DIVINE ADVICE - Alms Giving without arrogance and anger

[Guest guest]

ALMS GIVING WITHOUT ARROGANCE AND ANGER.

 

Baba: Nana, to-day I will give you one more lesson.

 

N.G. Chandorkar: Good.

 

Baba: Nana, If anyone comes and begs for anything give him as much as

you can, and if that person be not satisfied and asks for more,

answer him suavely in the negative. Do not pour your wrath or display

all your official authority against that person.

 

N.G. Chandorkar: Good.

 

(But one day at Kalyan Mrs. N.G. Chandorkar was greatly provoked by

the importunity of a beggar woman who refused to budge unless she was

given as charity the whole stock of `Bhajani' (fried and spiced

grains); and Mrs. N.G. Chandorkar appealed to her husband, N.G.

Chandorkar came down and called out to the peon to neck out the

beggar unless she quietly accepted the quantity given and left the

house. Sometime late N.G. Chandorkar visited Shirdi, but Baba was

glum and would not talk to him.

 

N.G. Chandorkar: Baba, why do you not talk to me?

 

Baba: How can I talk to one who does not care for my advice or lesson?

 

N.G. Chandorkar: What lesson have I forgotten? I remembered all your

lessons.

 

Baba: That day, when the beggar woman was importuning you for

`Bhajani', how did you happen to call your peon to expel her and to

show all your official authority. What mattered, if she remained

sitting your door, asking for more, while refused it? What could she

do? After a while she would have gone away. Instead of gently

replying her, why get angry with her and call the peon to expel her?

 

(Courtesy: HH Pujyasri B V Narasimha Swamiji)