Spiritual Benefits of Contribution

Hello, I'm A.J. Hogue, the author of Effortless English. Learn to speak English like a native. The spiritual benefits of contribution, the spiritual reasons for contribution, for focusing on contribution.

That's our topic today. talking to you from Indiana here in the United States. It's a warm spring day today. We've got a storm coming. Strong winds. I'm outside in the yard here.

We've got strong winds. You might hear it in my microphone. I am sorry. Supposed to have big storms tonight and a tornado warning. So they get tornadoes.

We get tornadoes here in Indiana. If you guys have seen the movie Twister, then you know what those are. Some countries don't get them. I think Japan doesn't get tornadoes.

I never heard of a tornado in Japan, but here they get them. Of course, Japan gets typhoons. Let's talk about it. Here's a quote from the Bhagavad Gita.

Charity given at the right time and place to a worthy person without expecting anything in return is the highest form of giving. So what does that mean?

Let's go through this step by step, because I think this is an excellent teaching on the topic of giving contribution. So here we're talking about charity.

It's obviously the original is written in Sanskrit. So charity, here we're talking about contribution or giving. It's not just about money. In fact, we're going to talk today that really money is probably the worst way to give or to contribute.

It's, you know, if you're buying things, it's fine. But we'll talk about this in a second. But let's go back to this quote. charity given at the right time and place to a worthy person so these phrases are very very very important and i think this really is something that's has been missing certainly in the west i

for the last, I don't know, one or two centuries, maybe more, this idea that giving is not indiscriminate and should not be. What does that mean, indiscriminate?

To discriminate means to judge, to decide what is good, what is bad, what is right, what is wrong, what is better and what is worse. And in our crazy world right now, our clown world, you know, the media and many times in schools, they try to teach you that discrimination is bad and that everything's equal. Well, that's ridiculous.

It's one of the most ridiculous and obvious lies told. And yet huge numbers of people just mindlessly believe and follow that. But that just makes you an idiot.

If you don't discriminate, if you don't decide what is better and what is worse, what is right, what is wrong, you're just a mindless idiot. You're no better than an animal.

I think there are probably animals that can do that a little bit, somewhat. So this idea that we should just help everybody sort of mindlessly is wrong.

Is wrong. And so you don't have to give money. You don't have to feel bad, for example, if you're walking around and there's a beggar on the street and they're asking you for money and you don't give it to them.

Because are they a worthy person? right? And you have to decide that yourself. But I can say, having lived in San Francisco, for example, in the United States, that there are just huge numbers of people on the streets, you know, begging for money, asking for money.

And most of them are not worthy, meaning most of them are alcoholics and drug addicts, by far, in San Francisco. I don't, I don't, mean that everywhere in the world that's true but certainly in san francisco that's true and so giving them money what are they going to do they're just going to go buy more alcohol or buy more drugs you're not the only thing you would if you gave them money when they ask you for money you're only contributing to their misery you're contributing to their unhappiness you're contributing to their addiction you're not helping them you're hurting them

They're not worthy in any way of receiving that money, that help from you. You should feel no guilt whatsoever in saying no or just ignoring them. Likewise, in many American cities and towns, you'll have people who will try to con you. Or in India, maybe the place that I've experienced this the most aggressively, is, you know, you just have lying thieves who come up to you constantly on the sidewalk, especially if you're a tourist, an obvious foreign tourist.

And they will just harass you and... They have all kinds of different ways to try to cheat you out of money or, you know, beg you for money or ask you for money. And again, in most cases, are these people worthy? No.

And if the other thing is, if you just if you don't know somebody, if they're a total stranger to you, you have no obligation to help them or contribute to them or give them something.

So you have to use your discrimination. In other words, use your intelligence to decide if they are a worthy person. Just meaning, are they a decent person?

Will contributing to them in some way, whether it's giving them money or helping them or doing something for them, will... Number one, will it actually help them in any way, right? Potentially.

