Social Classes vs. Samsara

Criminal, slave, peasant, freeman, lord, hero.
We can map these almost directly onto the alleged cycle of Samsara. 

Hell realm, lawbreakers.
Machine realm, dominated by their appetites.
Animal realm.
Realm of dreamers, freemen and merchant lords.
Asura realm, warrior lords.
Deva realm, scholar lords.

The lower realms are soulless meat puppets, some even more puppety than others. 

The freeman or merchant lord can see the world as it actually is, but not understand it. The world, to them, seems disjointed and fantastic, as if in a dream. They are not truly awake, they sleepwalk through life. Merchants often turn to simplistic materialism to pare the world down into something they can grasp. Seeming to hallucinate all the time gives you a headache, after all. 

If you can't work out how warrior lords are asura on your own, I don't know what to say to you.

For a scholar to say scholars are devas smells sharply of the Platonic Plumber claiming that plumbing is the highest occupation and basis for all civilization. However, it's not my fault that the three deadly sins have a priority order, where falsehood is the most important and least forgiving. 

Moreover, the metaphor's correspondence doesn't stop there. Buddhism has a seventh state, outside the cycle of reincarnation. What is nirvana? Nirvana is rejecting/transcending the social status system entirely. 

The hero takes part in all six realms. They are wise, but they can also fight. They know the value of goods, they can negotiate, they engage in trades and deals, and they dream from time to time. They are intimately familiar with their animal instincts, and use them to execute their plans with machine-like efficiency. They can and should flout the law.

If you strive to reincarnate as a deva, the "best" of the realms, you will find that a fool who persists in his folly becomes wise. Having reached the peak, you find it is empty. The idea of heaven as a pure and good place is a scam. "A deva does not need to work, and is able to enjoy in the heavenly realm all pleasures found on earth. However, the pleasures of this realm lead to attachment (Upādāna), lack of spiritual pursuits and therefore no nirvana." More precisely, if you cannot fail, you cannot succeed. The garden plant exists for the gardener, not for the plant. It's a trap, and you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. 

If you achieve the lofty heights of the deva, the scholar lords, then you discover that social status is empty and meaningless, even when concentrated as much as humanly possibly. It is an addictive drug, where a rise in status offers a momentary high in exchange for a long comedown and withdrawal. There is no satisfaction to be had here. All that happens in the deva realm is that no further advancement can be made, analogous to reaching 100% tolerance. No matter how desperately the addict tries to shovel more into their mouths, they have nothing to look forward to but withdrawal. A deva is a preta, and was all along.

Untouchables can be rich, the infamous can nevertheless win fights, control comes from knowledge, not respect. What was it for? The answer is: nothing, really. It was nothing all along. A giant game of play pretend.

Faster to simply sidestep the issue. Jump the queue by leaving the queue. Go do something else.