Is the Lord’s prayer for daily bread, a prayer of poor savages?
Those sentences which are colored in orange are from Maharishi Dayananda Saraswati book Satyarth Prakash (The Light of Truth) and those which are colored in black are Jerry Thomas’s response.
"Give us this day our daily bread. Lay not up for yourselves in treasures upon earth." (6:11, 19.)
C. This shows that in the age when Jesus Christ lived, people were mere savages in a state of poverty, and Christ was also poor like the rest of them, therefore, it is that he prays to God for his daily breads and teaches others to do the same. Why do the Christians lay up treasures when their Bible teaches to the contrary? They should act on their Master's advice and give away all that they possess in charity and become poor.
Answer: Even if one were to take Maharishi’s arguments for argument’s sake, it is laughable. If this prayer is the prayer of poor, then India needs this badly. Not just 100 years back, as in 2009, as per the World Bank report, 42% of the Indians live with less than $ 1.25 per day (http://www.worldbank.org.in/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/INDIAEXTN/0,,contentMDK:21880725~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSitePK:295584,00.html).
In fact, Indian children suffer more malnutrition than many other poor African countries such as Ethiopia (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1421393.ece).
Perhaps, as an upper caste Hindu, Maharishi never realized what it means to be a poor and therefore would have ridiculed this prayer.
However, LORD Jesus Christ who taught this prayer and commanded not to lay treasures upon earth did not stop at that teaching. He further explained those with examples and explanations.
In the very same chapter, immediately after these verses, LORD Jesus Christ explained that no one can serve two masters- either God or money or in other words, one cannot live for money and this does not mean one should not have money to live.
Second, Jesus said not to worry about tomorrow but rather do what is required for today.
Therefore LORD Jesus Christ taught us to first seek the Kingdom of God, and then all things shall be added. That all would include all those which He commanded us not to worry and live for.
Matthew 6:24-34 "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? "So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, [will He] not much more [clothe] you, O you of little faith? "Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear? For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day [is] its own trouble.