And number two, will it harm you? Like with all these, you know, people who are liars and cheaters, they will try to use your compassion against you, your desire to be kind.

And they will end up cheating you or sometimes they, you know, there's all these stories. Again, like in India, yeah, oh my God, this is a... It stressed me out. It took me about a month to adjust to this when I traveled in India the first time.

Just constant, never-ending liars and scammers and cheaters bothering me everywhere I went when I walked around. And... In the beginning, I would give them money, but did that help? No.

Many times, they would try to cheat me or pressure me. They would maybe try to take me somewhere where they could possibly rob me. Luckily, I was smart and didn't go with them.

Use your intelligence. Definitely. And at the right time and place, right? This is another example where I'm using extreme examples just to make the point.

So again, I've worked with alcoholics and drug addicts as a social worker a long time ago. And does that mean you never help them? No, of course not. Sometimes you can help them, but it has to be at the right time and place.

What does that mean? It means the only time you can help a drug addict or an alcoholic is when they desperately want help. when they have decided they absolutely must stop and quit, and then they ask for help, not money to buy more alcohol and drugs, no, help quitting.

That's the right time and place to help them. Then there is a possibility that, and of course there have been many people, many addicts and alcoholics who have quit,

But they'll tell you. They will tell you themselves. Any alcoholic or drug addict who has quit and they're sober now, they'll tell you. You can't help them until they're ready to be helped.

You can't help them until it's the right time, until they have decided themselves. Because ultimately, of course, only they can stop. And then the next phrase, without expecting anything in return. And this gets more to the heart of it.

Because luckily, you and I are probably not dealing with cheaters and liars and drug addicts and alcoholics day to day. I hope you're not. Some of us are unlucky. Some people are unlucky and they have somebody like that in their family.

Or if it's your job, then maybe you have to do that. But for most of us, that's not what we're dealing with. But this next phrase becomes important. Without expecting anything in return.

And this is a very Sanatana Dharma Vedic and also Buddhist approach to giving. And really to any kind of action. Which is that you do not... When you give, when you help, when you contribute, you do it without expecting to get anything back.

You don't expect the person to thank you. You don't expect the person to do something nice for you in the future. Don't expect anything at all. You just do it because it's a good thing to do.

And we're going to talk about the reasons that you do it. But you don't expect any reward. And this is called the principle of non-attachment or the principle of equanimity. It means emotionally you stay calm.

Because after all, if you're giving and you're just expecting to get something back in return... That's not very generous, really, is it? And you'll feel it in your heart. It's a very different thing than if you contribute, just to contribute, just to give, just to be helpful, expecting nothing in return at all.

This is the highest form of giving. And the Sanskrit is sattvic, meaning this is the kind of giving that is sattvic. Sattvic means virtuous, goodness. So this is the best kind of giving.

Now, I should say that even though we give with equanimity we're not expecting to get anything back it doesn't mean that there's not a reward for us but the reward is just the joy of giving just the joy of contributing the joy of helping that is the reward and it doesn't depend on the other person doing anything

So there is a reward in giving and contributing when you do it with this attitude, when you do it in this way. And that reward is joy, happiness. And ultimately...

to serve others, to contribute to others, to serve others, to help others, is a means of serving the divine. And the divine you may call God, Narayana, Allah, Christ, Tao, whatever your name is for that.

How is that so? Because when we're giving, the highest form of giving, and the one that's going to give you the most spiritual benefits, power, and by that I mean joy, happiness, goodness,

is when you give with this mindset that by serving others, you're actually serving God. By serving others, you're actually serving the divine. And why is that? How is that?

Because in every single person, there is a little, we could say, a spark, a little, a piece of the divine. I think Christians call this the Holy Spirit.

In Sanatana Dhamra, we call it Paratman, right? It is that, you know, God is God within us, right? We have our own soul, Atman, soul or spirit. But as part of that, you know, you might think in the heart of that is always, right, is God, the spirit of God is within us.

