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potent. Their wisdom is not that of the universities, they have been never to any school. Their wisdom comes from the masses, their wisdom is out of their own experience. It is not learned, it is not scholarly, they are not pundits and rabbis. They are ordinary people. In Kabir, in the East, for the first time a poor man has come to declare the beauties of God.
It is very difficult for a poor man to declare the grace of God, it is very difficult for a poor man to be religious. This is my understanding -- that if you find a rich man and not religious, then he is stupid. A religious consciousness is bound to happen if you are rich. Much awareness is not needed for it, your very riches will prove to you the futility of this world. If you have all, you have to become religious, that is inevitable -- because when you have all you will be able to see, even a stupid person will be able to see, great intelligence is not needed, that 'I have got all, and I have nothing inside me. ' If this does . not happen to a rich man then he is really very very foolish, utterly stupid.
To be religious for a poor man is very difficult, great intelligence is needed -- because a poor man has nothing. To see that the world is meaningless is very difficult when you are poor. You have not experienced the world -- great insight is needed to see that which you don't have, to see its futility. Because of that, my appreciation for a Christ or a Kabir is far more than for a Buddha or a Mahavir. They had all; they went through the world. Buddha had all the beautiful women of his kingdom available to him. If he became aware that there is nothing in physical beauty, that it is a dream, it is natural. He had all the luxuries possible to a man twenty-five centuries ago. If he became alert that they don't satisfy, much intelligence is not needed for it. They don't satisfy -- the actual experience proves that they don't satisfy, that the discontent remains the same.
But for a Kabir or a Christ it is very difficult. They are not kings, they are poor people; even their necessary needs are not fulfilled. There is every possibility of hoping and dreaming and desiring. To see that the
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