How to Serve the people to make it a Service to the God?
A devotee (Name hidden) asked like this:
“Some doubts are burning in my mind. Many people don’t have food to eat, clothes to wear in winter, many are dying due to cold hunger, even many people don’t have money to buy medicine. Then why people are encouraged to donate to the temples instead of feeding to hungry people. We should not escape by saying that they are facing their karma. It is our duty to help them as human being. Temple n gurdwaras give feast to hundreds of “well to do” people. What is the need to feed to those people who are capable to easily have their food n clothes?”
REPLY:
A Popular advice given to the people: “Service to the people is the Service to the God.”
Buy a dry service to the people will not become a service to God.
How to Serve the people to make it a Service to the God?
Let us here analyze it in detail here:
See, The temples are there not for eradicating poverty; It is the function of the government by collecting taxes from the people.
(Krishna or Krishna’s Service as target – which one is right for devotees? READ HERE!)
Supporting the society are of two types:
(1) MATERIAL SUPPORT: To support the downtrodden people by feeding them, funding them, helping in getting a job, helping them to lead a decent life, etc. These are the functions of the governments.
(2) SPIRITUAL SUPPORT: To help the people to make their life perfect by leading a regulated life and to avoid all types of miseries permanently by giving them the highest taste of Krishna Prema. These are the functions of the temples.
Both these services should be done simultaneously by the governments and the temples as the ‘Services to the Society’.
The temples can perform only a small amount of social service with their resources. The government too should support the temples to make the people good citizens.
Every citizen can support atleast one person who is suffering in life. It is the human duty to be supportive to others as much as possible. Or, if everyone atleast takes care of his own family properly, there will be no poverty in the society. Therefore, this is the collective responsibility. The governments or some organizations alone can’t do them.
If we give spiritual support through the temples, the people can stop their miseries permanently and avoid further births also. However, when a devotee is in starvation and struggles today, we can’t speak to them about the spirituality, God, etc. They will not show much interest in our preaching.
(Why Krishna is attracted by Pure Devotional service only? READ HERE!)
In all the big temples of Tamilnadu, the devotees are offered ‘full meal’ prasadam every day by the government monitored temples. 1000’s of poor people get benefited by this scheme every day.
Another good example is Tirumala Tirupati temple. They offer full meals free for all those who come to the prasada center every day. They have no limits for visitors. They also offer some other social welfare schemes to the people.
In some spiritual organisations, they have the system of feeding the visitors every day. In ISKCON movement, all the devotees are given full prasadam on Sundays. If they get more revenue, they may start on other days also. In some zones, they also have tie ups with the governments to offer free noon meal in many schools.
In Tamilnadu, the government offer lunch food for just Rs.5 and breakfast for Rs.3 for all the people thru the centers called AMMA UNAVAGAM (Mother Food house) located in almost all the towns (Rates may change at any time). This has almost stopped the death of people due to starvation in the state. This scheme was later followed by some other state governments also including Delhi, A.P, etc.
However, I have to admit the fact that these feedings do not reach all the needy people. They are offered to the visitors only who directly visit the centers.
What is the reason for some children’s violent behaviour during the adolescent age 13 or 14? READ HERE!
However, only regular visitors of the temples get benefited with this prasadam. Most of the regular visitors are good earners and they already have the capacity to fulfill their food needs.
Therefore, offering full meals to the same set of people every week may seem to be unnecessary. But, there are many regular donors among them. So, when they are offered delicious Prasadam, they will get very much satisfied. If they get satisfied and offer good donation, we can use that money to prepare and distribute food to hundreds of people by going to slums or huts and then speak to them about God.
Therefore, distributing good prasadam to the regular visitors is not wrong, but will bring more devotees to the temple who will later become good donors.
Every temple can allocate a certain percentage of their income to offer earning sources to the needy people like giving tailoring machines, iron boxes, utensils to prepare food and sell them, computers to start service centers, etc atleast for the dedicated devotees who like to earn for their living and also like to serve in the temples. The temples can follow these long term beneficial support.
