Gita 17.21 – Charity is passion is a competition of humiliation

Transcript

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Bhagavad Gita 1721 so when we give charity with the expectation that that person will give us something back in return we have a particular material result in mind or when we give that charity we feel very great distress at the money that we are losing in giving that charity that charity that charity that filters in the mode of ignorance so here Krishna is stressing the importance of consciousness in doing appropriate activities at one level reciprocation is natural and that is required for any functional relationships to move forward but if we do not understand properly what the context and the purpose of reciprocation is then even the religious activities can be reduced to a material business mentality so in a business we try to give as less as possible and get as much as possible people try to maximize the profit that they get and they want to minimize the product that they give to others of course some company may see that we are going to offer you as much unlimited service and we are going to offer you very cheap prices but it doesn’t work like that ultimately because though they may give a lot of service but then they want to maximize their profits also and now when we come to charity is charity meant to be an exception to the normal human idea of reciprocation no not necessarily charity is meant to be take us to a higher level of consciousness whereby we can steadily and surely move towards spiritualizing and ultimately devotionalizing our consciousness we have various things in our heart right now and if we various things are what we are attached to right now and if we are to give up these attachments it’s not possible to empty the heart immediately so we are meant to give our heart to Krishna but when we can’t give our heart to Krishna at least we can give what is in our heart to Krishna and by giving what is in our hearts the result is that we move closer to Krishna we give Krishna a place in our hearts so money is very dear to us and when money is taken when we have to give money somewhere that along with it our emotion our consciousness it all goes with that and when it goes with that then the result is that we have to move towards clearer understanding of what is what what is it that really counts for us as long as we are attached to something and our consciousness is invested and infested with it normally we invest when we invest our consciousness in material things then our consciousness becomes infested with material desire it’s a to and fro process so for example if we invest our consciousness in thinking if I watch this movie it will be so enjoyable let me watch it when that desire becomes stronger and stronger when our consciousness gets invested when we invest our consciousness in something that means we let our consciousness go there and we concentrate let our consciousness get concentrated there just like when we invest money that means we put more and more money over there in a concentrated way so similarly when we invest our consciousness in something whether it is intentionally or unwittingly but still the result is that our consciousness gets infested with worldly desires the consciousness getting infested with worldly desires means that we no longer have the facility or the opportunity to purify ourselves we are so infatuated by our conditionings that there is no room for the consciousness to accommodate anything else the desire that infests us they pervade and dominate our consciousness so when we give charity at that time it can be painful there can be some clash in giving that charity now with higher knowledge with higher purpose we can raise our consciousness beyond the feeling of deprivation and distress that comes when we part with our hard earned money but if you are not willing to give to give up that obsession with matter then charity simply becomes another form of business transaction so when people go for somebody’s wedding reception they give a gift at that time but when later on their own wedding reception is there they expect that person to give a gift which is of equal amount they expect to I have given you this much then you have to give me this much sometimes you say two brothers go to third brother’s place and they both come with their families and they give a gift to this third brother say a new child has been born or he is getting married and then among these two brothers there might be a tournament of mutual humiliation wherein each brother tries to flaunt his wealth or each brother’s family they try to flaunt their wealth and try to show that I am so much wealthier than you such a costly gift much more expensive gift than what you give now in this giving of the gift the giving is not motivated by any kind of charity the giving is motivated primarily by the desire to prove one’s greatness so one expects that you need to return the favour to me in future so when there is some calculative motive in charity then that calculative motive makes the charity in the mode of passion and it doesn’t lead to much purification or elevation of consciousness