Karma Sutra: When we do good with the expectation of a return, we’re contaminating our actions

So, how do we protect our ‘goodness’, when all we get in return for it, is in difference? Would it not be foolish on our part to let our goodness be exploited in this unjust manner?

When we do good, expecting the ‘world’ to return the favour to us, we are bound to be disappointed. The ‘world’ can give us nothing, nor can it take away anything from us. We receive from the world what it owes us and we give back to the world, what we owe it.

People we have the least bit of expectations from reward us or benefit us in ways we could never imagine, likewise, a near stranger can be instrumental in bringing forth our downfall or end. These are people we may not have known much or had any ‘worldly’ transactions with. So, how do we explain these transactions of give and take?

We live in a phenomenal world and the phenomenal world functions on karmic transactions. All our worldly interactions are based on our karmic transactions. Existence carries out these transactions through the ‘phenomenal self’, which is a by-product of the phenomenal world. This phenomenal self, is almost an automated entity carrying out the fulfillment of karmic debts and credits.

Existence reads our intentions, rather than our actions. It rewards us or deprives us in accordance with our intentions. When we do things selflessly, we are rewarded by existence. But when we do a good turn, expecting the ‘world’ to return the favour, we contaminate even our good actions by worldliness (duniyadaari).

When we do good for the sake of goodness, existence rewards us and fulfils our wishes. People who help others out of compassion, rather than vested self-interest, look towards existence to provide for them, they expect nothing from the world.

There’s a short anecdote about a young widow who comes back to live at her mother’s house, with her small child. Her mother lived with her two married sons. While the elder daughter-in-law selfishly kept everything to herself, justifying her own children’s interest, the younger daughter-in-law was very lavish with her widowed sister-in-law and her small child.

On one occasion, seeing the younger sister’s (in-law) generosity with the young widow and her small child, she tells her husband, “Look at the way your brother’s wife is foolishly squandering away her resources. What will she ever get in return from a widow for her generosity.” The husband smiles cynically at his wife and tells her, “She’s not squandering her resources, she’s earning them. Existence will reward her for her compassion.”

The choice yet again stays with us. To rest our expectations from the world or from existence!