So thorough-going is
Kab?r's eclecticism, that he seems by turns Ved?ntist and
Vaishnavite, Pantheist and Transcendentalist, Br?hman and S?f?.
In the effort to tell the truth about that ineffable apprehension,
so vast and yet so near, which controls his life, he seizes and
twines together--as he might have woven together contrasting
threads upon his loom--symbols and ideas drawn from the most
violent and conflicting philosophies and faiths. All are needed,
if he is ever to suggest the character of that One whom the
Upanishad called "the Sun-coloured Being who is beyond this
Darkness": as all the colours of the spectrum are needed if we
would demonstrate the simple richness of white light. In thus
adapting traditional materials to his own use he follows a method
common amongst the mystics; who seldom exhibit any special love
for originality of form. They will pour their wine into almost
any vessel that comes to hand: generally using by preference--and
lifting to new levels of beauty and significance--the religious or
philosophic formul? current in their own day.
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