Vision and Inspiration

Question:

“I have observed that your organization carries out a large-scale food distribution program that feeds hundreds of people each week. Could you explain to me the reasons behind this program?”

(Question from Nancy Gordon, at Prabhuji’s Facebook page)

Response from Prabhuji:

There are two reasons: one human and the other spiritual, which generally fight like two brothers in the same house. Although the human reason is simple, the mind complicates it. Nowadays we see that there is hunger in a large part of the population. A program like ours, with twelve consecutive years up to the present, consists of a simple response, without theorizing too much. It is a basic and almost instinctive impulse; I would even call it animal and, precisely for that reason, sacred: someone is cold and you cover them; someone is hungry and you feed them.

The spiritual reason is more delicate because sometimes it can be confused with some of those preaching strategies of the promoters of beliefs. Many slap on the label of “charity,” which I do not like because frequently it is only perfumed ego.

Our program is based on a realization unbearable to the ego: that there are no “others” separate from you. There is one and the same life breathing in a diversity of chests, one and the same consciousness expressing itself in an infinity of bodies. It is the highest service of worship, just as Jesus says in Matthew 25:35-36:

ἐπείνασα γὰρ καὶ ἐδώκατέ μοι φαγεῖν, ἐδίψησα καὶ ἐποτίσατέ με, ξένος ἤμην καὶ συνηγάγετέ με, γυμνὸς καὶ περιεβάλετέ με, ἠσθένησα καὶ ἐπεσκέψασθέ με, ἐν φυλακῇ ἤμην καὶ ἤλθατε πρός με.

“For I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in; I was naked, and you clothed me; sick, and you visited me; in prison, and you came to me.”

And when they ask “when…?”, Jesus caps it off like this in Matthew 25:40:

Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐφ’ ὅσον ἐποιήσατε ἑνὶ τούτων τῶν ἀδελφῶν μου τῶν ἐλαχίστων, ἐμοὶ ἐποιήσατε.

“Truly I tell you that inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

When you feed someone, you are not only filling a stomach; your action is silently saying: “There is someone to whom your existence matters.” By expressing it, your own existence expands and stops focusing on “me.”

This service is a kind of meditation in motion, although I do not mean closing your eyes and sitting in the lotus position. I am not talking about praying before distributing the food, but about serving as prayer. The heart softens and expands; the ego, even if only temporarily, remains at a standstill. The one who serves by giving is also nourished by the experience of being an integral part of reality.

And if you ask why do it on a large scale, it is because hunger, unfortunately, does not arrive in small doses; lately it has been arriving like a great wave that is growing rapidly. And in a flood, before developing theories, it is necessary to build boats. The scale responds to the dimensions of the need and to the size of the love that is possible. We try to do it big not so much because of our resources, but because of our desire to serve. The very act of service creates community; it brings faces, names, stories closer, and when there is community, dignity is reborn; and dignity does not accept being treated like trash. Believe me: a bowl of soup and a piece of bread can be more revolutionary than a thousand speeches.

At bottom, the reason is that while someone is hungry, all spirituality that does not become bread is merely decorative… and decoration does not feed anyone.

ἐὰν ἀδελφὸς ἢ ἀδελφὴ γυμνοὶ ὑπάρχωσιν καὶ λειπόμενοι τῆς ἐφημέρου τροφῆς, εἴπῃ δέ τις αὐτοῖς ἐξ ὑμῶν· Ὑπάγετε ἐν εἰρήνῃ, θερμαίνεσθε καὶ χορτάζεσθε, μὴ δῶτε δὲ αὐτοῖς τὰ ἐπιτήδεια τοῦ σώματος, τί τὸ ὄφελος; οὕτως καὶ ἡ πίστις, ἐὰν μὴ ἔχῃ ἔργα, νεκρά ἐστιν καθ’ ἑαυτήν.

“And if a brother or a sister are naked and in need of daily sustenance, and one of you says to them: Go in peace, warm yourselves and fill yourselves, but you do not give them the things that are necessary for the body, what good is it? So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead in itself.”

(James 2:15–17)