The great divide

The human mind is a dividing machine. It loves to chop things into pieces. It is adept at looking at parts, not at wholes. This is a useful trait in many areas of life, but not in all. One such great divide which has serious implications for human relationships is that of rich and poor. The world has been cut into two — those of the haves and those of the have-nots, the First World and the Third World. It is made to believe that the rich and the poor inhabit two different universes. Once this happened relationships were no longer the same. But this is an artificial mental creation. Concepts of the rich, poor, and middle class are mind-made identities that have disastrous consequences for social relationships. You have to belong to one of these three classes unless you have renounced the world. There is no option. Everyone then relates to you with stereotyped images of what these concepts mean. How is it possible to have a genuine relationship with another human being if everything he says and does is going to be filtered through these images? Our listening alters dramatically depending on which category of person we are relating with.

Rich and poor are highly relative concepts and cannot be defined with precision. Where do you draw the line demarcating the rich from the poor? It is all based on outward appearances. A person is deemed to be rich based on his lifestyle. If you wear a tie you will be labeled rich. It is all very arbitrary. A person’s bank balance is a closely guarded secret. What you cannot hide are the cars, the bungalows, and the jewels. Those who don’t see these possessions will relate to you in a different way than those who do, though you remain the same. Though the poor view some as rich, the rich themselves don’t feel that way because they compare themselves with someone richer. The feeling of being rich never arrives for most people. Just like in the case of love, time, and knowledge, the feeling of not enough is acute with money too.

I know of some rich people who feel guilty because they have so much while a great majority of the world’s population has so little. They then keep writing cheques to old age homes and orphanages whenever the guilt builds up, hoping that this guilt will be assuaged. But the guilt keeps coming back. This kind of guilt arises from having. It will not go away by giving, because no one gives away everything. What is left over is sufficient to revive the guilt. One should give because one enjoys giving and not for alleviating inner turmoil. Giving needs to be a source of joy. This agonizing existential dilemma of these sensitive souls could decrease when there is active physical participation in the lives of others combined with giving a part of one's earnings regularly to causes one strongly believes in.

The rich have their own set of challenges once they become rich. It is not enough for the poor to call a man rich. The rich have to recognize them as rich too. Only then will there be genuine satisfaction and a feeling of having made it. The greatest challenge is therefore getting admittance into the rich man's invisible club, that exclusive private domain which is guarded zealously. This is not going to be a cakewalk. To be part of this club requires not only money but something else which is intangible. There is a hierarchical system out there. The old rich look down upon the new rich. Family names matter. How you make your money matters. Where you stay matters. Your accent matters. But if your net worth is sky-high and dwarfs all others, then nothing matters. You cannot be yourself anymore. You have to be like them, which is understandable. Only like-minded people are at ease with each other. This requires changes in many areas of one's life, some of which can be very beneficial.

One of the common complaints about the rich is that they have an air of superiority about them which projects an aura of arrogance, pride, and vanity. But this is hardly surprising. The need to feel superior seems to be inbuilt in the human psyche. Anything will do — brains, brawns, designation, money, or even the color of the skin. It is not something that one consciously and willfully cultivates. The force that creates this need is unconscious and deep-rooted. To be free of it requires the practice of gratitude for what you have and to realize that what you have is due to the support and help of many people. Bill Gates would not be a Bill Gates without the help of all those who work in his company as well as those who buy his products. No one makes it all by himself. But this feudal feeling is diminishing, at least with the new generation and especially in the metros where there are more rich people. This was common among the previous generations when there were fewer rich people around.

There are some people who do not have a positive attitude towards the rich. The word rich is anathema to them. It conjures up all sorts of stereotyped negative images for them, most of which come from movies and magazines depicting the lifestyle of those in showbiz. They don’t seem to understand that money in the right hands can do wonders for society. More money needs to flow into the hands of morally upright people and those who have a genuine desire to do good to their fellow men. A Bill Gates or a Warren Buffet can mobilize more resources and draw more people to their causes than anyone else with lesser means can. Some of the charitable trusts set up by the rich are doing extraordinary service to society. Moreover, private funds are more likely to reach the beneficiaries with less leakage than government schemes. A healthy attitude towards money is to neither hate it nor love it excessively but to recognize the great productive use it can be put to.

