Kabir: the poet, saint and weaver of Ancient India (FULL VERSION)

This is the full version of the documentary I made about Kabir in Benaras in 2004.

"If bathing in the Ganges brought salvation, then every fish is in heaven." – Kabir

KABIR was the great poet-saint and weaver of medieval India; a God-realizer and iconoclast. Kabir was critical of the caste system and, like many other saints, talked of the quality of a man or woman, not his or her birth lineage, as the expression and indicator of their worth. He praised true saints, spiritual practice, and love while criticizing the hypocritical, hateful, and divisive people and fundamentalist aspects of the religious traditions that surrounded him, those of the Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs . . . yet even today, each of these traditions revere him as a saint.

During the winter of 2004, I lived in Benaras. and visited and photographed the world of the Julahas, the Muslim weaving community in which Kabir lived and worked.

Although it now seems obvious, it was a revelation for me to find so much of Kabir's imagery and metaphors to be drawn from the world of the weavers in which he lived. Visiting Benaras and its weaving community gave me a better taste of the flavors that Kabir tastes and the images of which his metaphors are made. I believe such a visit would allow anyone to see more deeply into his poetry and this movie is a tiny record of such a visit.

This 30-minute movie will give you a brief look and feel of Kabir's life and take you on a visit to the world he lived in, his teaching, ideas, and the world of the weavers in Benaras.

Throughout the movie are many poems of Kabir, most of them taken from Robert Bly's translation.

I hope you enjoy the film