How can devotees engage in charity so that they will not become bound in karma?

From Trivikrama P

Does that mean prabhu that If devotees were to do charity, then that good karma will not bind them? Since you suggested that devotees should do acts of charity(wherever possible, spiritual or material), does it mean that the charity done by devotees will not bind them?
I once heard in H.H. Radhanath Maharaj’s lecture that he suggested that you tell the recipient of the charity to recite ‘Hare Krishna’, then that charity is spiritualized. What should be our consciousness that will make this act of charity spiritual and not bind us?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. Question from Trivikram Prabhu. This is based on the earlier answer to the question about should devotees avoid doing social service because of fear of bong-bong and karma.
So, what does that mean Prabhu that if devotees were to do charity, then that good karma will not bind them? Since you suggested that devotees should do acts of charity whenever possible, spiritual or material, does it mean that charity done by devotees will not bind them? I once heard in His Holiness Radhahat Maharaj’s lecture that he suggested that you tell the recipient of the charity to recite Hare Krishna, then that charity is spiritualized. What should be our consciousness that will make this act of charity spiritual and not bind us? Answer, as devotees, our primary concern should be how we can serve Krishna and His mission the best. We should not become paranoid about what will cause bondage and what will not cause bondage.
And if we are honest, there are so many activities that we do for our own pleasure which do cause bondage. We watch TV, we read newspapers, we do so many things, but are they pure devotional service? No, obviously not. There are so many things that we do in the routine course of our events.
Are we always thinking in every single activity that is this going to cause bondage, is this going to cause bondage, is this going to cause bondage? We normally don’t and we shouldn’t. We should primarily be thinking of how we can serve Krishna best. So, in some cases, whenever it is possible, definitely we should spiritualize the charity.
When we give food, we can give prasad. When possible, we can make that person chant Hare Krishna. If possible, we can connect that person to some devotee community, give some temple address, give some Krishna picture.
But the primary point is that we should be concerned of how to give people bhagavad bhakti or ajnana-sukrti depending on what is the situation. We should be concerned about doing good to others and serving Krishna, not about how we can just avoid karmic bondage. If avoiding karmic bondage were the primary consideration, then no spiritual master would initiate disciples.
Because the disciples get disciples when they take initiation, their karma goes to the spiritual master. So why does the spiritual master give initiation then? Because the concern is higher to serve Krishna and to fulfill assistant Krishna’s mission of getting the souls who are lost back to Krishna. So, as Krishna asked, as Radhanath Maharaj wants to question that sometimes some of our subordinates commit sinful activities and then, you know, if we have tried to give them the best training and still they commit those sinful activities, do we still get the karma for that sinful activity just as a king gets the karma for the subordinates? So, Radhanath Maharaj told him that our primary consideration should not be karma.
Our primary consideration should be how those people can be best engaged in devotional service. So, our dealing with them should be based on that primary consideration. Indira Ganga Maharaj was in Poland and at one time there was, they were doing dancing kirtan and there were some young children who saw and they said we also want to come for the festival.
But they said that we can’t come because we are working here and they are basically beggars on the streets. We work here and we have to beg and that’s why we can’t, all day we have to beg otherwise our father will be angry and we will have to starve. So Indira Ganga Maharaj asked them how much do you earn every day through begging.
So they told them this much amount and Maharaj told his assistant now you give this much amount to these girls, tell them to give and give to their parents and you get them to come to the festival. So then his assistant hesitated. He said Maharaj they may use it for some sinful activities.
He says they are small children. They are small He said no no but what if they use it for sinful activities. Maharaj said ok Maharaj told them that you see we are getting the opportunity to engage souls who may never get an opportunity to practice devotional service, to chant and dance in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s Sankirtan.
Why should we lose that opportunity? He said no no we might get karma. Maharaj said ok I will take the karma, you take the credit for engaging souls in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s Sankirtan. He said no no just do this.
So the point here is that we should not be so paranoid about karmic bondage considerations. We should be focused on how best we can serve Krishna. Even Krishna tells in the twelfth chapter when he is describing a descending ladder of how we can connect with him.
So in 12.8 he says just think of me and then he goes down and then he says in 12.11 that if one cannot work for me then sacrifice the fruits of the work for some good cause. So if there are some situations where we cannot work for when we cannot directly do spiritual charity then we can at least cultivate the spirit of sacrifice and through that what are we doing? We are at least being selfless we are being we are just we are not curbing our humanity in the name of being spiritual and along with that we are also creating a Jnana Sukrti in the person who is receiving that charity. That person thinks oh this person is a nice person.
That person knows that we are devotees and that person gets a positive perception about devotees. The other people around us when they also see us doing not being hard hearted or unsympathetic they also develop a positive perception about devotees. These are charitable.
These are good people. So in many countries there have been violence and because ISKCON was doing food for life so because of that whichever whenever mutiny occurred one power went and other power came especially in Africa it happened even in some of the Russian some of the CIS states after USSR broke apart. So whichever people came they said oh these Hare Krishnas they are good people they distribute free food.
So there is no need to harm them. So there can be practical benefits also of this but the primary point is as devotees we should be concerned of how we can best serve Krishna in the given situation not what will cause bondage or not cause bondage. Thank you.