Raag Bhairao, Shabad (four stanzas with rahau), Bhagat Kabir
Keep me close to You — being near You is all the heaven I could ever want.
The Arc
One of Kabir's great interfaith hymns, spoken almost entirely in the vocabulary of his Muslim neighbors. It opens with a boundless court of commanders, prophets, and shaykhs; the rahau voices the poor person's ache — how will my small voice be heard so far away? The middle stanzas hold two traditions' pictures together (Adam in paradise; countless lifetimes) and warn gently against abandoning one's own good teaching and blaming the world. The close is tender: You give, I receive with open hands; keep me near, for nearness itself is heaven.
Key Vocabulary
Salaar — commanders. Paikaabar — prophets. Saykh — shaykhs, learned guides. Baba Adam — Adam, the first human. Bhisat — paradise. Kateb — the revealed scriptures. Rehmaan — the Merciful (a name of the One). Daataa — the Giver. Bhikhaaree — one with open, empty hands. Panah — shelter.
Themes and Cross-Connections
This hymn is a cornerstone of the scripture's interfaith spirit: a Hindu-born, low-caste weaver praising the One entirely through Muslim words, showing that the divine belongs to no single tradition's vocabulary. It joins Kabir's recurring theme that grandeur is not the path to God — nearness is — and that heaven is a relationship, not a location. The "own actions return" line carries the plain moral logic of karma.
For Raag Bhairao
Bhairao's awake brightness carries this hymn's movement from vast distance to intimate closeness — from a court too far to reach, to a shelter right beside you. It fits the Bhagat block's work of holding Hindu and Muslim as one.
Translation Notes
— Interfaith (full strength): the entire hymn is rendered in respectful Muslim vocabulary — salaar, paikaabar, saykh, Baba Adam, bhisat, kateb, Rehmaan — presented reverently as ways of praising the one God, never exoticized. Adam and paradise are honored alongside the Indic image of many lifetimes, evenhandedly. — Chhod kateb karai saitaanee: read as a universal warning against abandoning one's own good teaching and turning bitter, explicitly not as anti-Muslim; "satanic" softened to "harmful." — Wellbeing: the literal's "wretched sinner" (bajgaaree) is dropped; bhikhaaree ("beggar") rendered as honest open-handedness toward grace, not self-abasement. — Bhisat najeek: rendered as "heaven is nearness," keeping the hymn's tender resolution.
Keep me close to You — being near You is all the heaven I could ever want.
The Arc
One of Kabir's great interfaith hymns, spoken almost entirely in the vocabulary of his Muslim neighbors. It opens with a boundless court of commanders, prophets, and shaykhs; the rahau voices the poor person's ache — how will my small voice be heard so far away? The middle stanzas hold two traditions' pictures together (Adam in paradise; countless lifetimes) and warn gently against abandoning one's own good teaching and blaming the world. The close is tender: You give, I receive with open hands; keep me near, for nearness itself is heaven.
Key Vocabulary
Salaar — commanders. Paikaabar — prophets. Saykh — shaykhs, learned guides. Baba Adam — Adam, the first human. Bhisat — paradise. Kateb — the revealed scriptures. Rehmaan — the Merciful (a name of the One). Daataa — the Giver. Bhikhaaree — one with open, empty hands. Panah — shelter.
Themes and Cross-Connections
This hymn is a cornerstone of the scripture's interfaith spirit: a Hindu-born, low-caste weaver praising the One entirely through Muslim words, showing that the divine belongs to no single tradition's vocabulary. It joins Kabir's recurring theme that grandeur is not the path to God — nearness is — and that heaven is a relationship, not a location. The "own actions return" line carries the plain moral logic of karma.
For Raag Bhairao
Bhairao's awake brightness carries this hymn's movement from vast distance to intimate closeness — from a court too far to reach, to a shelter right beside you. It fits the Bhagat block's work of holding Hindu and Muslim as one.
Translation Notes
— Interfaith (full strength): the entire hymn is rendered in respectful Muslim vocabulary — salaar, paikaabar, saykh, Baba Adam, bhisat, kateb, Rehmaan — presented reverently as ways of praising the one God, never exoticized. Adam and paradise are honored alongside the Indic image of many lifetimes, evenhandedly. — Chhod kateb karai saitaanee: read as a universal warning against abandoning one's own good teaching and turning bitter, explicitly not as anti-Muslim; "satanic" softened to "harmful." — Wellbeing: the literal's "wretched sinner" (bajgaaree) is dropped; bhikhaaree ("beggar") rendered as honest open-handedness toward grace, not self-abasement. — Bhisat najeek: rendered as "heaven is nearness," keeping the hymn's tender resolution.