The Way To Gain Anything Is To Try And Lose It!

True charity emanates from sound judgment of the intellect rather than a weak emotion of the mind. In its purest form, charity has the distinction of benefiting the receiver as well as the donor.
Victor Hugo in his novel ‘Les Miserables’ highlights the benefaction that charity brings to the receiver. A convict had escaped from prison and sought shelter for the night. The priest obliged, gave him supper and a bed to sleep. In the middle of the night he decamped with the silver plates of the house. The next morning the police who had caught him brought him in. The priest feigned surprise and asked the policeman: “Why did you harass him? I gifted the plates to him last night.” The policeman apologised and left. The convict was astounded. To crown it all, the priest picked up two solid silver candlestick stands from his desk and gave them to the convict with these words: Remember, life is to give, not to take. The convict took them and departed. Thence, he was transformed. Living a life of service and sacrifice. Such would be the outcome of true charity.
Likewise, the donor is blessed with the effect of charity. Charity is a synonym for prosperity. So is sacrifice for success. Swami Rama Tirtha proclaims: The way to gain anything is to lose it. The more you run after wealth, the more it recedes. You crave for it, and it eludes you. Leave it alone, and it follows you. Work earnestly, dispassionately; the reward of work shall court you.
The phenomenon of colours illustrates this law of life. Light is constituted of seven colours. When an object is bathed in light the seven colours impinge upon it. An object appears blue when it actually gives away blue and takes in the other six. It appears in the colour it parts with. An object gains the colour it gives away! You gain what you give away, what you sacrifice. Not what you take. Develop the spirit of dispassion, renunciation in life. You turn pure, divine. And when you amass wealth you turn impure, demonic. Oliver Goldsmith wrote: Where wealth accumulates, men decay.
Social service is indeed a noble trait. But these scattered units can in no way solve the problem of poverty and misery in the world. Hence the world needs not just bouts of social service but education and dissemination of social consciousness among people. That one should empathise, share and live in harmony with fellow beings. The idea of social consciousness needs to be introduced at the level of primary schools for children to grow with that concept. And gradually inculcated in families at home. With the dawn of social consciousness the mist of social service disappears. Every individual becomes a social worker.
Just imagine a country devoid of literacy barring a group of literates. The residual literates have to choose one of two options: Each of them starts teaching people individually. Or start schools for teachers’ training. And these teachers in turn produce more teachers.
The former method can provide only a limited satisfaction for educating a few pockets in the country while the latter can gradually cover the entire country and solve the problem of illiteracy.
Similarly, social workers and their social work can only create pockets of relief while the perennial problem of poverty and misery persists. The problem can be solved only through mass education and dissemination of social consciousness. Vedanta, the ancient philosophy of India, educates and inculcates this spirit of social consciousness in human beings.