Giving And Gaining : Swami Nikhilananda Saraswati.

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Sunday, December 05, 2021. 6 : 00. AM.
Giving And Gaining : 

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Sharing of knowledge is far more empowering than giving of material wealth, says Swami Nikhilananda Saraswati

Everyone should share their wealth. It’s a noble gesture. The scriptures talk about it. By all means keep aside some for your use, but know that you are essentially a trustee of your wealth. It is like a well in the forest where all animals come to drink. It does not belong to that land alone.

The Giving Habit :

Daan, loosely translated as charity or philanthropy, helps you overcome greed, selfishness and possessiveness. The spirit of daan needs to be encouraged right from childhood. Earlier, parents would bring home a toy or a few toffees and ask the older child to share them with younger ones. Today, they buy separate toys and chocolates for each child, so that children have the goodies all to themselves. It may avoid quarrels, but it also creates an attitude that what is mine, is mine alone, and not to be shared.

Giving should be accompanied by a sense of purpose. When parents, for instance, give pocket money to the children, they could also advise them on how to use it, impressing upon them that not all of it has to be spent on oneself.

You do need to keep a few things in mind while giving. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that the daan that’s given at the right place, to the right person, in the right way is considered good; that which is given grudgingly, with the expectation of getting something in return, is not good; and a daan which is given at the wrong time, with wrong attitude, to the wrong person is bad.

Welfare Vs Empowerment :

There are various types of daan — anna or food daan, gau or cow daan, gyan or knowledge daan, for instance. Also there is a hierarchy of sorts among things that you can give. Take, for instance, anna daan. Giving food to someone to eat is good. Even better is gyan daan or sharing knowledge. A hungry man first needs to be fed. Only then will he be receptive to knowledge.

Daan in the form of food or money helps in the welfare of people. But it may not last, and as a result recipients could come back for more and eventually get used to charity. But by giving knowledge, you can make him independent; he gets empowered. Besides, when you share knowledge, you expands your own knowledge base which is not always the case with material wealth, which can get depleted.

Self-Knowledge :

Knowledge too is of different types: worldly knowledge — to impart this, people sometimes set up schools and colleges. It empowers people with right understanding and wisdom. But higher than this is Self-knowledge or enlightenment — the ultimate in empowerment.

Self-knowledge does not refer to superficial knowledge of the body, but is a state of enlightenment obtained by spiritually evolved people like Gautama Buddha and Ramana Maharishi — that should be our ultimate goal. An empowered individual does not fear death.  His very presence is beneficial to the whole world. He can change the psyche of millions, in times to come. Gautama Buddha, for instance, renounced everything and became

an enlightened soul. Today, there are millions of Buddhists in the world; so many people continue to be empowered by his teachings.

Daan is also to know oneself. :

Krishna says that the more deeply you come to understand yourself, the more daan you can give. This is because when you know yourself superficially, you think of yourself as being different from others, but upon deeper understanding, you realise that a part of you is in everyone; and that by helping others, you will benefit too. In the Gita, Krishna says, greater than all the spiritual practises is to gain  Self-knowledge, because this alone will give you a lifetime of fulfilment and lead to spontaneous flow of goodness and love from you. Nobody needs to tell you to take care of yourself; you do it automatically because you care about yourself. Similarly, when you have love for everyone and yourself, your service to the world becomes spontaneous.

Stepping Stone :

When a person moves towards Self-enlightenment, it would include material daan too, for it’s a stepping stone. However, it is not the ultimate — as Krishna pointed out, all spiritual practices should culminate in Self-knowledge; the yogi who ultimately gains enlightenment, transcends the punya or good score that he acquires through yagyas, tapas and daan. He is onto a higher plane. For example, someone living in the plains is advised to go to Badrinath; but someone who is already at Badrinath his goal is to scale the Everest; since it is much higher than than Badrinath. Similarly, daan is higher than a selfish way of life; but Self-knowledge or enlightenment is even higher.

End.

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