how about giving money to karmi beggers?

[SubashRao 0]

<font color="black">PAM</font><font color="green">HO</font>

 

Is it ok to give money to the poor/beggers who involve in sinfull actions like meet eating?

[Vanguard 0]

You can give them money, but make them chant Hare Krsna for their money.

[Kulapavana 0]

read Bhagavad Gita regarding charity. if your charity leads to undesirable actions of the recipient, it is charity in the modes of passion or ignorance. instead of money, give them Krishna prasadam. that is transcendental charity.

[gopidust 0]

If you give Krishna's laxmi to meat eaters and they buy meat and booze with it YOU will take on the karma and be slaughtered for your so called charitable acts. I wish you would stick to the philosophy more in here instead of giving bogus advice no offense intended. And before you ask me specifically where that is explained I don't know but that doesn't mean it isn't true maybe somebody else in here does.

[Kulapavana 0]

it is important to give in charity - it softens the heart (that is what Srila Bhaktisiddhanta preached).

 

Vanguard may be naive, but his heart is in the right place. I'm not sure that if your charitable contribution is used for meat eating you will end up getting slaughtered in your next life - I have never run across such statement in the shastra, but you could extrapolate such conclusion from Bhagavatam, which says that not only the person eating meat suffers the bad karma, but also one who prepares the meat, one who serves it, and one who provides the facility for such activities.

 

Sometimes devotees dont like to participate in materialy charitable activities, but that can be seen as selfishness too. If you run into someone who truly needs material help, we should be charitable if we can.

[gopidust 0]

that bhagavatam quote is the one i meant. and vanguard i didn't realise you were just so new to krishna consciousness i sincerely apologise to you too.

[Guest guest]

i do not understand where you can find faults in kulapavana's message

[gopidust 0]

Here is the fault. A man begs for $2.00 for a big mac. I say sure prabhu here take ten or twenty I am a charitable devotee. The "bum" then buys several big macs and a bottle of scotch and gets inibriated. Like it says in the Bhagavatam, whoever pays for the meat, prepares it, serves it, eats it, etc. all take a share of the karma and therefore my lovely charity causes me to take birth as a cow and be slaughtered. Sorry I would rather not give such charity but simply offer krishna prasadam instead and free the bum from sins instead of involving him and me further into more lifes in this material world. What is your philosophy?

[Guest guest]

I think if you give money to someone who is poor, and that person uses it for whatever reason, if you were not trying to hurt that person or make him indebted to you by giving, then it is good. If the person buys meat with the money, it doesn't matter. You just gave so a person could live through another day. You will not get bad karma for that, especially if you are seeing Krishna in that person, and then giving out of love. Krishna will not resent your for that, so if you somehow get some bad karma, so what? We are not in it for good karma/bad karma, we are in it to please Krishna.

[gopidust 0]

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta said if you start a sentence with "i think" you should finish the sentence in the closet. A devotee backs whatever he/she says with statements from guru sadhu and sastra, or at least the statements should be able to be backed up by somebody in knowledge. Why not just give the beggar a prasadam pakora and kill him and "think" he will go back to godhead? Because that is not our philosophy that's why. As Srila Prabhupada said, everything for Krishna and not a penny for maya. Please do NOT go around giving money to beggars who are not Vaishnavas I beg you! Not even if you make them chant first or tell them you are a devotee they don't know how to spend it. Are they going to search out a Hare Krishna restaurant if so then let them have the laxmi.

[Guest guest]

I think if you give money to someone who is poor, and that person uses it for whatever reason.......

 

we are responsible for this "whatever reason"

 

(please forgive the harshness and fanaticism of gopidust, not all krsna devotees speak in that way)

[SubashRao 0]

but what if we were travelling and beggars come across?....we sure won't have krishna prasadam with us that time...so the dilemma is to give money or not to give money!!....

[Guest guest]

no dilemma..

 

never

give

money

 

or you'll create other karmic problems to you and to the beggar, where's the difficulty?

[Guest guest]

Haribol. I always give money to those who do street art for handouts. This one guy, a few years back was in the highly competitive panhandle area of seattle, Wa. He came up to me, looked me in the eye, and did a back flip, landing in the same spot, looking me in the eye. That was worth two bucks any day. Street musicians also, if they do their own music, Ill pay for such entertainment. But these arent bums, though the local pigs may think so. Their earnings are just as pious if not immeasurably higher, than any banker, broker, lawyer or any other suit frequenting the same area.

 

So, if you have qualms, make them earn the money, then it is paying for a service rendered.

 

How did Srila Prabhupada treat the bums. He made us all disciples and gave us the greatest of handouts.

 

haribiol, ys, mahaksadasa

[Guest guest]

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta said if you start a sentence with "i think" you should finish the sentence in the closet.

-----------------

 

Really? Where did he say this? In which book is it written?

 

In his book, The Vedanta: It's Morphology and Ontology, Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakura wrote:<font color=teal>

"The methods of thinking of different people of different countries are not the same. So we cannot expect identical results in philosophy."</font>

 

He didn't teach that people should not try to "think". He didn't teach that people should have "blind faith". He taught that people should use their brain, bodily abitities and efforts to serve Sri Krishna Chaitanya.

 

 

[Kulapavana 0]

"but what if we were travelling and beggars come across?....we sure won't have krishna prasadam with us that time..."

 

no problem. just buy something sattvic and offer it to Krishna with love. than give it to the beggar. sometimes however it is wise to ask them if they will accept food in charity - if they say no - reject them, because they are not really needy. some beggars are just making a scam, pretending to be poor.

