Beggar is not the question. The question is you and your heart. Do something, whatsoever you can do, and don’t try to throw the responsibility on the rich. Don’t try to throw the responsibility on history. Don’t try to throw the responsibility on the economic structure. Because that is secondary if humanity remains cunning and calculative it is going to be repeated again and again and again.
What can you do for it? You are a small part of the total.Whatsoever you do will not change the situation — but it will change you. It may not change the beggar if you give something to him, but the very gesture, that you shared whatsoever you could, will change you. And that is important. And if this goes on — the revolution of the heart — people who feel, people who look at another human being as an end in itself if this goes on increasing, one day, the poor people will disappear, the poverty will disappear — and it will not be replaced by a new category of exploitation.
Up to now all the revolutions have failed, because the revolutionaries have not been able to see the basic cause why there is poverty. They are looking only at superficial causes. Immediately they say, “Some people have exploited him, that’s why their possibility. This is the cause; that’s why there is poverty.
But why were some people able to exploit? Why could they not see? Why could they not see that they are gaining nothing and this man is losing all? They may accumulate wealth, but they are killing life all around. Their wealth is nothing but blood. Why can they not see it? The cunning mind has created explanations there also.
The cunning mind says. “People are poor because of their karma. In the past lives they have done something wrong, that s why they are suffering. I am rich because I have done good deeds, so I am enjoying the fruit.”This is also mind. And Marx sitting in the British Museum is also a mind: and thinking about what is the basic cause of poverty comes to feel that there are people who exploit. But these people will be there always. Unless cunningness disappears completely, it is not a question of changing the structure of the society. It is a question of changing the whole structure of human personality.
What can you do? You can change, you can throw out the rich people — they will come back from the back door. They were cunning. In fact, those who are throwing, they are also very cunning; otherwise they cannot throw. The rich people may not be able to come from the back door, but the people who call themselves revolutionaries, communists, socialists — they will sit on the throne and then they will start exploiting. And they will exploit more dangerously because they have proved themselves more cunning than the rich. By throwing out the rich, they have proved one thing absolutely: that they are more cunning than the rich. The society will be in the hands of more cunning people.
And remember, if someday some other revolutionaries are born — which are bound to be, because again people will start feeling the exploitation is there, now it has taken a new form — again there will be a revolution. But who will throw the past revolutionaries? Now more cunning people will be needed.
Whenever you are going to defeat a certain system, and you use the same means as the system has used for itself, just names will change, flags will change, the society will remain the same.
Enough of this befooling.The beggar is not the question: the question is you. Don’t be cunning, don’t be clever. Don’t try to say that this is his karma — you don’t know anything about karma. That is just a hypothesis to explain certain things which are unexplained, to explain certain things which cause heartache. Once you accept the hypothesis, you are relieved of the burden. Then you can remain rich and the poor can remain poor and there is no problem. The hypothesis functions as a buffer.
That’s why in India poverty has remained so ingrained and people have become so insensitive towards it. They have a certain theory which helps them. Just as you move in a car and the car has shock absorbers, the roughness of the road is not felt, the shock absorbers go on absorbing this hypothesis of karma is a great shock absorber. You come constantly against poverty, but there is a shock absorber the theory of karma. What can you do? It has nothing to do with yourself. You are enjoying your riches because of your virtues — good deeds done in the past. And this man is suffering from his bad deeds.
There is in India a certain sect of Jainism, Tera-Panth. They are the extremist believers of this theory. They say, “Don’t interfere, because he is suffering his past karmas. Don’t interfere. Don’t give him anything, because that will be an interference, and he could have suffered in a short time — you will be delaying the process. He will have to suffer.”
For example, a poor man you can give him enough to live at ease for a few years, but again the suffering will start. You can give him enough to live at ease in this life, but again in the next life the suffering will start. Where you stopped it, exactly from there the suffering will start again. So those who believe in the Tera-Panth, they go on saying don’t interfere. Even if somebody is dying by the side of the road, you simply go on indifferent on your path. They say this is compassion; interfering, you delay the process.
What a great shock absorber.
In India people have become absolutely insensitive. A cunning theory protects them.
In the West they have found a new hypothesis: that it is because the rich have exploited — so destroy the rich. Just look at it. Looking at a poor man, love starts rising in your heart. You immediately say this poor man is poor because of the rich. You have turned love into hate now hate arises towards the rich man. What game are you playing? Now you say. “Destroy the rich! Take everything back from them. They are the criminals.” Now the beggar is forgotten; the heart is full of love no more. On the contrary, it is full of hate… and hate has created the society in which beggars exist. Now again hate is functioning in you. You will create a society in which categories may change, names may change, but there will be the ruled and the rulers, the exploited and the exploiters, the oppressors and the oppressed. It will not make much difference; it will remain the same. There will be masters and there will be slaves.
