Give. Give with faith. Do not give without faith. Give with sensitivity. Give with a feeling of abundance. Give with right understanding” — Taittiriya Upanishad.
The alleviation of tangible forms of suffering such as hunger, disease and poverty, is an essential component of the Hindu tradition. Hindu scriptures are rich with hymns extolling the upliftment of all humanity through charitable giving (daana) and selfless service (seva), not only for the betterment of the lives of those suffering, but also for the giver’s own spiritual growth.
The Hindu world view holds that all beings are interconnected as God dwells within all beings. To see the suffering of another as something separate from oneself, or as ‘someone else’s problem’, then, is a form of delusion. Selfless service to humanity is the true service to God and the highest form of worship. It proclaims that man is divine and that the goal of human life is to realise man’s divine nature.
One of the modes of devotional mysticism is the relationship between God and the devotee as that of the master and his servant.
Such an outlook makes it easy for the devotee to attune himself totally in the loving service of the God by dedicating even mundane actions to Him as acts of service. When the significance of this bond dawns on the devotee in course of time it will become apparent that it is a privilege for which he should be beholden to God for it is He who endows him with the knowledge of the eternal relationship between them. Hinduism’s three pillars are the worship, the scripture and the guru-disciple tradition.
Prominent themes in Hindu beliefs include: Dharma (ethics or duties); Samsara (the continuing cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth); Karma (action and subsequent reaction); Moksha (liberation from samsara) and the various Yogas (paths or practices). Each soul is free to find its own way, whether by devotion, austerity, meditation, yoga or selfless service.
The greatest gift that Swami Vivekananda possessed was his ability to create a wave of devotion and spirituality wherever he went. His entire bearing evoked instant appeal for he spoke with the conviction of one who had plumbed the depths of self-realisation. His mission did not stop with just rejuvenating Hinduism but felt palpably in the social arena after he represented India at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893.
According to him, service to relieve the suffering of others, without any regard for one’s own discomfort, and with no selfish motive of fame or gain, is one of the paths of God: The Karma Yoga, or path of good works, described in the Bhagavad Gita as, “Detachment from the fruits of action”.
When one gives of oneself in a spirit of daana, one is not relieving the suffering of another, but engaging in an act of renunciation of selfish attachment to what we regard as our own — whether it is our time, our money, or our effort.
Swami Vivekananda advocated the four Yogas and he cautioned that there was no need to argue which was superior. The greatest sadhana (spiritual practice) that Vivekananda preached was service to God in every individual.
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