Are hungry people starving because of their past karma?

Answer Podcast

take. People are homeless, people are starving. Should we think that it is their karma because of which they are starving? See, more important than their karma is our dharma.
If we start thinking all the time about people’s karma then say baby is crying. Should the mother think baby is crying because of her karma? No! The mother has to take care of the baby. So that is the dharma of the mother.
That is the mother’s duty. Mother naturally do it. So, when we make decisions, it should not be based only on karma considerations.
Because if we start thinking everything, whoever is suffering it is their karma. And we will become very hard hearted. See, hard heartedness is undesirable.
At the same time sentimentality is also not desirable. Sentimentality means we act based only on our feelings. And we don’t really think deeply.
Before I was introduced to Krishna Consciousness when I was in college I used to do social service. So, I used to, just behind my college in Pune, I used to go to some slums. And in the slums I used to offer free tuitions.
I was a part of an organization to offer free tuitions to slum children. And many of the slum children their parents, especially their fathers were alcoholics. And there would be a lot of in the spell of alcohol domestic abuse, beating up of others in the house.
So, at that time I and other people in the organization felt that you know, just by teaching these kids you are not really helping them. Just like giving food or giving money, that’s one level of helping. They say that don’t just give a person fish, teach a person how to fish.
So like that, our thinking was okay, we can give food and help people, but if we can help them get educated then they will take care of themselves. But then we thought that these children, they are such disrupted, such troubled families, how can they grow? How can they actually focus on their studies also when they are fearful what is going to happen when my father comes back drunk today? So then we decided to try to help in these children in getting, these fathers in getting off alcohol. So we would take some talks.
We did a lot of things. So one of my friends, he got into it a lot. And one small village, he made everybody free from alcohol over there.
It was considered a big success of our movement, of our organization at that time. But so, as I would go in the evening to this nearby slum and he would go to that village. So one evening when he came back, he looked shattered.
I asked him what happened. So he said that, actually we would go once a week. So he said, in the last weekend there was an election.
And the local political candidate, in order to be elected, he came to the village with three truckloads of alcohol. And he gave it free to everyone. And not only the fathers, but also the children had taken the alcohol.
So we felt at that time, now what are we doing? See, we thought that by providing education to people, we are actually helping them to have better choices in their life. To have better choices in life is important. But along with that, people also need the intelligence, the willpower to make the better choice.
Sometimes the better choice may be there, but still people make a foolish choice. So then, that was when I was introduced to the Bhagavad Gita. And that was when I started practicing.
One of my close friends was just getting into things like alcoholism. And he wanted to give it up, but he was getting lured by it. His parents were telling him, don’t do it.
But still he was getting lured into it. But he started chanting Hare Krishna, studying the Bhagavad Gita and just completely free from it. So at that time, I felt that’s the best way I can help anyone.
I can offer food or medicine. I can offer food. I can offer some money.
I can offer some education also. But the best way I can help is by helping them to get the inner strength to make better choices. So, at a philosophical level, as well as a practical level, we should understand that when we are offering people Krishna consciousness, we are offering them the best help.
So it is not that we should not offer them money. It is not that we should not offer them food. It is not that we should think that it is their own karma.
What we should be focused on is what is my dharma? How can I offer them the best help? If somebody is starving, it is better to give them prasad than to give them money. Because what happens, many times when people are starving, it is not so much because they don’t have food. It is often because whatever money they have, they use it for things other than food.
They use it for cigarette. They use it for drinking. They may use it for drugs.
I saw once one poster of how a person who is alcoholic, that person just can’t make right choices. This is like a pictorial depiction of the state of affairs in Russia. USSR formally.
So there, people were very much into vodka. That is the Russian wine. So there was this man who was addicted to vodka and vodka prices had increased.
So they kept increasing during the communist regime. So this son, small boy, he is asking if vodka prices have increased. So he is asking his father, father, will you drink less now? And the son, the father, no, you will eat less now.
That means the money which we have, you will eat less food and I will keep drinking my vodka. So actually bad habits make people totally cold hearted. They can’t make right choices.
So we, when we are sharing bhakti, we are not just, our goal is not just that this is our religion and we want everyone to come to our religion. We want to help people make better choices in their life. And how we help? Yes, we can give prasad to them also.
It is not that we should think that it is their karma to suffer so let them suffer. Not like that. What we should be thinking is how can I best help them? If I give them money and they use the money instead of not for food but for taking some drugs.
I am not helping them. I may give them money, they may take alcohol and they may go and beat up some other person. So how am I going to really help them? I have actually hurt them, hurt others.
That was not my intention but that’s what happened. So therefore we try to help them in the best way by trying to connect them with Krishna. But we shouldn’t be thinking just only in terms of karma.
We should be thinking in terms of dharma. Dharma means what is my duty, what is the best way in which I can help. Does this answer your question? Thank you.