And not only within you and me, but everybody. And so when you contribute to someone, no matter what kind of person they are, Do it with the idea that you are serving God, that you are serving the divine, that you recognize that inside that person is the divine.

It may be hidden. It may be covered up. They might not be aware of it. So they might not be a very nice person. And they might have a whole lot of problems.

And you might not even like them that much. But if you are contributing to them, if you decide to serve them... or help them, or give to them, try to do it. Just try to have a little bit of this thought in your mind that you're not just serving them, that human being, but by doing that, you're also serving something much greater, the divine.

The divine means the holy, the highest god, the And by doing this, you purify yourself spiritually. This is a form of purification because then your focus is on the highest. You know, how do you purify your mind?

How do you purify your spirit, right? Because we're all have a whole different problems and we're not pure. How do you become more pure, right? A better person, right?

A more spiritual person. And by more spiritual means you're, you know, more good, more virtuous, more connected to God and the divine. How do you do that?

By focusing as much as you can all day long, if possible, on the highest. Right? Because what we focus on, that's what our mind becomes. I mean, this is just even just basic positive thinking psychology.

It's the whole idea behind this idea of positive thinking. which is a non-spiritual sort of practice that people do that kind of comes from this same idea, I think. And that is just, well, if you focus on positive things all the time, you become a more positive person. And as you become a more positive person, you're more optimistic, you're more confident.

And because of that, you actually have more success and better things happen to you in life. Because The more you change yourself on the inside, you change your mind, you change your habits of thinking, you change what you focus on.

It changes you and that changes what outcomes, what results you get in life. This is basic NLP. You know, Tony Robbins teaches, he calls it the triad, I think it is. It's the three things, the three areas you can focus on.

Any of these three areas to make a big, huge, quick change in your life. And one of them is language. You focus on the kind of language you use, how you say things.

And of course, you want to focus on powerful, strong, positive language. One of them is, he calls it physiology, but it's just your body, how you use your body.

changes how you feel. And when you change how you feel, that changes how you think and how you act. And the third one is focus. The third one is focus.

What you focus on. It means what you think about most of the time. And if you're thinking about problems all day long, just all these problems you have. Oh, this is not good in my life.

This is not good in my life. Negative, negative, negative. It pulls you down. It pulls your energy down, down, down. You will eventually feel physically more tired just because you're thinking about all this negative stuff all the time and focusing on it.

And you'll get worse results. Your confidence will start to drop, drop, drop. Your actions will become less effective. And the opposite side is when you focus on the positive things.

The more you focus on very positive things, on powerful things, on good things, your mind just gets filled with these things all day long from when you wake up till you go to bed. Your mind is just filled with positive things, focusing on good things, focusing on gratitude, focusing on love, focusing on success, focusing on all these great things. And

Building that habit, as it gets stronger and stronger, it changes you. From the inside. And then the results you get on the outside, in the outside world, become better and better and better. You start to become more successful in relationships, in business, in everything.

So this is the same kind of idea, but the highest form of positive thinking is to be thinking of God, to be thinking of the divine thinking. all the time there's nothing higher so you know you can think about positive things such as you know like I'm gonna I'm gonna make a million dollars I'm gonna make a million dollars I'm gonna make a million dollars and I'm feeling healthy and I'm eating great oh and I'm gratitude for I feel grateful for everything I have and you know you can focus on these you know basically material things in a

It definitely will change your life in a positive direction. You'll definitely feel more positive, feel more happy, get better results if you do that every day.

But when you focus on the highest God, the divine, your true identity as soul or spirit, Atman, and you focus on that every day, all day, It will completely transform and change everything in your life.

And yes, you'll get the benefits of some of the material stuff, but that's not the point. The deeper benefits are joy, bliss, true happiness, not based on things that change.

And so that is the highest form of contribution when you do it from a spiritual focus. As a means, as a way of serving the divine, serving the highest purpose.

