Table of Contents
2. Why is it important for charity workers to do their charity work as spiritual practice?
3. What is spiritual growth from the perspective of Path of Action or Karma yoga?
5. When does charity work become spiritual practice and fuel spiritual growth?
1. Introduction
All over the world many people are involved in humanitarian work and associated with charitable organisations that work for the good of society. In this article we will discuss when such type of activities can be regarded as spiritual practice and help in spiritual growth.
To understand this article better please refer to our articles
1.1 Example profiles of charity workers
These humanitarians may be engaged in charity work on a full time basis or could be as a once a year activity such as a once a year donation. By humanitarians we mean people working towards advancing the well-being of humanity as a whole either by providing monetary benefit or by giving of themselves in some form or the other.
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Adopting a child in a developing country
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Donating to a charitable or non-profit organisation working towards promoting human welfare
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A surgeon giving his services free-of-charge for a certain period every year to people who cannot afford healthcare
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Working as a volunteer with under-privileged or handicapped children
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Working in the field with famine victims in a continent like Africa
2. Why is it important for charity workers to do their charity work as spiritual practice?
For many people doing charity work, the pure satisfaction of helping their fellow men and doing their bit for society is reward enough. This also makes them feel good about themselves.
However when these same people do charity work as spiritual practice the benefit is multiplied manifold. The manifestations of benefits of spiritual practice and the resultant spiritual growth are:
Please click on the various links to see these benefits in more detail.
3. What is spiritual growth from the perspective of Path of Action or Karma yoga?
People involved in charity work as spiritual practice follow the Path of Action or Karma yoga. We have explained this path in more detail in the article – ‘What is Karma yoga?’.
However in brief, whenever a person does an action (karma), he either gets merits or demerits depending on the nature of the action. If a person is involved with charity work then he would gain merits from this action. He would also create a give-and-take account with the people for whom he is serving. However both merits and demerits keep us trapped in the cycle of birth and death. This means that we have to be born again and again to complete our account and experience happiness from merits and unhappiness from demerits either in our current birth or in the afterlife or in subsequent births.
However as one matures on the Path of Action or Karma Yoga one continues to perform good deeds; but does so with lesser and lesser doership and attachment to the action and expectation of the results. This finally culminates in a zero ego state where though one does the action but does not consider oneself the doer. As one begins to identify less and less with one’s actions one goes beyond merits and demerits and is liberated from the cycle of birth and death. In the highest stage of Karma yoga (at the 100% spiritual level) each action becomes a nonaction-action (akarma-karma). This is a state when all actions happen without doership or ego, where the person does not feel attachment to the action and nor does he have any expectations of results.
If one had to choose between just earning merits versus spiritual growth, spiritual growth far outweighs earning of merits as it burns one’s destiny and accumulated account (sanchit). As we go further into the era of Kaliyuga (Era of Strife) which is the current era, the destiny that we are born with will only bring with it more and more unhappiness. Even now an average person’s life has a greater predominance of unhappiness than happiness. It’s only through spiritual growth that we gain a superlative happiness known as Bliss and also liberation from the cycle of birth and death.
4. What does the average charity worker doing his work as spiritual practice gain at a spiritual level?
At the first stage there is some reduction in the ego of the charity worker just by the act of giving of himself for others. This is because thinking about the benefit of others itself reduces the focus on oneself, i.e. one’s five senses, mind and intellect.
With progressive increments in doing their work as Karma yoga charity workers are progressively freed of the fruits of their actions and thus from the cycle of birth and death. This will of course depend on the scope and intensity of their efforts.
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By scope we mean other than the charity work per se, how many other activities of their day to day life do they do without doership, without attachment and without expectation of results.
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By intensity we mean to what extent each activity is done as per these criteria.
5. When does charity work become spiritual practice and fuel spiritual growth?
Charity work becomes spiritual practice when it is done with a close watch on whether the following is happening within oneself at progressively enhanced levels
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Reduction of one’s ego
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Reduction of one’s doership
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Reduction of one’s attachment to any activity and yet doing it with perfection without expectation of results
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Reduction of one’s personality defects, such as anger, pride, greed, etc.
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Enhancing one’s qualities
An over-arching point is that there needs to be regular increment in the above perspectives for it to be considered as spiritual practice.
5.1 Examples of perspectives one can keep to ensure that the charity work one is doing is spiritual practice
The following are a few examples of perspectives that people who fit into the above-mentioned profiles can keep while doing charity work.
6. Case study of a charity worker
The following is an account by Mrs. Pervin Mehta, honorary director of a school for handicapped children in Mumbai, India who has been involved with charity work for the past 35 years. Her perspective towards how she applied herself to charity work changed after starting spiritual practice and understanding the basic purpose of life.
