A Wonderful Way To Let Others Discover It For Themselves

Give, without expectation, for the sake of giving. He turned them down because he was already marching to a different drummer. Even when mutually beneficial and entered into freely, transactions impoverish the spirit. He knew that was true, and he came up with a wonderful way to let others discover it for themselves. Karma Kitchen is a splendid example of the many gift economy initiatives sparked by CharityFocus. The entire meal is a gift. Contributions from someone who has eaten there previously have already paid for your meal, and at the end of the meal, you’re given an envelope to make a contribution for people who come after you. Part of the attraction is that everyone who eats there is served unconditionally and with warmth, as if they are guests in a home. Karma Kitchen has covered its costs and then some from its first day, and several members of my class from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley are frequent volunteers. Nipun has spoken to my classes in New York, London, and San Francisco, and the reaction has been surreal. You do an act of anonymous kindness for someone and leave a Smile Card behind. The card explains that some unknown person has performed this service and invites the recipient to pay it forward and leave the Smile Card for the next person to do likewise.

You Know What to Do

To start doing this yourself, go to charityfocus.org, click on About Us at the bottom, and then on Programs. Then click on Smile Cards to find out how to get the cards and see hints on how to use them. Get yourself a bunch of cards and start performing your anonymous acts of kindness. The cards you order have already been paid for, and you can choose if and how much you would like to contribute to the effort. Your mental models, as well as everyone else’s, are ultimately capable of being refuted. Do you feel compassion for the person who’s trying to destroy you? How literally do you take the injunction to turn the other cheek? You’re standing on very slippery rocks when you try to reconcile your firmly held notions of how the world works with those of someone else, especially when there is a sharp divergence. He wasn’t being a smart aleck. Professor Rao, are you telling me there’s nothing I have to get, do, or be in order to be happy? That happiness is my very nature and with me always? he demanded. That’s correct, I said. Then tomorrow, when the alarm rings, I’ll hit the snooze button, he said. Then he got warmed up.

A Hungry Heart

Dang the snooze button, I’ll throw the clock out the window. Why should I do anything at all if all I do is seek happiness and it’s with me already? He looked at me questioningly. His arms weren’t akimbo, but his posture conveyed that impression. The short answer is he was right. You don’t have to do anything or get anything or be anything to be happy. But you can only get away with what my student suggested if you’re at a certain level of consciousness. One of them, who later became famous as Swami Brahmananda, was traveling to the holy city of Varanasi when he could walk no more. He hadn’t eaten for some days, and it was cold. He lay down under a tree and closed his eyes. He thought that his time had come and was at peace with the idea. The body appears and disappears, dust to dust, and he had long ago come to terms with this as no big deal. A passing stranger saw the holy man sleeping in the cold and covered him with an expensive shawl.

Into The Heart

Swami Brahmananda thought, How wonderful is the universe. I was cold, and it provided a shawl for me. Even as he was thinking this, another passerby saw an expensive shawl on an apparently sleeping man and quietly took it away. Swami Brahmananda burst out laughing and thought, How marvelous is the play of the universe! Even as I was giving thanks for a warm shawl, it disappeared. How perfectly jolly! He was ecstatic with mirth. If you are at a similar level of consciousness as the holy man, then you can do nothing and still be happy. But somehow I doubt that any of us are there. With that in mind, I informed my disappointed student, No, it won’t work for you to loll around and do nothing. Remember that you can only act from the level of consciousness where you are. Don’t berate yourself for not having the compassion of the Buddha or Jesus. Instead, do the best you can from where you are. If you’re attacked, defend yourself. If you have a vision of how the world should be, try to bring it about. Be open to the possibility that what you see as right today may not be so tomorrow. Consciously consider the impact of whatever you do on all the parties affected and have the intention that your actions will be of benefit to them all. You won’t always succeed, but the outcome is more likely to be optimal. Most important, invest in the process, not the outcome. Sometimes, buried in the headlines that proclaim calamities, we forget how far we’ve come as a species. There is little doubt that the level of consciousness is increasing around the globe, despite pockets that seem to be retrogressing. There are organizations like the United Nations to ensure that the needs of the poorest people are met, no matter how ineffectual such organizations seem to be. Granted, there is also hypocritical posturing and not much action in proportion to the talk, but the very fact that these issues are being debated is a huge step forward from a hundred years ago. Your task is not to be discouraged at what could be done but isn’t. For example, are some of your clients absolute gems?