The mindset of the devotees should also change. I have observed that only a few devotees donate to the temples/ services with which all the expenses are met. If the temple has 200 regular visitors who can donate something, only 10-15 devotees donate. If all those affluent people donate, the temples can do more services to more people.
Not only the temples, but in all the devotional services, only about less than 5% of the devotees support financially. This should change and more people should come forward to support the temples and devotional services.
I like to write another side of this matter to be a balanced writer:
The temples have their main business to make the minds of people to be prepared to work keeping God as strength to work. They act as a place for the people to purify themselves by honouring the God. If they involve in social service excessively, they can’t manage their spiritual services properly.
(What to do when my parents criticize me for my appearance and devotion? READ HERE!)
You should keep an important advice of vedic scriptures in mind. They do not recommend the sanyasis to invove in the administration activities. Their only business is to lead a simple devotional life and preach the people to follow devotional way of life. Nothing else. If they involve in poverty eradication, they may get attached to that work and hence they may face the threat of fall down from their pure sanyasa status.
Therefore, the spiritual people should involve only in spiritual education to make the people lead a regulated life. All they can do is that they can offer some prasadam and spiritual knowledge to those who come to the temples. Not more than that.
This society itself is like an administration of a company. In a company, the production department will take care of producing the product. The R & D department will take care of ensuring the quality of the product. The marketing department will take care of taking the product to the right people.
The company will allocate funds every year to every department. Then, that department will take care of the functions of that department.
The production department will not interfere in the activities of marketing department and vice versa. If every department performs their duties properly, the company will run well.
At the same time, if any department does not perform well, it affects the entire company. If the production department produces the product sufficiently, but the marketing department does not market it well, the company faces shut down of the production to avoid dumping and hence loss of revenue. Similarly, if the marketing department works well making plenty of orders, but, the production department does not produce the product to satisfy the demand, the company can’t stand in the market.
(After coming to devotion, I hate and avoid non-devotee family and others that makes them angry. Why Krishna allows this? READ HERE!)
Similarly, the temples in a society take care of educating the people in realizing the real purpose of their life and in leading a regulated life as a responsible human. They can’t involve in poverty eradication. It is to be done by the governments by making the jobs available for the people. If the devotees involve excessively in material development of people, these devotees too may get corrupted by the materialistic way of life.
Even the youth should change their mindset. Particularly in India, there is no deficit for job opportunities. The Only problem is that the youth are not ready to do certain jobs and they expect only a certain type of white collar jobs. For example, there are so many opportunities in construction, farming, crafts, nursing, catering, etc. There is a deficit of people in these sectors. But, what happens now in India? Every student likes to go for the Information technology jobs and hence hundreds of Engineering colleges that have no sufficient infrastructure and efficiency have mushroomed. Excessive number of Engineering graduates and hence joblessness in this sector.
Thus, just feeding the people is not sufficient. The government should increase the opportunities to the people to work and earn. The people also should be ready to do any legal job.
Instead of telling the government to do this, if you expect the temples to do these social activities, the temples will become as business centers losing the spiritual value.
(Though they have advanced knowledge of God, why many Indians violate the disciplinary rules in public places? READ HERE!)
Therefore, the reality is that the temples can offer prasadam and proper guidance to the people and do some small support to the needy. They can’t be expected to eradicate poverty in society.
The government should collect sufficient taxes from the people properly without corruption, and spend the tax money to expand more opportunities for the people.
The temples should properly educate the people in proper way of living and God consciousness.
If the temples fail to do this, the society will not be disciplined. If the government does not function properly, the people will not come out of poverty.
Therefore, the purpose of the temples and governments are different. If every sector of the society functions properly, the society will be prospering.
Service to the people is the Service to the God is to be understood properly. Serving the people is the natural duty of the people themselves. The temples create good citizens. Those citizens will naturally help the other people.
If we do any service to the people, we should do that without expecting praises, benefits, popularity, etc.
Hope you understand my points about how to Serve the people to make it a Service to the God.
(Why In India many gods are worshiped contrary to other countries? READ HERE!)