both creeds are impartially condemned. "They
are good riders who keep aloof from the Veda and Koran."[655] Caste,
circumcision and idolatry are reprobated. The Hindu deities and their
incarnations are all dead: God was not in any of them.[656] Ram, it
would seem, should be understood not as Ramacandra but as a name of
God.

Yet the general outlook is Hindu rather than Mohammedan. God is the
magician who brings about this illusory world in which the soul
wanders.[657] "I was in immobile and mobile creatures, in worms and in
moths; I passed through many various births. But when I assumed a
human body, I was a Yogi, a Yati, a penitent, a Brahmacari: sometimes
an Emperor and sometimes a beggar." Unlike the Sikhs, Kabir teaches
the sanctity of life, even of plants. "Thou cuttest leaves, O flower
girl: in every leaf there is life." Release, as for all Hindus,
consists in escaping from the round of births and deaths. Of this he
speaks almost in the language of the Buddha.[658]

"Though I have assumed many shapes, this is my last.
The strings and wires of the musical instrument are all worn out:
I am now in the power of God's name.
I shall not again have to dance to the tune of birth and death.
Nor shall my heart accompany on the drum."

This deliverance is accomplished by the union or identification of the
soul with God.

"Remove the difference between thyself and God and thou shalt be
united with him....
Him whom I sought without me, now I find within me....
Know God: by knowing him thou shalt become as he.
When the soul and God are blended no one can distinguish them."[659]

But if he sometimes writes like Sankara, he also has the note of the
Psalms and Gospels. He has the sense of sin: he thinks of God in vivid
personal metaphors, as a lord, a bridegroom, a parent, both father and
mother.

"Save me, O God, though I have offended thee....
I forgot him who made me and did cleave unto strangers."
"Sing, sing, the marriage song.
The sovereign God hath come to my house as my husband....
I obtained God as my bridegroom; so great has been my good
fortune."

"A mother beareth not in mind
All the faults her son committeth.
O, God, I am thy child:
Why blottest thou not out my sins?" ...

"My Father is the great Lord of the Earth;
To that Father how shall I go?"[660]

The writings of Kab