SPEAKING TREE
Universal Fellowship Through Bhakti Marga

Bhakti is founded in a spirit ofuniversal fellowship and poetry is one more expression of this same fellowship.The verses of Mirabai, Tulsidas, Kabir, Ravidas and Tukaram are quotedfrequently by people from all strata of life. Their poetry expresses concernabout life: its difficulties, the loneliness, hypocrisy and pain. The bhaktipoets seek God’s help to sustain them on this difficult journey. So eventoday, through their poetry, the bhakti saints continue to influence our dailylives.“Who could long for anything but you? My master, you aremerciful to the poor; you have shielded my head with a regal parasol� sangRavidas. A cobbler by profession, Ravidas was scorned at by members of the uppercastes. Not that Kabir, a weaver by profession, received any better treatment atthe hands of the powerful Brahmin community of Benaras. Extremely generous bynature, Kabir is known to have gone out of his way to help the needy. The resultwas that there was never enough money for his family, much to the chagrin of hismother and wife.“I’m born a weaver,/ so what?/I’ve got the Lord in my heart./ Kabir/ Secure in the arms of Ram/ freefrom every snare,� cried Kabir. Even today, Mirabai’s songs are sungthroughout India. Yet her life was one long struggle. Mira lost both her husbandand father by the time she reached the age of 30. As a childless widow, she felta tremendous sense of isolation. The Jodhpur branch of the family succeeded insidelining the branch to which Mirabai’s family belonged, only adding toher woes. She then turned to her “Giridhar Gopala� to rescue herfrom her problems.“Life without Hari is no life, friend/ Andthough my mother-in-law fights,/ My sister-in-law teases, the Rana is angered,/A guard is stationed outside/ Mira’s Lord is the clever Mountain Lifter;/Why should I want anyone else?� asked Mirabai. The city ofBenaras also produced Tulsidas, the author of Ramcharitmanas. As a young child,he faced tremendous odds and yet went on to affirm in his writing both thenirguna and saguna faces of the Lord. “I recognise/ Only onerelationship: devotion/...Devotion is like a cloud without water’’,he sang. Nanak preached the truth of God and the inadequacy of humaninstitutions to capture his essence. Nanak’s poems exude a deeptranquillity as he speaks about the Divine. Nanak says: “If the True Guruis gracious/ trust becomes complete./ If the True Guru is gracious/ no one everwastes away./ If the True Guru is gracious/ trouble is something unknown./ Ifthe True Guru is gracious/ one is painted with God’s hue.�The poet-saints were looking to achieve an inner emancipation socompelling and generous in scope that all other concerns and for-ms of freedommust be reconsidered in relationship with it. Each of them longed forliberation. They longed to be free from the fetters forged by ignorance. Theseliberated souls freed themselves from the shackles of the mind, from theincessant pull of the senses and severed themselves from the attachment thatbinds us to egoistic concepts. Every one of them was filled with a burningliberation to know God. Swami Chidvilasananda of the Gurudev SiddhaPeeth, Ganeshpuri, is no mean poet herself. Writing in the bhakti tradition, shesays: “The purest love of all/ the feeling called devotion,/ is even morebrilliant/ than the millions of stars/ scattered across the soft nightsky.� The love of God, these poets maintain, helps tie theuniverse to its creation. No wonder the bhakti poets keep returning to thissource of divine love for solace and to give expression to their stro-ngegalitarian sentiments.