About a decade ago, there was a certain period when I was unemployed and the level of frustrations was at an all-time high. There were very few jobs available and the future was unclear.
One day, I was in a market out for some chores. There I met a fakeer (not exactly a beggar, but someone who has taken up religious preaching as his job and asks for money from any passerby). He could somehow sense from my face my low levels of confidence and he stopped me. He asked me if I was feeling low. I don’t know why but I responded and nodded.
Instinctively, I asked him to go away but he kept on demanding money, albeit politely. I didn’t have any change so I gave him a 10 Rupees note. He then asked me to give him the biggest denomination note I had in my wallet. Normally, I don’t even stop when I see any beggar (because in India, we do have beggars seen at common public places so we are conditioned to ignore them) but that day, I might have not been myself. I willingly gave away 100 Rupees Note to him. People who were passing by were seeing this but they minded my own business. At that time, I might have been the closest to being hypnotized. He then gave me a taabeez (a locket) and told to me that you are sad today but you will feel better soon. He muttered some mantras and then he walked away. Within seconds, I gained my senses and realized what stupidity had just happened. If I have had 1000 Rupees note too, I might have given it away as well. I felt stupid for even stopping and interacting with that man. I threw away that taabeez and tried to forget this incident. If nothing else, I convinced myself that even if he thugged me, he still belonged to lower strata of society than myself and my money would be like charity. Although, I was just not in the right state of mind.
After this incident, I made sure that I would never ever give away direct money to any beggar whatsoever. I would do charity as and when there is a proper channel and I could see what was the money being used for. I have donated money in whatever capacity I could and I would choose not to disclose here. But one can do charity only when they want in whatever size they deem fit and nobody should coerce them in doing so as this is a private matter.
It is not about money but how much we are willing to give away so that we feel good ourselves. A few days ago, there was news about a billionaire who was giving away the majority of his money as Charity.
Today I came across this.
I think that there is no end of misery in the world. But how much can we really do to help others? Some examples make us feel guilty about our own positions and whenever we see some really downtrodden, our first instinct is to help them with charity. But then, how are they going to use the money is something we cannot really know. I certainly want to do charity, but I want to do it guilt-free.
For me, charity has always been a conundrum.
