27 Apr 2023
[Smt. Priyanka asked: Padanamaskaram Swami, My friend does 'Annadaanam' (donation of food) often and cooks food for around 200 people and feeds anyone who stops by her food stall on a main road. Most of the people who come to eat look healthy enough and very few look poor. I told her that we need to be careful about donations and not donate food or money to undeserving receivers or she can incur sin for donating to underserving people. I added that she can find really poor people and ensure the food goes to them instead. She replied by saying we cannot judge how poor someone is just by their looks and one cannot trust anyone nowadays since there are cheats even among beggars. She added that she donates to do some good only from her side and feels blessed to be in a position to share the wealth God gave her with the poor people. She also said that if we are so worried about gaining merit/sin with our donations, then it is not a real donation at all due to selfish interest. How should I answer this comment? At Your divine lotus feet, Priyanka]
Swami replied:- In this case, the main point is not our selfishness for merit. The doctor shall be very careful in doing the surgery not for the sake of selfish fame, but, for the sake of the welfare of the patient, which is far far more important than selfish fame. If you do donation for the undeserving, the receiver does sins due to the energy gained by your donation. In such a case, you are receiving all those punishments, which means that you are purchasing the sins by your donation. You are propagating bad and not good in society. Instead of feeding people without discrimination, you can help profusely one single real beggar so that you are doing best to the society and you will receive the best from God. If the receivers are bad, the more their number , more the bad done by you. Don’t be hasty in donation and don’t be misled by the number of receivers. The quality of deservingness of the receiver is the final factor.
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