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right, I will not complain."
Lao Tzu waited for a moment and then said, "Both of you, you and the man whose house you have been stealing from, are criminals."
"Both?" the rich man asked. "Are you in your senses?"
Lao Tzu said, "You have collected so much money, that almost fifty percent of the wealth of the city is in your hands, with the other fifty percent in the whole city's hands. This situation creates the possibility of stealing. This man is a victim; in fact you are the criminal. But I will be very equal: six months jail for both."
The rich man said, "My God! I have never heard that when somebody steals from your house you are jailed!" He said, "I want first to see the emperor! Even the emperor owes money to me. Whenever he wants, I have been giving money to him."
And he went to the emperor and said what had happened. "And I have come to remind you that soon you will be in jail also! If this man is going to remain the supreme judge of the empire, you cannot remain out of jail long. We are small criminals according to him. You are the biggest criminal."
The emperor said, "Perhaps he was right that I would repent. Don't be worried, I will release him from the service immediately."
He called Lao Tzu and said, "This is a very strange judgement."
Lao Tzu said, "It is not. If people were living in harmony with nature, if people were compassionate to each other, if they felt a certain brotherhood with each other, then how could there be rich people and poor people? There should only be people. And there is enough." At least in those times it was perfectly true, there was enough for everybody to live comfortably.
At that time when Lao Tzu said that, in India the population was only two million. Now the population is nine hundred million, and by the end of this century, if humanity survives -- the chances are very slim -- India will have one thousand million. For the first time India will be the most populated country; up to now China has remained the first and India number two. In the race India is going to win within ten years.
In those days when the country had only two million people, nature
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