Greatness is Not in What One Has, But by What One Gives*
Contributed By - Dr. Jaswant Singh Sachdev, M.D., F.A.A.N*
In the foreword of a book titled, Baba Iqbal Singh “Mission To Reboot Punjab Through Value-based Education,” Sunil Kant Munjal of Hero Motor Corp. made a statement that I decided to select as the title of this essay here.* On perusing through the Internet to further support this, I encountered an article by Jenny Santi dated August 04, 2017 where she quoted a Chinese saying: “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune but if you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.” For centuries, the greatest thinkers have been suggesting that Happiness is found in helping others.
The concept being put forth here is neither new, nor rare but somehow we have started to take it for granted. Yet all is not that bad. There are people among us always ready to do something for others. They understand that by even chipping away a bit of what we think we can afford, it is worth the effort as nothing can move without ongoing monetary support. To that effect, limitless NGOs and charitable outfits all over are trying to help. They have established special cells to raise funds by whatever means possible in accordance with the culture and traditions of a given community. Various International charities such as International Red Cross, CARE, UNICEF and several others, supported by United Nations including America-based charities such as Disabled Veterans of America and Goodwill etc. are performing their noble activities with the help of such cells. Same is true with major India-based NGOs such as Pratham, Akshay Patra and Sankara that carry on their noble acts to help mankind through the support of people living abroad.
On the other hand, if one were to attempt to help all, one could merely get lost in an endless sea of demands. Most of us, therefore, try to make it simple and practical for us and support organizations having same goal as we do. This gives us some space for taking refuge in the concept that we have done what we could. Nothing is wrong in that kind of approach although it may not be enough.
Giving in fact is not limited to monetary help; rather it could be of several kinds. Based on Indian Dharmic philosophy and in accordance with the Sikh faith, ‘giving’ can be of three kinds i.e., Tunn, Munn and Dhunn. Let me attempt to explain these three kinds of giving or Seva in a bit of detail.
Simply put “Tunn” stands for offering physical services wherever there is a need. This is the supreme form of ‘giving’ though it might not work for everyone. Depending upon the country, faith and resources as well as health, a certain percentage of people are likely to get physically involved. For example, when it comes to general population of the U.S., “45 percent of the U.S. population said that they had volunteered some time to a charitable cause within the last year based on Phone Survey”.
Two serious catastrophic natural disasters caused by the flurry of hurricanes affected a good chunk of United States and various islands in the South and Southeast of US. Many citizens of world watched and pained by what they saw and truly wanted to help physically by being there, yet for myriad of reasons, it was not possible. Only lucky of the luckiest few were blessed to have the physical stamina and resources to be there in the midst of the tragedy to help out the neediest.
Seva or service by “Munn” on the other hand is the involvement through thought, will and prayer. An emotional environment is created within and around so as to make it easy to provide needed help by whatever means possible. Here one has to avoid creating hurdles through criticism or finding faults and rather help in motivating others. Returning back to the example of recent natural calamities, those who could physically not go at the site to help out, but tried to inspire others for benevolent acts to raise and deliver funds to the needy did fulfill the criteria for this kind of service.
And last but not the least of the three kinds of services is through “Dhunn.” It translates into monetary help or by other resources available to the donor. Looking around us, especially in this land of plenty, many of its citizens do dole out a portion of income and stand ready for these kinds of natural and other calamities. In the statistics of ‘giving’ by different countries mentioned in Internet in the previous article ‘Philanthropy-Roundtable’ it was stated that “Americans are about twice as generous in their private ‘giving’ as our kissing cousins, the Canadians, and 3-15 times as charitable as the residents of other developed nations.”
Furthermore, the charity in America has been consistently on the rise. “After adjusting for inflation, charitable giving by Americans was close to seven times as big in 2015 as it was 61 years earlier.” So reports the same article. As per World Giving Index 2014, the list of 10 most charitable nations in the world as published in November by the Charities Aid Foundation of countries like Myanmar and the United States topped the list. This was based on donations, volunteer work and helping strangers.”
According to another Internet Data-Blog in the Guardian under the title ‘Charitable Giving by Country: Who is the Most Generous?,’ “the United Kingdom is the eighth most charitable nation in the world, whereas the world’s fastest growing major economies i.e., China and India rank among the least altruistic as per the largest study ever carried out into social conscience.” What an irony! We always thought that India will be somewhere in the top when it comes to charities and donations.
Greatness of my native land needs to be restored back but not through ever increasing population, pollution, corruption and uncleanliness as well as ever rising numbers of saints and babas sitting at every corner of the country to rape not only the conscience of the poor people of India but their daughters and sisters too. More important will be to instill the habit of giving in our children. Once that happens, India and Indians will truly shine; for after all it is a necessity of time that cannot and should not be overlooked.
*From the author of his latest book, “Western Mirror, Eastern Reflections”