25 Oct 2018
The following online discussion took place between Shri Durgaprasad (Prasad) and Shri Srimannarayana Murthy on the importance of finding a deserving recipient for donation (sacrifice of the fruit of one’s work).
Murthy: It is extremely difficult to locate an appropriate recipient for our donation, especially in the present dark age of materialism (Kaliyuga).
Prasad: You are right! That is why we need a lot of analysis. We should do a deep analysis to identify the deserving recipient, even if it takes a long time. Once the deserving recipient is identified, we should donate immediately. We need not follow traditional beliefs such as ‘donation is to be done only at a holy place like Benaras and on a holy day like Shivaratri’. When the deserving recipient is found, that very place becomes Benaras and that very day becomes Shivaratri! On the other hand, when we cannot find a deserving recipient, we can even postpone the donation to some other day. There is no need to hastily donate to an undeserving recipient, just because it is a holy place or holy day.
Murthy: Thanks for your reply! If you don’t think that I am extending the discussion, I’d like to say that even to identify an appropriate recipient, the donor needs to be an evolved soul! Most intending donors are evolving. They are not evolved souls. Besides, I shudder to visit Benaras on Shivaratri day because of the rush! I agree that donating to an undeserving person (apaatra daanam) is not good. But it has also been my experience that if one tends to be too judgmental, one may end up not donating at all! “Judge not.” is a famous saying. Sometimes, we might feel that the person to whom we donated, is misusing the donated amount. But we do not know under what circumstances he or she is doing it.
Shri Durgaprasad requested Shri Swami to kindly throw light on this topic.
{Shri Durga Prasad asked:- Paadanamaskaaram Swami, PL. Read a small discussion on Facebook between myself and Shri Srimannarayana Murthy on sacrifice and deserving recipient. I request Swami to kindly enlighten on this topic.
Shri Murthy: We will find it extremely difficult to locate an appropriate recipient, especially in Kaliyuga !
Prasad: You are right . That's why we need lot of analysis.
We should do deep analysis and take long time to identify the deserving acceptor. Once the deserving acceptor is attained, you should perform the donation immediately and such place is Benaras and such day is the Shivaratri. You can even postpone it to some other day if the proper acceptor is not available.
Murthy: ThanQ for your reply ! If you don’t think that I am extending the discussion, even to locate an appropriate recipient , the donor needs to be an evolved soul ! Most intending donors are evolving but not evolved souls ! I shudder to visit Varanasi on Siva Rathi day because of rush ! It has also been my experience that while అపాత్రదానం is not good, if one tends to be too judgemental, one may end up in not donating ! “ Judge not”’is another famous saying for if people in our view are misusing the receipt, sometimes we may not know under what circumstances he or she is doing it ! –Durgaprasad}
Swami replied: The best way is to wait until you get the best deserving recipient. Lord Krishna never donated anything to anybody in His life. He waited till the best recipient, Sudaama (Kuchela) came to Him. To Sudaama, He donated a huge amount of wealth. Krishna is the highest elevated soul and all of us, being in the process of elevation, should follow His path. However, if you do not have that much patience, you must at least donate to the available-best.
Traditional rituals usually involve donation to deserving recipients. Such rituals are meant for people like us. Deserving recipients are the ones who possess deep spiritual knowledge and are deeply devoted to God. When you donate to them, they are expected to preach deep spiritual knowledge to you and invoke devotion in you, through prayers and devotional songs. This inspires you to progress on the spiritual path. The Vedic hymns that are recited during these rituals, describe two main things:
As far as prayers are concerned, we can recite the prayers in our mother tongue, since God is omniscient. There is no need to recite prayers only in Sanskrit! Donating to the preacher is essential, but the process of donation does not require any recitation of hymns. Once the practical procedure is known, it can simply be adopted by us without any further instruction. Our focus should be on the spiritual benefit obtained in terms of improving our spiritual knowledge and devotion. Unless we find some spiritual benefit in the ritual, there is no point in donating. Nowadays, the priest simply recites some Vedic hymns, which are not at all understood by us. There is no use of such a ritual.
Donation is a very important subject. It must be analyzed with utmost care. The reason is that if the donation is done to a deserving recipient, you will get merit (Punyam) and if the same is done to an undeserving recipient, you will get punishment (Paapam). If the donation done to an undeserving recipient were simply a waste of money, it would not be such a serious matter. A rich person might not worry much about the waste of money, thinking that there is no negative effect. But in fact, it is not so. Donating to an undeserving person is not just a waste of money; it brings punishment upon you. If you feed milk to a poisonous serpent, it will grow up and kill several people including you! The main purpose of rituals is the spiritual growth of the soul, which happens through the improvement of your spiritual knowledge and devotion. You cannot find fault with the donor since the donor is in the process of spiritual growth. The elevated soul, of course, knows everything and does not need any preaching.
The Veda describes two compulsory characteristics that the recipient of your donation must possess. Both of them are linked to each other as cause and effect. The first one is that the recipient must have complete spiritual knowledge (Shrotriyasya). The second is that the recipient must not aspire for anything in return from the donor (Akaamahatasya). It is due to the first characteristic, that the second characteristic appears. A person having complete spiritual knowledge always believes in God totally. He never aspires for anything from any human being, even if there is an emergent need. He has full faith in God. He knows that God will certainly look after all his needs, even without asking for His help. God is omniscient and there is no need to request Him for help. Requesting for help is required only in the case of human donors, who are ignorant of your needs.
Hence, the priest must perform the spiritual service in the ritual, without aspiring for any fruit in return. The divine service must always be without the aspiration for any fruit in return. When this is the truth, what shall we say about the present-day priests, who fix different rates for conducting different rituals at the beginning itself! This is the horrible face of the present-day Hinduism, which is supposed to stand like the divine preacher for all religions! Unless we the donors, realize this and demand a change in the present-day priests, these priests will not change. They are just like the inert blind tape-recorders, mechanically reciting the Vedic hymns during the rituals. If blind recitation were the real procedure, you could have even performed the ritual playing a tape recorder! In fact, some people are actually doing so!
The present undeserving priests will become deserving priests if they do not waste a single more minute in the blind recitation of the Holy Scripture and instead spend all the time in learning the Sanskrit language. They also need to study the other secondary scriptures like logic (Tarka), grammar (Vyaakarana) and so on, in order to reveal the inner meaning of the scripture to the donors in more and more effective ways. The donors of the present priests alone are capable of reforming our religion from this bad state.
Even the Vedic hymns sung as prayers, need a lot of explanation since these devotional prayers also contain a lot of spiritual knowledge. If we believe in the present system of blind recitation of the Veda, why do we expect our children to understand the subjects taught in schools and colleges? Why do we not demand that the teachers turn our children into blind tape recorders of the textbooks, without any understanding? These present priests are very clever. They have established a false theory that the very sound of recitation can make miracles and are useful for solving our worldly problems. This is the climax of their intelligence and the climax of our foolishness to believe such a theory! Sound is, after all, inert energy. It cannot do anything, not to speak of doing a miracle! Only God can do miracles and He does them when He is pleased. Spiritual knowledge, as well as devotion, are not inert items. They are related to the faculties of awareness namely, intelligence and mind respectively. God can only be pleased by knowledge-based devotion and not by inert sounds produced blindly!
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