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Swami Suddhananda |
The other day I was
traveling towards a hall to address a gathering on the topic,
‘Caring for the needy and Service’. As I was travelling I saw a
place where hundreds of people had gathered. I asked the gentleman
travelling with me as to why the crowd had congregated there and he
replied that a theatre was there and an interesting movie was being
screened in that theatre. I smiled as an idea flashed across. This
movie theatre owner must be a great man as he is fulfilling the
‘need’ of thousands of people to watch a movie. In fact, in that
way, everybody, from a butcher to a teacher, a bandit to a whore, a
priest to a gambler – is fulfilling the need of one kind or the
other of somebody or the other. Then should we not say that every
organisation is a service organisation? It may sound very tricky but
we cannot differentiate on the surface.
Nobody considers a gambling den, a movie theatre,
a cricket club, etc., as a service organisation though they fulfil
some need or the other of some people. Nor do we consider a
vegetable shop, a shopping centre, a school, college or hospital as
service organisations as they fulfil some need of the people with a
price paid for the service. So, when we pay a price for the service
received, then we call it a business and not a service. Thus, if we
extend that logic, feeding the poor, healing the sick or providing
shelter to the homeless with a view to winning votes or for
converting to a faith, then these are political and religious
organisations engaged in ‘business’. There the ‘service’ is a
misnomer and is misused to hoodwink the gullible to provide a
not-so-holy façade to an action with a motive.
We must think as to how to define service in the
true sense of the term. First, what is that needs fulfilling which
we shall call the action a true service? And then how do we fulfil
that need? If we fulfil that need because we ‘can’, without any
consideration of caste, creed, sex, race, then we shall call that
help a service. If we demand a price – tangible or intangible – then
it becomes a business or a commercial transaction.
Let us see as to what is or what are the primary
need or needs of people? The most primary need of every individual
is food for survival and things associated with survival. Without
food and water, people will die, but nobody will die because of the
lack of a movie theatre, a gambling den, a cricket club, a book, a
magazine or even a temple, church, mosque or some such religious
establishment. When, therefore, a government or administration is
busy opening other establishments without taking care of the hunger
or the thirst of the people, these non-governmental, secular or
religious organisations step in to provide the essential needs for
survival. When the secularists or religious organisations have a
secular or religious agenda, the partners in governance have a
political agenda. The poor people are helpless pawns in the hands of
those insidious players. This is very dangerous because all of them
have the façade of service when they are the real predators in
sheepskin!
Hunger, thirst and shelter are the important
needs for survival. None of those discriminate between any belief
and disbelief. Hunger has no religion. Sickness does not care for
sex, race or nationality. Therefore, to provide food and water to
somebody if either they belong to a particular group or if they
promise to join the group later is to demand a price for the supply.
If we see it in this way, we shall see that almost none of the
service organisations or donor countries or clubs are service
organisations in the real sense of the term.
Let us not ask the caste, creed, sex, race,
nationality or faith of the hungry, thirsty and the homeless. Nor
must we ask the political affiliation of the man or the group. If
the religious groups are hungry for conversion, the political groups
demand the affiliation to their ideologies. Hungry for numbers and
followers, both religious and secular, form political groups to play
with the lives of the people. If religions have invaded politics,
politics has become religion and for many both are dangerous.
Therefore, to serve, we need individuals or
groups who will have no motive of their own, but that is a tall
order. Rather, if we understand the ‘real’ need of the people, then
we can have a motive to fulfil that ‘real’ need while fulfilling the
immediate needs.
Let us say every man is provided with the means
to survive with enough food, water and suitable shelter. Then we
should not, as we often do, branch into the types of food, types of
drinks and varieties of shelter. The varieties are an artificial,
cultivated need created by education or information. That is not
required for survival but they make people comfortable and happy.
Therefore, once the sustenance is assured, the man will look for
happiness and that is a universal need, not for survival ‘only’ but
also for a happy living.
Here the approaches of the religious and secular
groups vary. The secular-political groups dream of providing maximum
comfort for happiness. The orthodox religious groups demand a belief
in a god or in a hereafter and they make that a pre-condition for
providing the essentials. Or if they are not that brand, they have a
subtle expectation from the persons to be sympathetic to that
belief. The religious-political group wants to provide all help to a
particular group of believers, which they dream shall be easy to
hold together.
All of these people are dreamers who ultimately
cause nightmares. They forget to look at themselves who are well
educated, well provided for, and very strong in their secular or
religious beliefs and yet they cannot deny their own emptiness. In
fact, if we really pause for a while and think, we will discover
that the providers are the real beggars – totally empty,
impoverished and therefore unconsciously dangerous. Though they have
fulfilled all the immediate needs, they are still looking for
happiness and fulfilment. Therefore, they take pride in providing
food, water, shelter or education to others and that help feeds the
emptiness of the helper.
Since the hunger of the emotion or emptiness of
subtle kind can swallow the whole physical world and still remain
empty, hungry and starved, it is essential to fill up that inner
void. There the charity will not work. Knowledge is not a charity to
be given, but a vision to be unfolded. One can force feed the
hungry, nasal feed or feed intravenous to a comatose, but the person
cannot force the mind to learn until the person is prepared. One can
forcibly teach a child or one can playfully push ideas into the
child. But once the individuality, the ‘I’, is strong enough,
thereafter nobody can touch him unless he is willing to learn.
That individuality causes loneliness, emptiness,
as it drags all limitations to itself. Depending upon the
conditioning, it becomes fanatic, secular, religious or often moving
from one extreme to the other. That ‘I’ must see its own nature and
in fact all help towards sustenance and growth must be directed
towards the ultimate understanding of one’s own Self.
The ‘I’ is to be understood by the individual
long before it understands any faith or disbelief that it picks up.
If ‘the I’ gets wedded to or conditioned by a faith, it will look at
itself through the faith instead of looking at a faith or any
thought through what it ‘is’.
That is why service, help or any such thing is
not fully effective as it leads from one problem to another. Nothing
shall be a service if it is backed by a limited motive of giving him
an exulted role. Yet everything shall be a service if one is
ultimately directed towards one’s own Self and is not a slave of
obligation, gratitude, faith or achievement of any kind.
Swami Suddhananda
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