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 low-caste weaver — raised in a Muslim Julaha family, though traditional accounts of his birth differ — 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 low-caste weaver — raised in a Muslim Julaha family, though traditional accounts of his birth differ — 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.