Kabeerdaas ji is categorized as a saint but his thoughts and compositions are not confined to religion, spirituality, meditation and bhajans alone.  He also deals with worldly life – the character and behaviour of individuals; practices (and malpractices) rampant in society; evils of caste system which divides people into ‘high’ and ‘low’ classes, etc.  He also goes in depth in denouncing superstitions and hypocrisy prevalent in practice of religions and sects in general.  He considers them as obstructions in the way of health, peace and happiness of society.  We should take all these things into account if we want to understand and interpret Kabeer’s poetry correctly.

— Kusum Banthia

हिन्दी में पढ़िये

माया मुई न मन मुआ, मर मर गया सरीर ।
आसा तृस्ना ना मरी, मर गए दास कबीर।।

Maayaa mui na man muaa, mar mar gayaa sareer
Aaasaa trisnaa naa marii, mar gaye daas Kabeer

Human beings and their life in this world, according to Kabeerdaas ji, are just illusions created by Maya.  Man is only a part of The Supreme Being, but Maya misleads him into believing himself an independent entity.  Forgetting his true nature, he gets entangled in worldly pleasures, desires, anger, attachment, etc.  His involvement into these becomes so deep and so strong that even at the end of his life, he continues to hanker after them rather than thinking of the hereafter or liberation of his soul.  Kabeerdaas ji says that these longings continue with him even after death.  His body dies, but under maya’s influence his desires for worldly pleasures keep clinging to his soul.  Kabeerdaas ji is not providing any solution of this situation here, but is warning people of the state of affairs. In the end Kabeerdaas ji cites his own name as representative of human race whose hopes and desires live on even after carnal death (although in many of his works he claims to have realised the futility of worldly desires and having risen above them)

चलती चाकी देखकर, दिया कबीरा रोय ।
दो पाटन के बीच में, बाक़ी बचा न कोय ।।

Chalatii chaakii dekh kar, diyaa Kabeeraa roy
Do paatan ke beech men, baakii bachaa na koy

In this couplet Kabeerdaas ji says that he tends to cry when he sees a quern working at grinding grains because, whatever comes between the two stone slabs of the quern, is crushed to annihilation. Here the metaphor of quern has been used to denote the predicament of the human beings caught in the unmanageable mesh of this world.
Brahman, the Supreme Being permeates the entire universe. Even human beings are manifestations of Brahman. But the net of illusion spread by Maya has entangled them so inexorably that they fail to perceive the Truth and are led to believe that the visible world is the only reality. For them, the ‘real’ happiness lies in worldly pleasures, facilities, pelf and power, and all his actions and efforts are directed towards acquiring them. But all this fails to accord him peace in this world or promise him joy and peace in afterlife. Kabeerdass ji likens their predicament to the grain between the upper and lower stone slabs of quern. When the upper stone is rotated with a handle the grain is crushed completely and ceases to exist. Similarly, human beings are constantly crushed under the various conditions and situations in their search for worldly pleasures. They become completely oblivious of the fact of their
being basically the Supreme Conscious and Supreme Blissful Brahman. Kabeerdaas ji finds this situation extremely tragic.