However, my views on charity is totally different. I don’t think anybody should be publicizing
about his or her charity work until and unless you want the entire world to
praise you about what you have done.
In my opinion, the above applies only to individuals. I am not saying trusts and other charitable
organizations should keep a low profile.
These trusts and other charitable organizations are started with a
vision to help the needy by collecting as much contribution as they can and
hence requires publicity.
Jai Sarathy, Sangeetha and other younger generation people
have started a trust called Manasika Foundation in Chennai. They have their Facebook page and are doing
whatever they can to help orphan children.
But as an individual, if I have to tell what all charity
work I’ve done, then it is like I’m seeking some form of publicity from what
I’ve done. If that’s the case, then I
won’t call the money given away as “charity” but rather would call it as
“publicity expenses”!!!!!
If our aim is
to have publicity, why give money to some needy people, take photograph and
publicize their inabilities and their need for money also along with our good
publicity? Just go ahead print posters,
banners and stick it on every compound wall in your city… That will help I
guess!
What is Charity? As
per Wikipedia, it is defined as the
practice of benevolent giving and caring.
The term charity is derived from Jewish word Tzedakah, which is the
Jewish concept of giving to worthy causes or people in need.
Now, what is worthy cause to you may not be worthy cause for
me. If I read about somebody doing a
charity work and I feel it is not necessary to develop such things and
encourage by giving charity, I get furious… Even though I don’t comment most of
the times, I start to hate people offering and seeking charity for such
acts. By this publicity, actually
sometimes we may all lose interest in charity and that’s one of the principle
reason, I believe we should donate, help and contribute towards charity
whichever we feel like doing without any publicity.
Why do we engage ourselves in charity activities? For me personally, it’s for
self-satisfaction. A peace of mind when
I know I’ve helped in some way to people who are in need. If charity is for inner peace and
self-satisfaction, why do we need to publicize it?
Charity takes many forms… Helping a beggar (disabled) on the
road, giving money for school fees to needy parents in order to educate their
children, giving books to children in need, helping orphanages to provide
proper food, shelter and education to kids, etc.…etc.…
For many people, donations given to temples are also
considered as charity. In my opinion,
whatever we do for a temple does not fall under the category charity. If we donate money specifically for a free food
scheme or education scheme of a temple or other religious institutions, then it
can be called charity, as we know the money is used only for that purpose. However, the money we put in the “hundi” of
many temples cannot be called charity.
Most of the temples use such money for various other purposes (including
complete golden karpagraham at Tirupati temple and other temple related works).
I am not against we offering money to temple or other
religious institutions. My point is that
it cannot be called charity. Such
offerings to temples and other religious institutions take a total different
aspect called religion and I’m not willing to dwell into that topic (at least
for now).
So, bottom line, I don’t think we should be publicizing our
charity works until and unless our only aim to do such things are for
publicity.
Any comments, feedback, criticism from my friends?
