Helping others is the rent paid to the god for staying on earth

Helping others is the rent paid to the god for staying on earth. Muhammad Ali, the professional American boxer and social activist also said in similar line, but I read this phrase somewhere else, which left a strong image in my mind. As I read it again and again, I could understand deeper meaning and message behind it which I am trying to share here..

The phrase begins with ‘helping others’. Choice of a word ‘helping’ is very important here. Instead of ‘helping’, ‘doing something for’ could have been written. Thus, “Doing something for others is a rent paid to the god for staying on the earth” is also an appropriate statement. Then, why the word, ‘helping’ is chosen? There is a valid reason behind it. ‘Doing something for’ means you may do with or without any expectations in return, whereas the dictionary meaning of ‘help’ is ‘to aid’ or ‘to assist’. If taken a spiritual angle, ‘helping’ means to give or to do something without expecting anything in return. Thus, ‘helping’ becomes a ‘Nishkam karma’ – a karma without any expectations, which makes the god happy and ultimately leads to salvation of an individual! Thus, ‘helping’ has a deeper meaning and has a great importance.

Now, lets understand the word, ‘others’. Others means who? Anyone other than me? If you take literal meaning, then right. But since the phrase itself has spiritual meaning, we need to understand the word ‘others’ from that angle. If a father helps his son by paying schools fees or a son takes care of his parents should be considered as ‘helping others’? No… because it comes under fundamental duties of an individual and performance of duties can not be treated as help extended. Thus we have to extend help to those, apart from performing our duties - which is a basic requirement, who are not part of receiving our service as a part of our fundamental duty. Here, ‘extending help to others’ is not a substitute of ‘performing our fundamental duties’. In fact, ‘performing our fundamental duties’ is a step before the step of ‘helping others’.

Moving forward, the phrase talks about, “helping others is a rent paid to the god….” Pl give your attention here…. It says, ‘we pay rent’.  What does it mean? It means that we are only the users and ownership lies with somebody else and hence, we have to pay for usage of the place. And to whom we have to pay the rent? To the God… the owner! We are nothing in front of the god, to pay the rent in monetary terms… only ‘Nishkam karma – helping others’ can act as a currency to pay the rent to the god.

It further says, “for staying”. Here, the choice of word, ‘staying’ is very important. The word ‘staying’ is chosen and not ‘living’. Staying implies ‘temporary in nature’ while living is for longer time, kind of a permanent in nature. Moreover, since it is about staying in a rented place, the payment of rent has to be periodic and not one time, as in cases of buying the place for permanent living. We have to vacate the place, if we fail to pay the rent. Which means, the ‘act of helping others’ has to be continuous for us to continue staying in the place owned by the god!

The phrase ends with ‘on earth’. Here it’s not about a room, a house, a society, a city, state or a country…. Instead, it says ‘on earth’. Thus, the rent has to be paid anywhere we reside on the earth…. cities, towns, villages, deserts, jungles, mountains, rivers, sea…anywhere on earth! So, we need to keep helping others wherever we are on the earth, throughout our lifetimes. We can perhaps only stop, when we vacate the earth !

In a nutshell, do help others whenever, wherever!

Now you may feel, if we keep helping others, when should we do something with expectation of return? i.e. when should we earn? When should we charge for our services rendered to others? This is a valid point!

Well, the help needs to be extended when it is needed and the form in which it is needed, then only it is useful. We don’t have to distribute help! In the normal situations, we should do our work with honesty and at the same time keep an eye on where, when and how can we be helpful someone? The intent ‘to be helpful to others’ should drive the action and we then will end up with generously helping others.

With this another thought, I take your leave.  Happy Helping :)

- Ashish Shelat

#helping #help #rent #god #earth 

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