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Sanjeev Kumar Nath

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Occasionally, you may come across someone who is now reasonably wealthy, but knew some poverty and want in their childhood, not terrible poverty, but certainly some strained circumstances at times.

You will notice that such a person often recollects the old days with a sense of sweet nostalgia : “Oh, we ate some chicken or mutton only on one or two Sundays of the month. Father would perhaps bring home a live cock from the Sunday market, and we would all ogle at it before it is slaughtered. Mother would get busy with her grinding of masalas and other activities in the kitchen, and we kids would savour the certainty that there was chicken for lunch before savouring the dish itself…”

A little pinch of poverty or want is not bad. It can add a certain zest to life, which one appreciates truly only long after one has crossed that threshold.

D H Lawrence, a miner’s son, knew what poverty meant, and that is why he said that he did not want to be poor, but at the same time he said that he did not want to be rich either. He said what he wanted was natural abundance and independence—the kind of natural abundance and independence that a magnificent tree enjoys, reaching into the earth with its roots for nutrients, reaching into the sky with its branches and leaves for sunlight and air, not dependent on anyone, self-dependent, strong, free.

The only people I ever heard talk about my Lady Poverty were rich people or people who imagined themselves rich.

Saint Francis himself was a rich and spoiled young man.

Being born among the working people

I know poverty is a hard old hag, and a monster, when you are pinched for actual necessities.

And whoever says she isn’t, is a liar.

I don’t want to be poor, it means I am pinched.

But neither do I want to be rich.

When I look at this pine-tree near the sea, that grows out of rock, and it plumes forth, plumes forth,

I see it has a natural abundance.

With its roots it has a grand grip on its daily bread, and its plumes look like green cups held up to the sun and air and full of wine.

I want to be like that, to have a natural abundance and plume forth, and be splendid.

Of course, humans cannot be like trees for we have not been made by nature to be so independent. We depend on other species. We have been endowed with intelligence, or to be honest, with cunning to make use of other species and other things and other human beings for our benefit. We have been endowed with skills to fulfil our wants.

But sometimes we can get addicted to acquiring things that are no longer required to fulfil our wants, we can become addicted to acquiring wealth. When one becomes mentally sick in this manner, then one is not satisfied with any amount of money or power or land or property. This state of mind can lead to relentless pursuit of wealth without a moment of rest. It can make one lie, cheat, plunder.

Poverty is certainly not good, but what is required for happiness is not more and more wealth but a sense of fulfilment with a certain amount of well-earned wealth. That “certain amount” will vary from person to person, form context to context, of course, but if there is no satisfaction, no fulfilment despite piling up wealth day after day, then one is sick. If one doesn’t care about the means of earning, and is happy to cheat or plunder, then one is sick.

The sense of satisfaction I am referring to does not come after one earns a certain amount of wealth, but it is a state of mind that is always there. It is a state of mind described by Kabir in his verse:

साईं इतना दीजिये, जामे कुटुंब समाये ।

मैं भी भूखा न रहूँ, साधू न भूखा जाए ।।

(sai itna dijiye jame kutumb samaye

mei bhi bhookha na rahun, sadhu na bhukha jaye)

A clumsy English paraphrase would be something like, “Lord, give me so much that is enough to take care of my family; enough to feed me and my guest”. Kabir actually uses a negative statement in asking for this boon from God. Just think about it. A negative statement in asking for a boon? Aren’t the so-called prayers of ordinary “devotees” full of “Lord, give me this, give me that…”

But we are not talking about ordinary people and their ordinary devotion here; we are talking about Kabir. Kabir says “Lord, let me not go hungry, and let not a guest or a wayfarer who enters my hut go hungry. Give me that much of wealth.” Kabir uses the word “sadhu”, meaning a religious medicant, may be, but primarily a good person. The primary meaning is “good”; a sadhu is a good person.

When a sadhu visits Kabir, Kabir should be able to provide him with food. He is not saying he wants to party big with his friends. He says his own hunger should also be assuaged; he is not saying that he wants to enjoy delicacies. Phrasing his prayer in the negative, by saying that “I shouldn’t go hungry and my guest shouldn’t go hungry” he is clearly emphasizing the fact that he doesn’t want a shower of wealth, he doesn’t want to be wealthy; he only wants to be not-poor, he only wants to be not-in-want.

To know how much will make us “not-in-want” will depend on how much we understand what Kabir is saying here. Kabir has already set the boundaries to his desires—he doesn’t want more than what is required to take care of his family and to assuage his hunger and the hunger of a chance visitor, a sadhu that might visit him. When he says “itna dijiye” (give me so much), he is defining how much. He is not praying for more than that from God because he does not want more. He does not want more because he understands the dangers or “more” because he knows “more” just means more, it sets no limits.

One of the things that Tolstoy’s story “The Imp and the Peasant’ Bread” says is that the peasant was happy as long as there was some want, some strained circumstances despite his hard work in the fields; but when the imp went to work for him and he started harvesting much, much more than what was required to fulfil his wants, when he became rich, things started going wrong. The abundance of wealth found new outlets—the peasant’s making wine with the extra grain and enjoying parties with his friends and the drunken people behaving like animals.

The context of the old rural Russia and today’s hectic world full of competition and uncertainties are different. The context of Kabir’s medieval India and our world of stock exchanges and online trading and AI are different, very different.

However, the core of the meaning of what Lawrence said and what Kabir said has not changed at all : that we should not be greedy. Greediness, after a limit, is sickness. One’s desire for wealth should not be endless. A person who is never satisfied with what he has, and keeps hankering for more, will never be happy.

To be happy one must decide to be contended. Contentment does not come with any amount of acquisition of wealth, it comes with the decision to embrace a healthy mental attitude of acceptance, positivity and satisfaction.

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