life
Kabir was born in a weaver's family and later adopted by childless Muslim weavers named Niru and Nimma, who found him near Lahara Tara lake, adjacent to the holy city of Varanasi.
A Bhakti saint, who sang the ideals of seeing all of humanity as one, his name, Kabir, is often interpreted as Guru's Grace.
A weaver by profession, Kabir ranks among the world's greatest poets. In India, he is perhaps the most quoted author. The Holy Guru Granth Sahib contains over 500 verses by Kabir. The Sikh community in particular and others who follow the Holy Granth, hold Kabir in the same reverence as the other ten Gurus.
Kabir openly criticized all sects and gave a new direction to the Indian philosophy. This is due to his straight forward approach that has a universal appeal. It is for this reason that Kabir is held in high esteem all over the world. To call Kabir a universal Guru is not an exaggeration.
Kabir is also considered one of the early northern India Sants. One source for modern adaptations of Kabir's poetry is Robert Bly's The Kabir Book: Forty-Four of the Ecstatic Poems of Kabir.
Kabir is associated with the Sant Mat, a loosely related group of teachers (Sanskrit: Guru) that assumed prominence in the northern part of the Indian sub-continent from about the 13th century. Their teachings are distinguished theologically by inward loving devotion to a divine principle, and socially by an egalitarianism opposed to the qualitative distinctions of the Hindu caste hierarchy and to the religious differences between Hindu and Muslim.
The Sants were not homogeneous, consisting mostly of these Sants' presentation of socio-religious attitudes based on bhakti (devotion) as described earlier in the Bhagavad Gita.] Sharing as few conventions with each other as with the followers of the traditions they challenged, the Sants appear more as a diverse collection of spiritual personalities than a specific religious tradition, although they acknowledged a common spiritual root.
The first generation of north Indian Sants, (which included Kabir), appeared in the region of Benares in the mid 15th century. Preceding them were two notable 13th and 14th century figures, Namdev and Ramananda. The latter, a Vaishnava ascetic, initiated Kabir, Raidas, and other Sants, according to tradition. Ramanand's story is told differently by his lineage of "Ramanandi" monks, by other Sants preceding him, and later by the Guru Nanak and subsequent Sikh Gurus. What is known is that Ramananda accepted students of all castes, a fact that was contested by the orthodox Hindus of that time, and that his students formed the first generation of Sants
Kabir was influenced by prevailing religious mood such as old Brahmanic Hinduism, Hindu and Buddhist Tantrism, teachings of Nath yogis and the personal devotinalism from South India mixed with imageless God of Islam.The influence of these various doctrines is clearly evident in Kabir's verses. Even though he is often presented to be synthesizer of Hinduism and Islam: the observation is held to be a false one.
The basic religious principles he espouses are simple. According to Kabir, all life is an interplay of two spiritual principles. One is the personal soul (Jivatma) and the other is God (Paramatma). It is Kabir's view that salvation is the process of bringing into union these two divine principles. The social and practical manifestation of Kabir's philosophy has rung through the ages. It represented a synthesis of Hindu, and Muslim concepts. From Hinduism he accepts the concept of reincarnation and the law of Karma. From Islam he takes the outer practices of Indian Sufi ascetics and Sufi mysticism. Not only has Kabir influenced Muslims and Hindus but he is one of the major inspirations behind Sikhism as well.Despite legend that claims Kabir met with Guru Nanak, their lifespans do not overlap in time. The presence of much of his verse in Sikh scripture and the fact that Kabir was a predecessor of Nanak has led some western scholars to mistakenly describe him as a forerunner of Sikhism.
His greatest work is the Bijak (that is, the Seedling), an idea of the fundamental one. This collection of poems demonstrates Kabir's own universal view of spirituality. His vocabulary is replete with ideas regarding Brahman and Hindu ideas of karma and reincarnation. His Hindi was a vernacular, straightforward kind, much like his philosophies. He often advocated leaving aside the Qur'an and Vedas and to simply follow 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 holy Sikh scripture "Guru Granth Sahib".
While many ideas reign as to who his living influences were, the only Guru of whom he ever spoke was Satguru. Kabir never made a mention of any human guru (except for Ramananda) in his life or verses, the only reference found in his verses is of God as Satguru. Traditionally a Vaishnav saint, Ramananda, is held to be his guru.