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they have always wanted, available in paradise forever and forever.
I have watched it in poor countries -- because I have been in India -- the poor are the least discontented people. It is shocking. They cannot manage even one meal a day; sometimes they have just to drink water and go to sleep. I have asked them, "Why are you drinking so much water?" And they have said, "Just so that the stomach feels full. Food is not available."
But I have not seen these people feeling despair -- they should. They don't think life is meaningless -- they should. They don't raise a question about God -- they should. But poor people are not discontented. They have accepted poverty as fate, as something God-given. And crackpots like Jesus have been telling people, "Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the kingdom of God." So it is only a question of a few days more, or a few years. The kingdom of God is not far away.
And they have a certain joy imagining that they will be in paradise enjoying everything possible -- beautiful women, rivers of wine -- and the rich people will be suffering in hellfire. They will be able to look from above at what is happening to Henry Ford and Rockefeller and the Kennedys. They still believe this. In India, for five thousand years there has been no revolution. People have taken suffering as something natural, to be taken for granted.
Why did it happen on the continent of Europe that existentialism became the most important philosophical movement? For the simple reason that Europe was affluent, rich. And when you are rich, affluent, when you have all that you want, paradise means nothing to you. What can paradise give to you which Paris cannot give?
And when they had all that a man can desire, they suddenly became aware -- even if all these things are given, something is still missing: the meaning. They have everything, but that black hole of anguish inside them is not diminished; it has really become more clear in contrast to all the riches and all the comforts and all the luxuries. Now they can see that nothing can help.
A tremendous helplessness -- that is anguish. An ultimate hopelessness -- that is
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