what to give?

…contd….

This story stuck with me since then. That lady still donates only food saying ‘it is ultimate of all ‘Danams’ i.e., charity which is true but I understood that ‘you receive what you give. Which means we just don’t need food. We require so much more in our life and hence we should give all that we need to receive them. Hence, am suggesting various forms of donations to you. If you notice all types of donations can be started with just Rs.50-100/- only. So, instead of fulfilling one need try to distribute your ‘money that you wish to distribute’ under various heads. It’s all in the planning. That’s all!

1.      Intellectual needs: all the donations that I talked about till now will not remove poverty from the man to whom you’ve give it. It only helps him in his existence. That’s all! Doesn’t mean it’s not necessary. It’s essential. But ‘give a fish to a man you feed him for a day. But teach him how to fish and you make him independent for life’. How to fish is the knowledge. If a street child or the one in orphanage is given or taught a skill or education, he’ll earn for himself. So, catering to someone’s education is far better than giving him food for life. If sponsoring child’s education is not possible then donate items required for education. Like pencils, notebooks, erasers, Braille papers for blind children etc. this is ‘vidhya danam’ which is highly meritorious. How’ll you receive it back? You’ll have a parent who’s ready to educate you. Never thought it was essential since you had a parent who sent you to school. I know so many parents (from good families only) who don’t want to give much of education especially to their girl children since they feel its waste. Next, you’ll be blessed with masters who’ll give you ‘good’ education. Your understanding capacity can be higher than others or average persons and that’s biggest of all returns.

2.      Share your know-how. Teach free if you can anything and everything you know. Be it subject like maths etc or vocational skills like cooking, language, carpentry etc. you can do individually or in some NGO. Share the know-how you know.

3.      Knowledge apart from being about material subjects can be also about perspective, clarity of thought, positive thinking and such related with better personality of a person. When such knowledge is imparted then it’s considered far better ‘danam’ (charity). For this, you don’t even need to spend a single pie. You don’t even need to spend a single pie. You need not take special time to go somewhere and teach. Spread this among your family, friends and neighbours. Use every conversation to show a difference and better perspective to others. This is exactly where talking about what your Guru said or says comes handy. You can quote your Guru and spread the good word. You can distribute books which better our perspective like Swami Vivekananda’s books to people around you. If you don’t like them, then go to some temple and distribute to people coming there. Go to places where Gita or Upanishad discourses is going on and even before the discourse starts, distribute your books at the gate itself and you can leave the premises too immediately. If you want to do that. There are lots of orphanages which don’t have much in library. If all the distribution makes you uncomfortable then give to these organizations. They’ll be glad and the children there will get some clarity. But remember not to give more than one copy of a book on a particular topic to such organization.

…contd….