that soul's intercourse with the spiritual world. Its affirmation
was one of the distinguishing features of the Vaishnavite
reformation preached by Râmânuja; the principle of which had
descended through Râmânanda to Kabîr.

Last, the warmly human and direct apprehension of God as the
supreme Object of love, the soul's comrade, teacher, and
bridegroom, which is so passionately and frequently expressed in
Kabîr's poems, balances and controls those abstract tendencies
which are inherent in the metaphysical side of his vision of
Reality: and prevents it from degenerating into that sterile
worship of intellectual formulæ which became the curse of the
Vedântist school. For the mere intellectualist, as for the mere
pietist, he has little approbation. [Footnote: Cf. especially
Nos. LIX, LXVII, LXXV, XC, XCI.] Love is throughout his
"absolute sole Lord": the unique source of the more abundant life
which he enjoys, and the common factor which unites the finite
and infinite worlds. All is soaked in love: that love which he
described in almost Johannine language as the "Form of God."
The whole of creation is the Play of the Eternal Lover; the
living, changing, growing expression of Brahma's love and joy.
As these twin passions preside over the generation of human life,
so "beyond the mists of pleasure and pain" Kabîr finds them
governing the creative acts of God. His manifestation is love;
His activity is joy. Creation springs from one glad act of
affirmation: the Everlasting Yea, perpetually uttered within the
depths of the Divine Nature. [Footnote: Nos. XVII, XXVI, LXXVI,
LXXXII.] In accordance with this concept of the universe as a
Love-Game which eternally goes forward, a progressive
manifestation of Brahma--one of the many notions which he adopted