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and he has to look after his whole family with six rupees. He will never be able to pay back that one-thousand-rupee advance, and until he pays that he has to remain in the coal mine.
People have suffered their whole lives in a strange, tricky slavery. Now, nobody can directly call them slaves, but the fact is they are bonded laborers; they will die, they will never get the money to pay the advance. The advance is given just the same way as in the past human beings were auctioned.
You will not believe that neither Buddha nor Mahavira nor Krishna nor Rama... nobody has said a single word against slavery. People, particularly women, were simply auctioned in the marketplace, and all these great religious leaders had nothing to say about it. Perhaps they are suffering from their evil acts of a past life.
And the most amazing fact is that not only did they not oppose it...
I am reminded of an Upanishadic Hindu seer -- of course, self-styled and so-called -- who was known as Gadiwan Raikva, because he used to travel in a bullock cart. Raikva was his name, gadiwan means a man who owns a bullock cart.
He was also in the marketplace bidding for a beautiful woman, but a king came -- and of course against the king he could not win. He went ahead as much as he could, because Hindu seers were not poor people; they had many wives, they had plenty of land, and their disciples worked on the land to pay for their discipleship. They gathered much money, and that money was used to purchase women.
Gadiwan Raikva was one of the most famous self-styled, so-called saints. What kind of saint is ready to purchase human beings as a commodity?
But because he was defeated and the king gave more money for the woman, he was very angry -- and all these people have been saying, "Don't be angry, don't be greedy." He was waiting for his chance to take revenge -- and these people have been talking about, "Drop all revengefulness, be kind, be compassionate, love your enemies."
After many years the king who had purchased the woman became fed up with his kingdom and riches and the whole crowd of women, and he wanted some peace of mind.
Forgetting
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