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Q: Sadhguru, I am not able to do much charity or help people. What can I do?
A: You just make your life a contribution. Contribution does not mean pulling money out from your pocket and distributing to people. I am not talking about charity. Charity is obscene, because only where love is missing is charity possible. If you do something to your children, do you think you have done a great charity? No. But, if you do something to that child on the street, then you think you are doing a great charity, because you have no love for him. You never thought you are responsible for that child.
If you thought you are responsible for the child, you don’t feel it is charity. You want to do it; the more opportunity to do it, the better it is. But where you think “I am not responsible,” there you think there is charity.
I am not talking about charity—whatever we do, our life itself can be a contribution. Now all of you are dressing up the best possible way it is possible for you when you are coming. Is this a contribution to the atmosphere? If you come in stinking, tattered clothes, the room wouldn’t be the same, isn’t it?
You coming like this, definitely is contributing to the surroundings, but unaware; that’s the problem. Now, if you come with this consciousness that “I dress like this because I want to contribute to everybody’s life around me,” how beautiful will this dress feel? Whether it is 10 rupees or 10,000 rupees, it doesn’t matter.
So everything that you do can be a contribution. Contribution need not necessarily mean you have to give something to somebody. Actually, you are already contributing, the only thing is you are not aware.
That bus driver who is driving on the street, see how useful he is. Tomorrow if he is not there, many people’s lives will be dislocated, but the fool doesn’t know this. When you go and sit on a bus do you ever think whether this man knows to drive or not? You have tremendous trust in bus drivers, isn’t it? You cannot even trust your parents this much, but in this bus driver you have great trust. Before he starts the bus many people will put their life in his hands and sleep off. How much trust you need for this. If he just turns around and looks, “these people are sitting here like my children and let me take them safely,” you know how wonderful it would be to drive this bus? Anyway, he knows to drive, he knows the route he will take you well, but if he has this awareness in him, how beautiful it is to drive this bus.
Just make your life a contribution and you can see for yourself the kind of difference you make in the world you live in.
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Charity and Compassion
By: Sadhguru 
November 2010
A: You just make your life a contribution. Contribution does not mean pulling money out from your pocket and distributing to people. I am not talking about charity. Charity is obscene, because only where love is missing is charity possible. If you do something to your children, do you think you have done a great charity? No. But, if you do something to that child on the street, then you think you are doing a great charity, because you have no love for him. You never thought you are responsible for that child.
If you thought you are responsible for the child, you don’t feel it is charity. You want to do it; the more opportunity to do it, the better it is. But where you think “I am not responsible,” there you think there is charity.
I am not talking about charity—whatever we do, our life itself can be a contribution. Now all of you are dressing up the best possible way it is possible for you when you are coming. Is this a contribution to the atmosphere? If you come in stinking, tattered clothes, the room wouldn’t be the same, isn’t it?
You coming like this, definitely is contributing to the surroundings, but unaware; that’s the problem. Now, if you come with this consciousness that “I dress like this because I want to contribute to everybody’s life around me,” how beautiful will this dress feel? Whether it is 10 rupees or 10,000 rupees, it doesn’t matter.
So everything that you do can be a contribution. Contribution need not necessarily mean you have to give something to somebody. Actually, you are already contributing, the only thing is you are not aware.
That bus driver who is driving on the street, see how useful he is. Tomorrow if he is not there, many people’s lives will be dislocated, but the fool doesn’t know this. When you go and sit on a bus do you ever think whether this man knows to drive or not? You have tremendous trust in bus drivers, isn’t it? You cannot even trust your parents this much, but in this bus driver you have great trust. Before he starts the bus many people will put their life in his hands and sleep off. How much trust you need for this. If he just turns around and looks, “these people are sitting here like my children and let me take them safely,” you know how wonderful it would be to drive this bus? Anyway, he knows to drive, he knows the route he will take you well, but if he has this awareness in him, how beautiful it is to drive this bus.
Just make your life a contribution and you can see for yourself the kind of difference you make in the world you live in.
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