And to that, Kahlil mouths the word, “Then God leaned over me, and in my ears whispered words of sweetness, and even as the sea that enfoldeth a brook that runneth down to her, he enfolded me. And when I descended to the valleys and the plains God was there also.”
And both would look, scornfully, at men who use prosthetics of divide and hate.
And both would tramp down streets and sing noisily, their prose like poems, with love to dedicate.
Both would profess in many a language within their wonted lives of weaving and painting, a breathing artistry,
They might speak of souls and nature like a communion well-known,
Kahlil would say, “the soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.”
While Kabir sat asserting, “In your body is a garden of flowers. Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there, gaze on the Infinite Beauty.”
They must think, believe, and preach alike; they must talk angrily so to reform thy byway,
And bring you the cosmos in a platter of sublime metaphors, some rebellious to say.
And if they even did bechance each other, what a joy the colloquy would bring,
A weaver, a painter, an Indian, an Arab, but beyond the boundaries of boundaries, joyously would the mystical madmen sing.
-Hritika Ahuja
References:
One hundred poems of Kabir- Rabindranath Tagore and Evelyn Underhill
The Bijak of Kabir- Linda Hess and Sukhdeo Singh
Gibran Kahlil Gibran between Two Millennia- Professor Irfan Shahid
Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill
The Greatest Works of Kahlil Gibran-Omnibus Edition
Kahlil Gibran: Man and Poet- S Bushrui and J Jenkins
Spiritual Revival and Social Rebellion in William Blake and Kahlil Gibran: A comparative study by Shabir Husain Ganaie (thesis)
https://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=5705
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kabir-Indian-mystic-and-poet
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