Q: We have been told that charitable activity is good. I am confused when you say charity is not always good. Please explain.🔗

Understand the meaning of charity. Charity must arise from selfless causes. In Sanskrit the word for wealth is dhan and for charity dhaan. Giving up wealth and material possessions is charity.

Charity cannot be giving up what you can afford to give up. That is not charity. It is a matter of convenience. Charity cannot be for tax deductions. It is then business. Charity cannot be for getting your name and face in newspapers. That is pure ego boosting. Charity needs to be unselfish and anonymous. Charity cannot arise from feelings of 'mine' and 'I.'

Charity should hurt. Charity is something that you cannot afford to give and yet you give. Charity is treating the next person and the person after him as yourself and sharing what you have with them. True charity arises from expanded Consciousness. It happens when you believe that the world is your family, vasudeva kutumbaha.

In Mahabharata there is a beautiful story of a mongoose that went to check out Yudhishtra's rajasuya yagna. I spoke about this in another chapter. This was the celebration ritual after the Pandava princes won the war. The mongoose was golden in half its body. After rolling over the ashes of the fireplace, the mongoose declared the ritual to be useless.

The startled princes asked why. The mongoose said half its body became golden when it rolled over the sprinkles of flour left on the floor at the house of a poor brahmin family. The family gave all their food to a guest and starved to death.

Ever since, the mongoose had been visiting sacrificial sites hoping to make the rest of its body golden. The greatest ritual of the greatest ruler on earth could not do

this. It did not match the simple sacrifice of the poor brahmin family that gave away what it had even at the cost of the life of its members.

This is charity. Charity can have no expectations. When you can walk away from all that is precious to you so that it benefits someone in greater need, you are charitable. When you get nothing in return and yet you are happy, you are charitable. Otherwise, whatever you do is just another business deal.