To Earn and Do Charity, Or to Choose Simplicity

 

Aparna Krishnan

23 March 2016 at 08:15 ·

Is living the good life, and being charitable more important ?

Or is reducing our own consumption, reducing the disparity, coming closer to the common man - and then also share in that situation more important.

I think these are what make for two different ways of action, and of being.

Bharani Shivakumar This is one of the longest debates I have had in myself. Still no solution. One thing that I see is, this materialistic world is on a non stop race of accumulating wealth. For the creamy layer, charity is just another photo opportunity to more fame. More often, the help is measured in the absolute quantity and never in relative quantity (what % of your earning or wealth is your charity). Sometimes a daily wager giving away 25 Rs of his 100 Rs earning is much bigger than the multi millionaire giving away 50% of his wealth.

Until all the members of the earth believr that the resources out there are meant to be shared with everyone, the good hearted able humans should compete with the greedy ones to acquire as much wealth only to give away as much possible and empower the weaker section to be part of the race. Ideally as far as there is a race of wealth accumulation we are losing mother earth. We just need the right messiah who could convince every one to slow down. But unfortunately, we are blessed with more modern age gurus who encourage to accumulate wealth and deplete the nature.

Aparna Krishnan Gandhi to me gives a sense of direction. To reduce, and to demand reduction. There is no other way maybe.

Aparna Krishnan Also to stay rich, and to accumulate, even with the intent to distribute, alienates us from the very people we are concerned about. There cannot be collective efforts in such alienation.

Mark Johnston Creamy layer? Those of us who have had to work in septic tanks understand that it is not cream that floats to the top.

Vevin Moza IMHO, without any doubt the second choice of reducing ones consumption and reducing disparity and coming close to a common man. By doing so, we give birth to a more egalitarian society in which people are treated as equals.

Vevin Moza True charity in real sense would be saving the resources of the planet, using them judiciously and promoting equality among people. So all people have equal opportunities . If we reduce our consumption, it will reduce our carbon foot print and save this planet from climate change, deforestation and pollution. This planet is our mother, only when we see it as our mother we can develop an attitude of reduction in consumption and its harmful effects. We can't kill our mother on one side with our industries which promote consumption and the economy will runs on oil, generate money as reward and donate it for some good causes and live with the sense of accomplishment they we did great service to man kind by donating some bits of paper and think we have done a great service to the society. Money is a man made thing.We need to really think about what money is and re-think what a good life means, what charity really means and how to establish sustainable economies with minimum damage to mother earth. True money is the natural resources of our mother earth.

Swarna Latha Sustainable consumption, like religious and / or spiritual pursuits is an individual commitment, pursued on a personally designed path.

Sanjeev Jain I have a differnt view on accumulating wealth. I feel if one is spending wealth in way which leads to employment generation or redistribution of his income that is also fine. For example rather investing on a land spend on house. Rather spending on gold it is better to spend on a lavish marriage. Charity is the best way to utilise wealth but spending on employment generating activities has its own benefit as well.

Aparna Krishnan yes, that is trusteeship.

Responsible use of one's money for the larger good.

Sanjeev Jain Trusteeship? May be I dont know. The examples I gave where rich enjoys his money,flaunts his wealth and at the same time addig to employment and income generation.

Aparna Krishnan i know . it struck me even as i said it.

Aparna Krishnan but a temple, brihadeshwara maybe, where there is abuzz of activity, where flower sellers, basket weavers, insence makers, sellers of all wares exist with a crowd of a million tourists and pilgrims, and there is employment and zest - i would not complain about temple expenses and extravagences you see. Some disparities is part of society. A pervasive disparity like we see today is wrong. Livlihoods vanishing is very very wrong.