Babaji and the Great Poet Kabir
Babaji initiated the great saint and poet Kabir (1407 – 1518 A.D). His Sadhana or yogic practice of his disciples, emphasized upon meditation on the “Nada” or the divine sound. The followers of poet Kabir resembled the sect of the Siddhas and the Tamil poems of Siddhas also express heterodox sentiments of the same nature.
Saint Kabir Das was a great poet. The birth of Kabir remains to this day shrouded in mystery and legend. It is believed that his birth was a divine virginal one. Born to Brahmin virgin mother after her visit to a Hindu shrine, was abandoned and was however adopted by a Muslim weaver.
Kabir, instead of choosing the Hindu religion or Islam, took what seemed to him to be the best tenets of both and he preached his own religion, called Sahaja-Yoga or “Simple Union”. He thus became the forerunner of a number of cults, of which Kabirpanth is the most important.
Even in the Kabirpanth the predominant element is one God is venerated; all religious writing is in the vernacular; the position of the Guru or the religious preceptor is central to the faith and he is greatly esteemed; and the theory of caste is completely rejected.
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