| |
fate that makes you poor. It is a few people who are pathologically sick, who have lost all compassion, all sensitiveness, whose hearts have become inhuman -- it is because of these people you are poor." And just a great understanding among the poor can bring a revolution in the world.
I don't advocate any violent revolution. There is no need, because the poor are in the majority, and the rich are very few. Just by democratic means, the power can be in the hands of the poor, and we can create a society which is classless, where everybody's needs can be fulfilled.
Greed is not need. And there is no way to fulfill greed, it goes on growing. Just for a few people's sickness, the whole society suffers. But the priests are servants of those who are rich. Naturally, in a country like India, where for thousands of years poverty has existed, there has not been even a philosophical idea of revolution, to say nothing about an actual revolution happening. There has not been even a single philosopher to say that a revolution is needed.
Just to go on giving the poor a little relief keeps them alive at survival level. I would not call it charity. It is really to keep them alive so that they can go on producing for those who are rich and want to be richer.
I agree totally with Karl Marx on this point, that religion has been the opium of the poor. It has drugged them with hopes for a better life in the future, after death, if they remain content with their poverty now.
Naturally, the rich people have been the protectors of the priests, of the missionaries. They have made great churches and temples for God, because they have seen the point, that if religion prevails over people's minds, there is no possibility of any revolution. What you have been told up to now is charity, is simply the suicide of all those who are poor and suffering. It has been in the service of the rich; it is not in the service of the poor.
I teach you love. And love is not blind; love can see the whole structure -- how poverty happens. And love can bring the revolution; a revolution brought by love, not by violence, is charity to me.
The Catholic concept also
|
|
|