Defining Basic Needs and Extra Wealth

[Ms. Amudha asked: Dear Lord! Om Shri Datta Swami Namaḥ! Dear Lord, kindly enlighten me by answering my queries. Swami, I am grateful for all Your grace. One of Your discourses mentioned about the “extra money” which people earn and which should be given back to God in the form of donations. How can we define the basic needs in life and what is extra money? Kindly enlighten me on the above questions. Yours obediently, Amudha.]

Swami replied: O Learned and Devoted Servants of God! Generally, food, clothing, shelter and the medicines required to cure illnesses are treated as the basic needs for the simple living of a person of high thinking. These basic needs differ from the view of one person to another. The length of the list of basic needs depends upon the person’s view of worldly life. If the knowledge of God (spiritual knowledge) is well-realised, the length of the list of basic needs is very short. This is because, the goal of such a devoted soul is the attainment of God’s grace by pleasing the Lord through practical sacrifice. Of course, it is theoretical devotion that alone leads to the practical sacrifice. Hence, the value of theory should not be underestimated. The theory is the basis and it precedes practice. Without spiritual knowledge and devotion, which together constitute the theory, practice is not possible. Practice or karma yoga includes sacrificing one’s work (service) and the fruit of one’s work (donating money) to the Sadguru.

If the devotee is committed to both pravṛtti (worldly life) and nivṛtti (spiritual life), the length of the list of basic needs depends on the percentage of the person’s commitment to pravṛtti. The greater the percentage of commitment to pravṛtti, the longer will the list be. God helps souls in both pravṛtti and nivṛtti. Hence, the practical sacrifice (donation) of the devotee depends on the devotee’s percent commitment to nivṛtti. The greater the devotee’s commitment to nivṛtti the greater will be the devotee’s donation to God.

But here, we must be very careful and remember that God does not need even a trace of the service or donation from any soul to carry out His divine work on earth since God is omnipotent. Yet, the donation of the devotee’s hard-earned wealth, called karma phala tyāga, is greatly stressed in the Gītā and is given the highest importance. The final step of the spiritual effort is said to be this very donation of one’s hard-earned money (karma phala tyāga) to God for His divine work. Beyond this final step there is nothing. The spiritual effort is completed. Full stop (Tyāgāt śāntiranantaram)! The sacrifice of offering our service and our donation alone reveals our real love for God since God does not have the slightest need for it.

The Veda recommends the donation of money (Dhanena tyāgena), but the Gītā is even more specific. It recommends donating the money earned by hard work. This is because, a person’s bond with his or her hard earned money is stronger than the bond with his or her ancestral wealth. The practical sacrifice of one’s strongest worldly bond for God alone proves that one’s bond with God is stronger than one’s strongest worldly bond. Offering both service and donation to God is the practical sacrifice which is the proof of one’s real love for God. Saints can only offer their service (karma saṃnyāsa), whereas householders can offer both service and money (karma saṃnyāsa and karma phala tyāga). We have real love for our children. So, we are able to sacrifice all our hard earned money along with our ancestral property only to our children. Sacrificing one’s hard earned money to the loved one is the practical fire-test of the strength of the theoretical love for the person that exists in one’s mind. God grants you practical fruit only for your practical sacrifice. When a king performs a ritual sacrifice (yajña), the entire fruit of the sacrifice goes only to the king. It does not go to anyone else like the paid priest or paid servant who helped in making the arrangements for the ritual. None of them shares even a trace of the divine fruit.

A prostitute expresses sweet words and feelings for a person and only pretends to love him. The sweet words and feelings can be said to be theoretical love, which is unreal. In exchange for her theoretical devotion, she expects some practical fruit from the person. This insincere love is called prostitution devotion. A devotee who merely prays, sings and preaches about God, but avoids doing practical sacrifice to God, comes under this lowest category of prostitution devotion. A businessman expects practical fruit from the other side in return for some practical sacrifice from his side. This is business devotion. Business devotion is practical devotion, but there is an expectation of receiving some fruit from the other side. A devotee expecting some practical fruit for his practical devotion is somewhat better than the previous type of prostitution devotion because at least business-ethics are maintained in it. But even though it is better than prostitution devotion, business devotion is only a form of unreal love. It is not real love for God. The best form of devotion is issue-devotion and it alone is real devotion. It is the type of love we show to our issues or children. We render practical service to our children and sacrifice the fruit of our hard work (money) to them, whether they serve us in return or not. We should try to develop this kind of attitude towards God. We should consider God to be our issue (child) and we should practically serve Him and sacrifice our wealth to Him, irrespective of His response towards us! This type of devotion alone is real love and we should try to develop such devotion for God. God is called Datta. ‘Datta’ is also the word used for an adopted son in Sanskrit. So, taking God Datta to be our adopted son, we should show the real issue-devotion towards Him. Unfortunately, we do the reverse. Very cleverly, we make God our father and we become His issues. The hidden intention behind this is that God should help us practically, irrespective of our character and irrespective of how we behave with God!

All this explanation does not mean that the real love of a devotee is measured by the magnitude of the devotee’s donation. So, we cannot blame God to be a money-minded shopkeeper. Our real love is proportional to the percentage of our donation of the total wealth possessed by us. When a beggar, whose entire wealth was just one coin, donated that one coin to God Jesus, he had donated 100% of his wealth and he was praised by God Jesus. On the other hand, rich people donating several thousands of coins, which amounted to less than 1% of their total wealth, were not even acknowledged. Wealth or money is the item created by God in this world only for the purpose of testing the real love of devotees for God. Śaktuprastha offered just four plates of food to God in a severe drought, neglecting even the severe hunger of himself and his family. He was blessed by God here and there. Sudāmā was hit by severe poverty and was suffering with severe hunger along with his family. Such a Sudāmā borrowed a handful parched rice to donate to God, without aspiring for anything in return from God. God blessed Sudāmā with immense wealth, along with salvation. The truth is always harsh, but helps the devotee in the real sense. God responds to us in the same way as we approach Him (Ye yathā māṃ prapadyante...—Gītā).

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| Shri Datta Swami | Defining Basic Needs and Extra Wealth | Gita Pravrutti Nivrutti Karma phala tyaaga Tyaagaat Shaantiranantaram Dhanena tyaagena karma samnyaasa yajna Saktuprastha ye yathaa maam prapadyante Gita