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cases, tremendously sick, suicidal. And the person who was their leader was a unique person. He was torturing himself, and he was the leader because he tortured himself more than anybody else; that was the only criterion of who was going to be the leader. And he was teaching others to torture themselves in every possible way.
All around the world poverty has been respected for the simple reason that people had no idea how to get rid of it. And why was it respected? If you are born poor, then nobody will respect you; if you are born a beggar, nobody will respect you. But if you are the son of a king and you renounce the kingdom and become a beggar, then the whole country will respect you. Do you know that all the twenty-four tirthankaras of the Jainas are kings who have renounced their kingdoms? Why does not a single one come from another profession? -- for the simple reason, if you are already poor what can you renounce? First you have to have it to renounce. And these kings were respected because they had never walked; they were carried in golden chariots. They had never suffered anything, and now they were standing naked in the hot sun of India, burning.
The Jaina tirthankara is not allowed to take a bath; that is considered to be a luxury. A bath is a luxury! And in India, where you are perspiring the whole day.... And a naked monk perspiring the whole day, and India is a country full of dust -- he remains in filth. Only once in a year -- and then too, he is not to take the bath -- his followers pour water on him... not to give him a bath, because that will be a sin, to drag him into luxury. No, that is not the purpose; the purpose is that they want that holy water. You cannot find more unholy water. A man who has not taken a single shower in the whole year -- has been naked, perspiring, collecting all kinds of dust, and all kinds of germs -- is now being given a bath, and that water is collected. And people, the followers, drink it, because it is the purest water, from a tirthankara!
These people have strange ways. In India, to avoid luxury these people are walking in the nude, eating once a day -- and very little food; they are starving.
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