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They have their philosophies, mythologies, completely antagonistic to each other -- Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism -- but they all agree on one point: that the poor man is suffering because of his evil acts in the past life, and the rich man is rejoicing because of his good acts of his past life. They transfer the whole issue and misguide people.
You are exploited right now, and they are talking about past lives. It is not a coincidence that all the founders of these three religions had the patronage of the kings and the super-rich. Gautam Buddha was surrounded by kings and princes and the super-rich.
Who was there to give food and clothes and shelter to his ten thousand disciples? He moved with ten thousand disciples from one village to another village. The people were so poor, they could not afford food for themselves; how could they manage for ten thousand people?
But kings, super-rich people, followed the traveling caravan of Gautam Buddha, and provided them with shelter, provided them with food, provided them with clothes and every necessity that was needed. Why were they so much interested in Gautam Buddha? -- because he was also saying that the poor are suffering from their evil acts in the past life.
It is very strange. The same is the logic of the Jainas, and the same is the logic of the Hindus: transfer the poverty to evil acts in the past. Nobody knows about the past; all that we know are the evil acts of the super-rich right now! They are exploiting in as many ways as possible.
You will not believe it, but even today in India there are five million human beings almost functioning as slaves. They are called bonded laborers. Rich people give them money in advance, and then they give them work, dangerous work in coal mines, in marble mines, and they are paid such a small amount of money per day that they are not able to repay the advance -- and until they repay the advance they are bonded laborers. This is a very tricky phenomenon. Nobody sees it as slavery.
They have given one thousand rupees to a poor man so that he can make a hut, so he can get his daughter married, and then he has to work in a coal mine. Six rupees
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