Kamaal Kabir – Children’s Contribution

Countless saints in our Kali Yuga preach the path of chanting the divine Hari Nama, as it is the easiest path to attain the lotus feet of our Lord. In other yugas, one had to endure tough penance for years to attain salvation. However, times have changed and we do not seem to have the time or ability to sit down in penance. Due to this, it has been said that the chanting of Hari Nama can be performed at any time of the day and with little effort.

Here is one story of how the divine name changed a boy’s life:

Kabir was a great saint who was well-known for his unfathomable devotion towards the Divine Name of Sri Rama. Although he was very poor and often barely had anything to eat himself, he made it a point to satiate the hunger of anyone who sang the praises of the Lord.

On one occasion, the saint did not have enough materials to prepare the meals to give to visiting bhaktas for an event the next day. So he and his son, Kamaal, went out that night to get some food from a nearby merchant’s house. As it was night, the store was closed, so they decided to get whatever they needed without the consent of the merchant. As the doors were locked, Kabir and Kamaal made a small hole through the wall for Kamaal to quickly enter in. After a brief ten minutes, he efficiently got all the items needed to prepare the meals for the event the following day. Although Kamaal was able to enter the house, he was not able to exit as his head got stuck in the hole. Fearing that the food would not be served the next day if they got caught, Kamaal – who also greatly valued service of sadhus like his father – asked his father to cut off his head, so that the police would not be able to identify the thief. Kabir then severed his son’s head saying, “If it is Rama’s will that my son should die, so be it.”

The next day, the shopkeeper promptly handed over the body to the king who ordered that the body be tied on a tree in a busy street, so that someone would claim the boy’s body in order to perform his last rites. It so happened that a kirtan procession led by Kabir with the sadhus passed that way that morning. As the bhaktas performed kirtan, the body of Kamaal, the devotee actually started clapping perfectly to the tune of the song, even though he was dead. Such was the greatness of saint Kamaal and the greatness of Hari Nama.

Rithwik Raman 13 years, Richmond VA