Charity & Philanthropy

Charity and Philanthropy are the two characteristics that distinguish humankind from others. Charity is to contribute for a common kind on one’s own. Simply put, a voluntary donation for a good cause is termed as Charity. Philanthropy is no different from charity. However, it is defined as love for the mankind or benevolence.

How long one should extend giving charity? Should they do once in their life time or everyday? Should it be given to the same person or different persons? These are some confusing questions. Privilege is different from right.

It is the law of humanity that richer should aid poor. However, the problem here is the discrimination. How to differentiate the genuine deserving poor from the lazy, idle beggars? I am, at times, driven to have the opinion of encouraging laziness and begging through this charity-thing. This has encouraged our beggars to remain as “people-always-in-need”. The habit of providing alms has conditioned the so-called poor to remain poor always and seek alms as they are lazy enough to earn their bread.

Charity should be driven by the kindness of one’s heart. However, nowadays it is driven by other reasons! The ironical reason is advertisement. The other reason is the fear of God. The “punya” factor – means by doing charity, people perceive that their misdeeds are getting squared up! Or otherwise, it is a sort of bribing for their misdeeds.

This is clear from the data of offerings made at temples, churches or any other worship-spots. In India, worship-spots have become money-minting enterprises. It is not only the money but the Gold, silver, diamonds, cloths, and food material. I have never come across where God has asked for temples to be built on His name. Nor I had read He wanted temples be furnished with Gold or His idol be made of high-class marble or panchalola & studded with precious jewels!

Shirdi Saibaba lived like a Fakir but His devotees plan a diamond-studded crown for his marble statue. He never advised extravaganza or such a display of wealth. How can they be called as devotees if they did not understand the teachings of Saibaba?

In olden days, construction industry has been the main source of employment apart from agriculture and arts. So, Kings kept on building forts and temples. Temples were operated as banks for the kingdom. The wealth of the kingdom was transformed into gold and it was stored in temples. In case of natural calamities, the entire population would take shelter in the temples and they will be fed from the temple’s coffer. Alas! Nowadays it has taken a shape of a ritual!

If we gather all the wealth (even only gold and diamond) from temples all over India, we will never fall short of resources to build a new country. However, the existing politicians should not be allowed to have access to this. I am not atheist but I feel that serving the needy is the service to God. There is no dearth of temples in India but there is a scarcity for toilets, hospitals and primary schools. Why don’t we build them? Why build temples and block all our money? Is this called charity? Is this called kindness or benevolence?

In my humble opinion, this is not charity, nor charity means giving alms to poor. Parting away with funds and material is quite easy. If one after another keeps providing fish to the guy, he will never learn fishing and will seek some one who can provide him fish. This conditions him to be lazy. Instead, if we taught him fishing, as a part of charity, that would do him a world of good. The real teacher is the one who makes the students thirsty and not the one who provides pots of water!

The real charity would be to teach them how to earn their bread. To educate someone is the real charity or sponsor someone getting educated is the real service to God. Many of us might be educating many under-privileged children. For others, even if a few of them get inspired after reading this blog and does this act, that is a great charity from my part!