Let's talk about how to do that. How do we do it? You can just give money and write a check. That's what nowadays is called charity. It's really philanthropy.

It's what rich people do. And let's face it, there are a whole lot of evil, evil, evil rich people who give a lot of money to some charity, some group, some non-profit.

Does that turn them into good people? No. And in fact... If you do a little research about it, you'll find that most of the charities, these non-profit groups that they give money to, are very, very, very, very corrupt.

And they might help a few people in a little way, but they also do a lot of harm. And they also just steal a lot of the money, and there's a ton of corruption. So, you know, just giving money...

The best thing you can do is uplift others. That is the highest form of practical. How do you do it? That's the best thing to focus on. To uplift. To uplift others.

Uplift. Lift up. Raise them. What does that mean? Raise them spiritually. Raise them emotionally. Raise them mentally. Right? So, inspire, in other words.

Inspire them to be better, happier, more virtuous, more grateful. It's no good helping somebody if they continue to be miserable and unhappy and, you know, a terrible person.

But by, you know, uplifting someone, you're really performing a spiritual act. And this can... be done in such small little ways. You know, you have someone who's feeling down, someone who's feeling, you know, maybe a little depressed, a little sad, a little discouraged.

And you give them some kind words. You give them some encouragement. You inspire a little more confidence in them. You inspire a little bit of faith in them.

You say, hey, you can do it. You can do it. It's going to be okay. That little bit of encouragement, of uplifting them, is a tremendous form of contribution.

And it's worth more than writing a thousand checks. And especially when you make it a habit. And you don't just do it one time in your life, but you start doing it regularly. Daily.

Daily. uplift people think about that in terms of contribution how can I contribute you don't have to be a great artist you don't have to be a great business person you don't need to be rich you don't need to be a super leader but anybody anybody can find a way to just uplift somebody

Lift them up. You can do it with your kids. You can do it with your husband or wife. You can do it with your friends. You can do it with people you meet.

You can do it with someone you just meet in a store who's a worker at the store and you just give them a little kind word and a smile and a little... Or maybe they do something nice and you call the manager and you say, Hey, I just want to let you know this person was really good. They were so helpful to me. I just want to say thanks. They're doing a great job.

Like everybody calls the manager to complain. Who calls the manager to say, hey, this person is awesome, right? Imagine how good someone would feel if you did that for them at their job.

Uplift. Another way you can contribute, another way to think about contributing is to contribute your talents. Contribute your talents. So not money, but

But talents, what does that mean? Well, it means we're all good at something. We all have a certain nature. Some people are really good listeners. Some people are good talkers.

Some people are maybe good at gardening. Some people are, you know, good at business. Everybody has their own, like, strengths and weaknesses, right? And so when you want to think about contribution, look at yourself and look to where you're strong, your strengths.

What am I good at? What am I talented at? Or what am I skilled at? Maybe it's not talent. Some people are born with a talent. They're good at something.

Or some people just work a long time and become good. Like if you're good at jujitsu, well you could contribute by teaching people self-defense. That could make a huge difference in someone's life. I can tell you it made a big difference in my life.

I know it makes a big difference in lots of people's lives. It uplifts them. Makes them more confident. More calm. Less stressed. even if they're never attacked, okay?

And if they are attacked, they have the possibility, at least, of surviving and defending themselves and their family. There are no guarantees, okay? But at least they have the chance.

So look at your own talents, your own strengths, what you're good at. And those are the areas where you should focus on first to contribute. Because share that with other people.

Whatever you're good at. That's an area where you can start to contribute to others. Because things you're good at, I guarantee, there are many, many, many, many, many people out there who are not good at those things.

And who want to be or would love for your help. Big or small. So what's the problem? Why don't people do this more often? I've talked about how this value of contribution is so strong and has been so positive for our effortless English community.

But on the other hand, you get on social media, get on Facebook, get on X, get on any social group for any topic. Am I... a cooking course, a gardening course, whatever. What are you going to find?

