The Shared Mirror

1. If thou thinkest the Maker distinguished castes:

birth is according to these penalties for deeds.

2. Born a Sudra you die a Sudra:

it is only in this world of illusion that you assume the
sacred thread.

3. If birth from a Brahman mother makes you Brahman:

why did you not come by another way ?

4. If birth from a Turk mother makes you Turk:

why were you not circumcised in the womb ?

5. If you milk black and yellow cows together:

will you be able to distinguish their milk ?

6. Sakhi :—O men, give up your pretence of great wisdom.

Says Kabir, Recite the name of the Bow-holder.

From The Bijak of Kabir, translated by the Rev. Ahmad Shah.
 

Worship, libations, six sacred rites,

this dharma's full of ritual blights.

Four ages teaching Gayatri, I ask you, who won liberty?

You wash your body if you touch another,

tell me who could be lower than you?

Proud of your merit, puffed up with your rights,

no good comes out of such great pride.

How could he whose very name

is pride-destroyer endure the same?

Drop the limits of caste and clan,

seek for freedom's space,

destroy the shoot, destroy the seed,

seek the unembodied place. 

Kabir: Ramaini 35, translation by Hess and Singh in The Bijak of Kabir 1986. 

Source:  Caste is the cruellest exclusion by Gail Omvedt.