[Guest guest]

I understand the desire to be sure that the money we give does not go to support such destructive habits in the recipient as meat-eating, alcoholism, drug use

 

However, I do take issue with the thought that the reason not to do so is because of the karmic reactions WE might get back for our actions. We don't give in order to get good karma. We don't NOT give, in order to avoid bad karma. If we feel, oh! if I give Krishna's prasad, it will help this person, and Krishna will be pleased, then that is good...

 

Sorry gopidust for offending you.

[gopidust 0]

I don't know where it is written what Srila Bhaktisiddhanta said exactly but his point was not to speculate, his point was not not to think. His point was to back whatever we say with guru sadhu and sastra but unfortunately I cannot back up the quote he said with written words I have just heard the quote before. Can anyone else in here remember having heard it or read it before? I know there are Gaudiya Matha devotees here and I heard it in ISKCON. It may be quoted in the lilamrta I'm not sure. I had to get heavy about the point to be taken seriously I guess because sometimes that is necessary. I didn't take any offense.

As far as karma goes, say a man is sitting on a street corner and says,"Prabhu, I really need $50.00 in charity because I just had an argument with my wife and I want to kill her so I have to buy a machete." You say, well as long as he chants hare krishna...so you give him the money thinking that even though Srila Bhaktisidhanta said if you ever get money print books(lilamrta at radha kunda to srila prabhupada)you have decided that it is better to appease a beggar than print books. Now he goes and kills his wife and spends the change on a hamburger afterwards. You think, well I am a devotee so I don't have to worry about the karma I decided to give him some money in charity because Srila Bhaktisidhanta said it will soften my heart, never mind that Bhagavad-gita, Krishna's words tell me what kinds of charity to give, I will give according to how I want to. Well guess what prabhu? Even the mundane law will hold you responsible for helping to kill the man's wife and what to speak of the yamadutas? Krishna may forgive an innocent devotee who mistakenly in the beginning gives charity in the mode of ignorance but because someone asked in here for the proper understanding maybe someone here who is more expert in the philosophy can actually give him the PROPER realisation.

[Guest guest]

gopidust,

 

I see your POV but doesnt that make charity an almost impossible task? The only way would be to give prasadam instead of money or items that could be used for facilitating karma.

[vanamali 1]

karmanyevaadhikaaraste maa phaleshu kadaachana...

[gopidust 0]

give money to the temple, brahmanas, pure devotees, but only give prasadam to the sudras that is the Vedic way

[Guest guest]

The method you state is correct for all known purposes. However, many of the temples (including i'm sorry to say ISKCON) have too much politics involved. Now I'm not bothered about what goes on behind the scenes in any temple as I'm there only to pray to the Lord. But the reason i brought it up, is because even there the money may not be used for what you intended it to.

 

The 2nd point I'd like to bring up is (someone told me this, I'm not sure how true it is, but I won't risk it - if you could clarify that would be great) that even if you waste (throw away) 1 grain of prasadam, you are bound to have atleast 1 more lifetime on this mundane plane. So if you give out prasadam like that to everyone and they waste it, do you get the karma?

[gopidust 0]

I have heard that if you throw away a plate of ordinary food that was meant for you to eat then in your next life you may take birth in a country such as Africa where you won't get all of the food you wasted. Just be careful not to waste the prasadam don't worry about the reaction.

Give charity to the devotees you trust, or a program you know is using the charity in the right way, even if it is not local. For example there are national and international projects like the BBT, the archives, Festival of India and so on.

If you give locally you should be able to verify the results. Sponsoring the feast is often an option. Or a special project like fixing part of the temple.

Srila Prabhupada was taught by his mother to pick up a grain of rice he found lying on the floor, touch it to his forehead, and honor it(eat) just so as not to waste Krishna's energy. Even walking on the ground we may innocently kill and ant or something so we really must become pure devotees or we will never get out of this material world.

[SubashRao 0]

aaargh!!!...i've wasted so much of food until now

/images/graemlins/frown.gif .... i've been so ignorant....I pray to the mercifull Lord Krishna to fill my heart with infinite devotion for him....

[stonehearted 0]

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada was traveling through Orissa with some of his disciples.

 

One day as he was coming back from the Sakshi Gopal temple, some beggars asked for alms from the married men who accompanied Srila Prabhupada, but none of them gave anything.

 

Srila Prabhupada, seeing this, stopped, . down and started to talk about the duties of married men.

 

During his chat he said: "If married men think: I must not give any of my money, which I consider reserved for Krishna, to the poor and deprived, then they are really showing symptoms of wretchedness, cruelty, and lack of compassion for others.

 

They should not consider that giving charity to the poor is a fruitive activity. This kind of mentality will make their hearts hard and they will suffer from greed.

 

As a result of this they shall not want to spend their money even on the devotional service of the Supreme Lord, which is the ultimate goal in life. This will invite offenses in service.

 

To save us from this kind of deceit and sinful concept, Sri Gaurasundara used to give money and other things to the poor people during His pastimes as a married man.

 

The money we have, we have only gotten by the

Lord's grace. If we give some of it to the mendicant poor people, then it is not a waste of money rather it is its correct use.

 

Serving prasadam to others is the necessary duty of every married vaishnava. Even if these people have become poor by their karma, even so they are still a part of the Lord's family. Therefore it is definitively the solemn duty of every honest married man to help them".

 

From a reproduction of a conversation with Major Rana N. J. Bahadur, at

Armadale, Darjeeling, on 14 June 1935. Originally published

in The Harmonist magazine (Vol. XXXI, No.21) on 27 June 1935.

 

This can also be found in Srila Sarasvati Thakura, published by Mandala Media.