It is better to steal, at least your dignity is saved. He is saying this not to preach stealing. He is saying this to make you aware that whenever you give something to someone, you give very cautiously and very carefully. Give as if giving is your need, not the need of the receiver; that you are burdened, and it is very kind of the receiver to unburden you.

It is my poverty that my hand never rests from giving.

He has so much that he goes on giving his love, his wisdom, his original insights but he is saying “It is my poverty, don’t feel offended. I am not trying to prove myself rich by giving you something. I am simply proving my poverty” – a very strange idea, but very significant.

When the season of rain comes and the rainclouds hover over you, full of rain water, they want to shower, not that they are concerned with the thirsty earth, but because they are too much burdened with the water; it is becoming heavier and heavier. It is out of this burden, out of this heaviness, that they shower. It is their poverty, they could not contain more, they are too small, their capacity is too small; they become burdened too early. This is how every giver should think. Only then whatever he gives is given out of love; otherwise, it is not a virtue, but a sin.

It is my poverty that my hand never rests from giving; it is my envy that I see expectant eyes and illumined nights of desire.

He is certainly very unique in seeing things from aspects nobody has ever seen – before or after. He says, “I am envious of expectant eyes.” He is saying, “I am envious of the beggars, because they don’t hurt anybody.” In receiving, how they can hurt anybody? In receiving, they cannot fulfill their egos.

“I am envious…. “But what can Zarathustra do? He is so full and so overflowing with love and light; he is helpless. That’s why he says, “I am poor.” He is helpless, he has to share.

Kabir, one of the great mystics of India, has beautiful statements which are similar. He says, “When the tree becomes too heavy with fruit, its branches start going down; they start touching the earth.” They are too heavy to stand as proud, as egoistic, as they used to be. For the first time their richness is making them humble; their richness is making them come down to earth. They are asking somebody to take their fruit so they can become weightless, and again can stand high in the sky.