How To Give🔗

17.20 Charity that is given at the right place and time as a matter of duty to a deserving candidate who does nothing in return is considered to be in the mode of goodness.

17.21 Charity that is given unwillingly or to get something in return or to gain some result is in the mode of aggression.

17.22 Charity that is given at a wrong place and time to unworthy persons or without paying respect to the receiver or with ridicule is in the mode of ignorance.

Krishna speaks about the concept of dāna (charity), which I explained earlier.

Charity is sharing. It is not done with the attitude of giving. It is done with the attitude of sharing and not expecting good results because of it or some easy route into heaven because of it. Charity is done out of love and gratitude.

‘O God, you have given me so much, now let me share a little bit with society and with the world.’ Charity is the attitude of sharing. Charity that is done out of duty, without any expectation means feeling committed to the Whole, to God, and with that feeling; giving as a natural commitment. It is given with the attitude that it is my quality and I have to do it. Only then it becomes real dāna. Sharing at the proper time and place and to a worthy person is charity in the mode of goodness.

There are three kinds of dāna. Understand, annadāna means giving food, clothes and whatever is related for someone’s physical needs. Next is vidyādāna. This means giving education and also whatever someone needs for mental growth. For example, when somebody is depressed, if you give him or her some consoling ideas, that is vidyādāna. If somebody does not know how to clean a room, and you teach him or her, that is vidyādāna. If somebody does not know how to cut grass, and you teach him, that is vidyādāna.

And the third kind is jñānadāna, giving spiritual knowledge.

If we give annadāna, we satisfy a person for three hours. After three hours, again he needs food. If we give vidyādāna, education or knowledge, he will have food for himself for one life. If we give education, he can earn food for himself. He will make money and buy food for himself. If we give jñānadāna, we will satisfy that person birth after birth! Annadāna satisfies for three hours. Vidyādāna satisfies the receiver for one life. If we give jñānadāna, it fulfills that person for life after life. He will never fall into depression or the ocean of material world, birth after birth.

Jñānadāna is the ultimate charity.

The common expression says, ‘If a person needs fish and we feed or buy him a fish, he can be satisfied for one meal.’ This is annadāna. ‘If we teach him how to fish, he can manage his whole life without hunger.’ This is vidyādāna. This is where the expression stops.

In our Healer’s Initiation Program, we tell them to stop eating fish! That solves their problem for many cycles of birth. This is jñānadāna!

I tell you, understand one thing, even if you have come and sat here accidentally after looking at my pictures saying, ‘I saw a cutout or poster. He is so young. The poster says that he is speaking on Bhagavad Gita. Let me see what he is saying...’ Even if you have come just to check it out, and you land up hearing the whole Gita, it will help you. At some point in time, you will remember these truths and execute them. Naturally you cannot be the same person again. At some point in time when you are about to make a mistake, you will remember these truths. These thoughts have gone inside you. They will make you correct yourself choicelessly. This is jñānadāna.

The knowledge that you have received now will transform your whole life even if you don’t practice it. These words are so powerful that automatically they will start working on you. You will not remain the same person. Your depth of depression will be reduced. Your depth of suffering will be reduced. You will feel that you are entering a new life. Your life will become courageous and a new confidence will enter your life. This is jñānadāna. This is the ultimate puṇya (virtuous deed) of giving knowledge. No other good deed is equivalent to giving spiritual knowledge.

Giving food bestows three hours of satisfaction. Giving education gives satisfaction for this one life. Giving spiritual knowledge satisfies souls life after life.

Krishna says when charity is done purely out of a feeling of sharing, it is satvika, the ultimate good, the ultimate purity.

One more point is that the person who gives loses nothing with jñānadāna. With all other dāna, the person who gives has a little less. In annadāna, he who gives will lose and he who receives will gain. In vidyādāna, the giver does not lose. He retains the same level. In jñānadāna, I tell you a secret, the more you share, the more it grows in you! It is a win-win situation. Here, you receive automatically. It grows in the person who shares.

And I tell you another important secret: Don't think you are the only one benefiting by hearing me now. By expressing these things, even I am benefited.

