Is doing financial seva equal to doing physical seva? I feel guilty because I am unable to contribute physically to seva as I have a very time consuming corporate job.

Q: Is doing financial seva equal to doing physical seva? I feel guilty because I am unable to contribute physically to seva as I have a very time consuming corporate job.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Any seva is good, you don’t have to feel guilty. If you cannot financially do seva, or physically do seva, even just sending your blessings is good enough. Just through thought waves also you can send good vibrations. That also is seva.

I have had many people coming and telling me, "I am so old and so weak, I can’t do seva". Their hearts are yearning to do seva, but physically they cannot do.

I tell them, "Don’t worry, just sit and pray. Bless and send the vibrations of positivity. That is also seva". Now the youngsters sitting here, don’t take this as an excuse not to do seva, and say, "Gurudev has said that I can just sit and bless everyone". That is only when you cannot do seva physically.

You know, when I was in Delhi, one lady came and gave me a cheque of Rs.3.00,000. I asked her what she does and she said she is a school teacher. I knew that she had taken a loan to give me the contribution. She said that so much of transformation has happened in her life, and she wanted to give something. I said, “No, I am not going to take this money. I am going to take only Rs.5000 from you”.

A similar incident happened. A young boy who just did the Happiness Program three weeks ago said, "My whole life has changed". He has a mother and they have a four acre land beyond Gurgaon (city in the Indian state of Haryana) and he hands over a cheque of 2 million rupees to me and is crying for me to accept. I asked him what his bank balance was, and he said, "One Crore". I said, "No, I am not going to take. You keep it. It is mine only, but you keep it with you". He insisted that I take it, so I decided to take Rs. 200,000 from him and he was happy that Gurudev has accepted and not rejected what he gave.

It is not what you give that is important, it is the feeling with which you give that is important. That itself is seva. There are many people on this planet like that. In fact, you are all like that, you want to keep contributing. The feeling that I want to contribute is itself very precious, so let it be there. Don’t let it dry out. That is the juice in life to want to be part of something big.

Now, with this, you also need the wisdom of where to give, whom to give and what to give. If the boy who wanted to give 2 million had gone to someone else, they may have even take away the entire one crore. So you have to see who is deserving (patra) and who is undeserving (apatra) when you give charity. You need to see whether they are really qualified to receive what you want to give them.