Being rich is a responsibility. Money is not just for conspicuous consumption and the pursuit of hedonistic pleasures. A part of the planet's resources has been given to you to be used in the best possible manner. The advantages of being rich are that you can give more for causes that are dear to you, spread less insecurity and stress around due to better self-esteem and confidence, and create more jobs and therefore security for others. Even if the rich keep their money only in a bank it will be borrowed by others who create jobs. People who have a giving nature need to make more money and not be contended with little. It is a mistaken notion that once you become rich the value systems will change. Most rich people in our country have retained many of the liberal middle-class value systems, which is the only system that provides stability in the long run. The majority of the rich do not flaunt their wealth either. Those who do probably have nothing else to flaunt. Many have chosen to continue with their middle-class lifestyles where they feel more comfortable. Only a few outward mannerisms may have undergone changes that make them feel different from the rest of the crowd, which means nothing. We also need the rich for the arts. Without the patronage of the rich, the arts would not have been kept alive. Great artists, musicians, painters, dancers, sculptors, teachers, thinkers, saints, poets, philosophers, and others of their kind need to be supported, which only the rich, with their surpluses, can do. These people do not produce consumer goods for the masses but something more sublime that uplifts the human soul. They are the treasures of society and have to be encouraged with a proper lifestyle which is possible only when there are a sufficient number of rich people to sustain them. Being rich can never be a crime. How that wealth is used can be. But that depends entirely on you.

The most detrimental thing about being poor is the identity factor. Holding on to the concept ‘I am poor’ in the mind all the time will result in poor self-image and self-worth. You are identified with the concept of poor. Your identity is mixed up with this notion called poor. This can have negative effects because what you identify with determines everything else. Your identity colors all your thinking, feeling, and doing. If you identify yourself as poor that is how you will behave and live and talk. Self-pity and fatalism are part of this identity and become predominant contexts for living. You will also be conditioned by the poor people you mix with. We don’t understand how important identity is because it works in the background. A change in thinking is therefore crucial for a shift in identity to happen. Unless a shift in identity happens it is unlikely that the poor will get out of their poverty. To attain this shift the poor and middle class should no longer call themselves poor and middle class but as people who are on their way to becoming rich.

One mindset that goes against the poor and keeps them where they are is the freebie mentality. They expect free gifts and concessions from the government as well as from the rich as a matter of right. This attitude stems from the belief that the poor as a class are entitled to special benefits because they are poor. If the freebies were given as an incentive and linked to some productive activity it would have enhanced their growth and self-esteem. But to give it because someone is poor will only strengthen the identity factor and create a vested interest in it. Being poor will be seen to be an advantage as one can reap benefits by holding on to that identity. But that identity is a trap. In their own long-term interest the poor must reject anything that strengthens this identity. Every poor man desires to be rich. At the same time, they are jealous of the rich and despise them. You cannot become rich by despising the very kind of person you wish to become. Further, the day you become rich you will be likewise despised by your friends who have been left behind. The rich-poor relationship is a love-hate relationship. Unless the poor have a healthy respect for the concept of ‘rich’ they will not be able to move towards that state. Paradoxical though it may sound, the rich are needed for the poor to become rich. The greater the number of rich people, the faster will the poor become richer. It is the productive use of the rich man's surpluses that create wealth.

Is a rich man deprived of spiritual blessings? It is said in the Bible that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. The word rich in this context refers to the identity of being a rich person. It is also likely that rich here means rich in opinions, judgments, dogmas, beliefs, creeds, doctrines, ideologies, and the like, rather than money. Attachment to all of this heavy baggage as well as to the identity of being rich acts as a barrier to entering the pristine state. You cannot enter the kingdom of heaven carrying an identity badge. The kingdom of heaven is not a place but a state of consciousness where there is purity, innocence, spontaneity, and freedom from identities. How much money you have in your pocket is irrelevant to achieving such a state. Being poor, in terms of money, is no advantage here. The poor have as much baggage as anybody else including the heavy identity of being poor.

With the demise of ideologies that stifled human potential and freedom, the door is now open for anyone to make and give away as much as he wants. All nations of the world are inexorably moving towards creating more wealth for themselves. This requires that human potential be freed and nourished. This is a historical process that cannot be stopped. What this essentially means is that the poor will become richer. In this process, the rich will also become richer since the benefits of development will filter to all. With advances in technology, there will come a time in the distant future when poverty will no longer be an issue. Even if the gap between the rich and poor does not reduce, lifestyles for all will improve considerably. Nobody will consider himself poor anymore. That identity would be lost forever. Once that goes, the great divide will go too.