A simple analogy will help explain how this happens. When a woman gives birth to a child, not only is the child born, the woman too takes birth, as a mother. Until then she is only a woman. Once she gives birth, she is called 'mother'. When a child takes birth, not only does the child take birth, even the mother takes birth. Before that she is not a mother. She is only a woman. The moment she gives birth to a child, both the child and the mother are born.

In the same way, when you receive spiritual knowledge from me, I also grow!

That is why in the vedic system, they recite the following mantra before spiritual lessons:

This śhānti or peace mantra means: may we both (master and disciple) achieve perfection. May both of us grow. May both of us help each other. May we not have enmity towards each other.

Understand, the mantra doesn't say, 'May you learn.' It says, 'May both of us learn.' The vedic system is so humble. To tell you the truth, when I speak, I also learn.

Somebody asked me, 'Swamiji, what are you going to speak about?'

I said, 'Who knows? Just like you, I also sit and listen!'

Here all I have in front of me are Sanskrit verses. I read the verse and speak whatever comes forth spontaneously; that's all. Just like you, I also sit and listen.

Just as you are benefited, I am also benefited. Both of us grow. Only an egoistic person thinks that the disciple is benefited. No! The master also benefits. He can become a master only when a disciple happens!

Only when a child is given birth, the woman is called a mother. Only when a disciple becomes enlightened, the guru becomes a master. Otherwise, he is not a master. If the woman is unable to give birth to a child, she cannot be a mother. Similarly, until you become enlightened, I cannot be called a master. Be very clear, by sharing this knowledge, I also grow. The person who shares with simplicity and humility, who is very clear and honest about the whole truth of sharing and is not caught in the false ego, his dāna, his sharing of thoughts is satvika and is related to satva guṇa - attribute of goodness.

When you ask questions, if I don't know the answer, I say I don't know the answer. People ask, ‘What is this? Swamiji, you are enlightened and you say you don’t know.’

I tell them, ‘Only an enlightened master says I don’t know. Only he has the courage to accept the truth. If a normal person doesn’t know, he minces words. He puts some words here and there and confuses the audience.’

Confusing the audience is not a complicated job. It is easy because they are already confused! There is nothing more to be done. Just use some words, that’s all. And it’s not a big thing. Only an enlightened person is courageous enough to say, ‘I don’t know’ when he doesn’t know.

To answer a question without knowledge doesn’t require enlightenment. It needs foolish hypocrisy. The straightforward, honest approach to the truth is what Krishna calls satvika dāna.

Here, in whatever way I experience the truth, I simply express it and share it - honestly, without reservation. That is satvika dāna according to Krishna. And He goes on to explain rajas dāna and tamas dāna.

Many times, the dāna is not given voluntarily. Or they may give something away as a part of a ritual. For example, in a Hindu wedding the giving away of a bride is called kanya dāna.

Earlier I spoke about people who give their property for charitable purposes in their will. What choice do they have? They cannot carry it with them. In many cases they may have fought with their children and decided not to leave them anything. Probably the son or daughter did not listen to their arranged marriage proposal and instead married by falling in love. So instead of giving away the wealth to their children, these people give it away as charity. Such acts are not acts of charity. They are done with ulterior motives.

There are others whose charity it is better not to accept. Krishna refers to this as giving in ignorance. People will come with money not declared for tax as earned income and gift that to the ashram. They will use it as a tax saving strategy. What for?

Often, disciples ask why I am not accepting donations from very wealthy people who come to the ashram seeking help. Unless the person stays with me for a year or more and shows his sincerity towards the mission, it is difficult to accept anything from that person. Why become bonded to people whose motives are not merely selfish but self-defeating?

Parāśakti (Existence) guides the mission and She takes care. What She cannot give, no one else can give. What She decides not to give, who else can give?

Q: Swamiji, what are faith, blind faith and belief? These words are used interchangeably when applied to how we should approach God or the master. But these words do not mean the same, do they?

No, they do not mean the same thing. Belief is also blind faith. It is part of your conditioning. It is unconscious, at least most of the time. It is what you learn from others, especially elders. Belief comes from the mind, the unconscious mind. So it is blind.

But faith is different. Faith grows from the heart. It cannot be imitated.

People ask how they can remember me. I tell them, ‘If you think I am your master and have faith in me, your problem will be in forgetting me, not in remembering me!’

