5. Two Incidents

A devotee was distributing food to the people visiting the temple. His family members were standing near him witnessing people receiving and ingesting the food.

One of the persons who received the food murmured, after moving away "It seems the gentleman is seeking some favor from God!" The tone of his voice carried an impression that he was receiving the food in order to help the benefactor to get his wish fulfilled!

Another day, I observed that the temple priest was distributing food to the devotees.

One of the persons receiving the food asked the priest who the benefactor was. The priest said, "A blessed soul arranged for food to be made, offered to God and then distributed to the devotees. He told me not to expect him to be present in the temple today but to offer the food to the Lord at the usual time and then to do the distribution. He is not here. I wonder whether he is a believer at all, but he is doing a commendable deed, indeed."

I narrated these two incidents to an erudite scholar known for his piety and spiritual bent of mind and requested him to critically examine the events from a spiritual perspective.

He said, "There are people who do virtuous deeds like helping the poor, feeding the poor, offering food to the Lord and then distributing it to other people, expecting that virtuous deeds would bring in beneficial results to them. This is like lending money to someone and expecting that after some time, the money would be returned to them with interest. But it may also happen that the loan goes bad and the lender loses his money!

"Those who perform good deeds with the expectation that these deeds would bring in benefits to them may or may not get the benefits they expect. Sometimes, the benefits may be trivial or may have only short term value. 

"It is also possible that benefits will occur only in the next birth. Thus, people who do good, expecting some benefit to accrue to them, often end up frustrated that good deeds have not given them what they hoped to get. 

"You told me that in the first case, one of the persons receiving the food had a patronizing attitude towards the benefactor as if it was he who was doing a favor to the benefactor by accepting the food offered! This shows that doing good deeds with expectation of benefits may sometimes turn out to be futile! 

"In the second case, the benefactor seems to have acted with no expectations. He was not even keen to let people receiving the food know who the benefactor was. But look at the result! The priest describes him a blessed soul!

"A person who does a good deed without any expectation gets praised! But one who expects something in return for his good deed is treated with condescension and pity, as if that is all he deserved!

"If we commit wrongs, we will reap the consequences by way of sufferings even during our current birth. Alternatively, or additionally, we may go to hell after death or may suffer in our next birth. 

If we do good things for the sake of getting some benefits, we may get some benefits even during the current birth or we may be able to enjoy the benefit only in our next birth.

"But those who do good deeds without any expectation are close to God. In the Gita, the Lord talks about 'action with no attachment.' This means an action without any desire for results.

Those who do good things without any expectation will experience heaven even as they are living in this world. They will feel being close to God. But this can happen only to those who realize the greatness of God and revel in His glory."

I felt I was beginning to comprehend what the saintly man was saying.  

(This is the English version of the Tamil story annadhaanam written by the same author)

Virtue

Chapter 1

In Praise of God

Verse 5

iruLsEr iruvinaiyum sEraaiRaivan 
poruLsEr pukazh purindhaar maattu.

Meaning:

Consequences of either type of action will not touch the one who dwells in the glory of God.

Verse 6 (soon)

Verse 4