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Are we really helping?

(HH Kadamba Kanana Swami, Durban, South Africa, 22nd September 2012) Lecture: SB 11. 31. 24-28

We may start to help people in a mundane way, but then, we really don't know.  You think you're doing a good deed by saving the life of someone who was about to drown.  You pull them out of water and get a medal for it.  Then you feel,

'Well, I did a good deed!'

And later it turns out that the guy was a total rat who used to regularly beat his wife and the kids, and play football with the kids, but where the kids were the ball!  A situation with an outrageous person and you have saved him! You should have let him drown, isn't it?

So it is so difficult to do good in the world – to try and do good is not so easy.  Even when we think we are helping someone, are we really helping them?  We cannot always see the intricacies of the network of activities and reactions that a person is involved in.  We don't know what somebody thinks.  They can smile at us, but what is behind that smile?  How can we know for real?

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