Sage Kabir had no specific religion; to belong to all exhibits true richness and that is how it should be, says OSHO
Kabir has not said much about himself, not even this much is known — whether he was a Hindu or a Mohammedan. The story goes that he was born a Mohammedan but was brought up by a Hindu. And this is beautiful; this is how it should be. He has the heritage of two rich traditions: Hindu and Mohammedan. look at my richness. I am a Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Sikh and a Parsi. Not only that, I am a theist and an atheist too. I claim the whole heritage of humanity.
The whole humanity is yours, the whole evolution of human consciousness is yours, but you are so miserly. Somebody has become a Hindu; he claims only a corner — and lives in that corner, crippled and paralysed. In fact, the corner is so narrow you cannot move. A religious person will claim all — Buddha, Mahavir, Christ, Zarathustra, lao Tzu, Nanak, Kabir. They are all part of me; they are all part of you.
Whatsoever has happened to human consciousness, you carry the seeds of it in you. This is the one thing to be understood about Kabir: That he was born as a Mohammedan and brought up by a Hindu. And it never became conclusive to whom he had really belonged. Even at the time when he was dying it was a dispute among his disciples. Both the Hindus and Mohammedans were claiming his body, and there is a beautiful parable about it. Kabir had left a message about his death. He knew it was going to happen — people are foolish, they will claim the body and there is going to be conflict — so he had left a message: “If there is any conflict, just cover my body with a sheet and wait, and the decision will come.” The body was covered and both of the communities started praying and when the cover was removed, Kabir had disappeared — only a few flowers were there. Those flowers were then divided between them.
I call it a parable because I don’t say that it had really happened, but it does show something. A man like Kabir has already disappeared. He is not in his body. He is in his inner flowering. His sahasrar, his one-thousand-petaled lotus, has flowered. You are in the body only to a certain extent. The body has a certain function to fulfil; the function is that of consciousness flowering. Once the consciousness has flowered, the body is nonexistential. It does not matter whether it exists or not. It is simply irrelevant. The parable is beautiful. When they removed the cover there were only a few flowers left. Kabir is a flowering.
However, the stupid disciples would still not understand. They divided the flowers. Remember one thing: all ideologies are dangerous. They divide people. You become a Hindu, you become a Mohammedan, you become a Jaina, a Christian: you are divided. All ideologies create conflicts. All ideologies are violent. A real man of understanding has no ideology; then he is undivided, then he is one with the whole of humanity. Not only that, he is one with the whole of existence. A real man of understanding is a flowering.
These songs of Kabir are tremendously beautiful. He is a poet; he is not a philosopher. He has not created a system. He is not a theoretician or a theologian. He is not interested in doctrines, in scriptures. His whole interest is in how to flower and become a god. His whole effort is how to make you more loving, more alert.
Excerpts taken from Osho’s discourses