Faith however does not mean that you imitate the master. You can try to imbibe him, but you have to commune with him by being open, and you have to internalize him. Whatever then happens allow it to happen. But do not force yourself into imitation. Surrender is not imitation.

Each individual is unique; no two individuals are alike. Hence the most dangerous thing in life is to imitate somebody. Imitation means that you will be trying to be like somebody else and this is impossible in the very nature of things. All that you will attain is a phony personality. You will become false. Imitation makes people false.

By becoming a disciple, you enter a different state. It is not based on beliefs and blind faith. You enter a zone of trust. There are no milestones to measure your progress here. There are no prescriptions. There are no guidebooks. It is a path you follow and the destination is wherever the path leads you. Your path is not the same as another disciple's. You are left alone to work out your solution. That is the only way.

Many go through what I call churning. Your conditioning needs to dissolve. So, all old beliefs and value systems come up for review to be re-experienced and relieved. As they surface from the unconscious into the super-conscious state of meditation, those that are not relevant just die out. They burn away in the light of your super-conscious intelligence.

The master is a guide. He helps you to accept yourself as you are and to accept things around you as they arise. Yes, you can keep on fighting trying to change what happens around you. But that never works. This world is not yours to control. Even the greatest of kings and leaders found that out to their dismay. It is more sensible to accept the world as it is. The change must happen within you. The change that you wish in this world needs to happen in you.

When this understanding of acceptance occurs, there will be a great liberation within you. It is a tremendous freedom. It is freedom from time, freedom from mind, freedom from death. Suddenly you enter into the dimension of eternity; suddenly you become a contemporary of God.

This liberation is an experience that happens. It is not learned. It cannot be taught. Yes, you can listen to my words and imbibe my body language to reach there. The effort must be yours. It is your adventure and discovery. When it happens, you sit up in amazement. The world is full of surprises, all only pleasant.

A Zen master was dying. His disciples had gathered. The chief disciple asked the master, 'Master, where would you like to be buried? Will it be your birthplace or under the tree where you became enlightened or here in this place where you are going to leave your body?'

The master opened only one eye, winked, laughed and said, 'Surprise me!' He closed his eyes and was gone.

Each moment is a thrill, a surprise!

Become aware that you have no identity. You don't belong to any caste, creed, state or nation. You are divine. Identify yourselves with God. Discard the idea of ‘I’. Go beyond it. Surpass and transcend it.

We need to go beyond body and mind to realize who we are. Self-enquiry is about transcending what we perceive as us. It is dropping what we think as our identity, our name, the various labels we call ourselves, including our relationships as well as successes and failures. If one is identified with the body then one will be afraid of old age, disease and death. If one is identified with the mind, one is again afraid of growing old, losing one’s memory and so on. We are nothing less than pure consciousness. We are not the body. We are not the mind either. We are mere witnesses and observers of this body and mind.

Our true nature is not uni-dimensional; it is multi-dimensional. It is like nature; like the colors of nature. In nature, light has seven colors and sound has seven notes. When all the seven colors converge in harmony, white is born. When all the seven notes of music converge in deep harmony, silence is born, and silence is the ultimate in music.

White does not look like color, neither does silence sound like music. White is the ultimate color because it contains all the colors but in such harmony, in such synthesis, that no color shows up; all disappear into each other. In exactly the same way silence is music, the ultimate music, but the harmony is so deep that nothing is heard.

Zen masters call it the sound of one hand clapping. You cannot hear anything. When you don’t hear anything the ultimate music happens. You just need a little more sensitivity, a little more awareness, a little more meditative feeling. When one starts hearing that which cannot be heard, one comes to know that which cannot be known.

Meditation is a method to hear the sound of one hand clapping and to know what is not known. In meditation we find ourselves. This is the space of the ultimate truth about us. We get to know who we are. This knowledge of who we really are is enlightenment. Enlightenment is not a goal; it cannot be a destination, simply because we are already there. We just need to become aware of who we are. That is all.

I tell my disciples that when they worship, they seek God. They believe in God and seek Him. In meditation, they become God. They trust themselves and become aware. Bliss flowers when belief evolves into unshakeable faith and trust. Gratitude overflows. The master no longer resides outside. He moves inside you. The ultimate master is the ātma guru, the Self.