The only revolution possible is the revolution of the heart.When you see a beggar, remain sensitive. Don’t allow any shock absorber to come between you and the beggar. Remain sensitive. It is difficult because you will start crying. It is difficult because it will be very, very uncomfortable. Share whatsoever you can share. And don’t be worried whether he will remain a beggar or not — you did whatsoever you could. And this will change you. This will give you a new being, closer to the heart and farther away from the mind. This is your inner transformation; and this is the only way.
If individuals go on changing in this way, there may sometime arise a society where people are so sensitive that they cannot exploit, where people have become so alert and aware that they cannot oppress, where people have become so loving that just to think of poverty, of slavery, is impossible.
Do something out of the heart, and don’t fall a victim of theories.
Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 7
Chapter 2 – The mind is very clever (2 January 1976 am in Buddha Hall)
The first sutra says, “By performing samyama on the two types of karma, active and dormant, or upon omens and portents, the exact time of death can be predicted.” The Eastern analysis of karma says that there are three types of karma. Let us understand them.
First is called Sanchita. Sanchita means the total, the total of all your past lives. Whatsoever you have done, howsoever you have reacted to situations, whatsoever you have thought and desired, achieved, missed — the total — the total of your doings, thinkings, feelings of all the lives is called sanchita. Sanchita: the word means the all, the accumulated all.
The second type of karma is known as Prarabdha. The second type of karma is that part of sanchita which you have to fulfill in this life, which has to be worked out in this life. You have lived many lives; you have accumulated much. Now a part of it will have the opportunity to be acted out, realized, suffered, passed through in this life. Only a part of it, because this life has a limitation — seventy, eighty, or a hundred years. In a hundred years you cannot live all the past karmas — the sanchita, the accumulated — only a part of it. That part is called prarabdha.
Then there is a third type of karma which is known as Kriyaman.That is day to day karma. First the accumulated whole, then a small portion of it for this life, then even a smaller portion of it for today or for this moment. Each moment there is an opportunity to do something or not to do something. Somebody insults you: you become angry. You react, you do something; or, if you are aware, you simply watch, you don’t become angry. You simply remain a witness. You don’t do anything; you don’t react. You remain cool and collected; you remain centered. The other has not been able to disturb you.
If you are disturbed by the other and you react, then the kriyaman karma falls into the deep reservoir of the sanchita.Then you are accumulating again; then for future lives you are accumulating. If you don’t react, then a past karma is fulfilled — you must have insulted this man in some past life, now he has insulted you; the account is closed. Finished. A man who is aware will feel happy that at least this part is finished. He has become a little more free.
Somebody came and insulted Buddha. Buddha remained quiet, he listened attentively, and then he said, “Thank you.” The man was very much puzzled; he said, “Have you gone mad? I am insulting you, hurting you, and you simply say thank you?” Buddha said, “Yes, because I was waiting for you. I had insulted you in the past, and I was waiting — unless you come I will not be totally free. Now you are the last man; my accounts are closed. Thank you for coming. You might have waited, you might not have come in this life, then I would have had to wait for you. And I don’t say anything anymore, because enough is enough. I don’t want to create another chain.”
Then the kriyaman karma, the day-to-day karma, does not fall into the reservoir, does not add to it; in fact, the reservoir is a little less than it was. The same is true about prarabdha — the whole life, this life. If in this life you go on reacting, you are creating the reservoir more and more. You will have to come again and again. You are creating too many chains; you will be in bondage.
Try to understand the Eastern concept of freedom. In the West freedom has a connotation of political freedom. In India we don’t bother much about political freedom, because we say unless one is spiritually free, it makes not much difference whether you are politically free or not. The fundamental thing is to be spiritually free.
The bondage is created by the karmas.Whatsoever you do in unawareness becomes a karma. Any action done in unawareness becomes a karma because any action done in unawareness is not action at all; it is a reaction. When you do something in full awareness it is not a reaction; it is an action, spontaneous, total. It leaves no trace. It is complete in itself; it is not incomplete. If it is incomplete then some day or other it will have to be completed. So if in this life you remain alert, then the prarabdha disappears and your reservoir becomes more and more empty. In a few lives the reservoir becomes absolutely empty.
Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 8
Chapter 1 – Secrets of death and karma (11 April 1976 am in Buddha Hall)
osho'S'word 