You find so often people are nasty and negative and, or you can't get any help. You ask questions and they, and people treat you like you're a fool. Like that's the normal thing.

So what's the problem? Why? Why? And of course it's self-centeredness. Self-centeredness. Because just naturally people are focused on themselves. Right?

Centered on themselves. Focused on themselves. Right? And when we have problems and things are not going well, we pity ourselves. When things are going well, we, you know, we feel proud of ourselves.

But it's always, you know, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. We're always focused on ourselves. Me, me, me. You know, it's like we're trapped in our minds now.

Ultimately, this is a spiritual issue because what this really is is false ego, meaning false identification, meaning we think that we're just this body in this little short life.

We have that feeling. Most people do have that feeling. And so every little up and down and every problem and every success, you know, it becomes so big and so important.

And we just are easily trapped into this idea of focusing on me, me, me. But it's a false ego because that's not who we really are. We really are Atman. We are eternal.

And again, you know, eternal children of God. Eternal sparks of the divine. Forever connected. When you focus on yourself, you get less happy. And that's where I think a lot of the positive psychology, a lot of the NLP, a lot of Tony Robbins stuff starts to have problems.

It definitely is good and useful and practical to achieve so many things in this life. But ultimately, you're achieving things in this material world and ultimately you're going to die and all those things will fade away and be gone.

And ultimately, with all that positive psychology, it's always about, again, me, me, me, me. I want to launch a great business and become rich and have super health and have an awesome body and have the perfect husband or wife and travel the world and drive this great car. And I'm going to focus on all these positive things and imagine them and make them become real.

But so often after finally achieving all those things people still are not satisfied. There's still something that feels empty or lonely. And we can see this with so many famous people so many rich and famous people who seem to have every possible thing you can want

If you were to just sit down and make a list of your dream life from this material point of view, the dream house, the dream car, the dream husband or wife, the dream business, the dream bank account, on and on and on and on and on.

We know plenty of famous people who have all those things. And they're miserable. They're not happy. Eventually their marriages fail. Sometimes they kill themselves.

Or you can kind of see in the times when they're not pretending to be, you know, not putting on their act. And they're professional actors many times. But a lot of times we find out that in real life they're quite nasty and angry and unhappy.

So that's the weak point of all that positive thinking. Because if you focus that positive thinking on just these material things, it's ultimately empty.

And that's why contribution is such a great virtue, such a great principle, such a great practice to focus on. Because by its nature, the definition of contribution is to help others. So it forces you to think outside yourself, beyond yourself. Now, of course, the best and highest way to do that is to think of God, to think of the divine.

Right? but even just thinking of other people is still better because it takes you outside of yourself and you realize your connection your connection to others and ultimately your connection to all and to God and to the divine and the more you focus on serving and serving the more you receive given you shall receive it is a spiritual law in Sanatana Dharma we call it karma karma

by serving we focus on that connection we get out of ourselves and what you will find this is just practical okay what you will find is the more you do that the happier you become and all that energy we spend on focusing on our own goals and our own stuff and becoming a better person and making a better life and ah me me me I'm gonna do all this and ah take so much power and energy and focus ah

And we're still not feeling happy. We still have anxiety. We're still feeling lonely. You know, as a parent, I think so many parents see this. Sadly, some don't.

But I think so many parents do see this, that they had a life when they were single, focused on themselves, themselves. And then their children come along and life becomes so much more meaningful, so much more joyous.

And their previous problems become so small. And it's sad because some parents don't. Instead, they just focus on, oh, now I can't go out to the club and dancing like I used to. There are people who become parents and still stay focused on themselves and material pleasures, and they're missing the greatest...

joyous possibility potential experience of their lives by doing that it is quite sad but you know false ego is very powerful take that then that experience of that you can get as a parent and then you broaden that and

and you deepen it, and you recognize it as a general spiritual principle, as we say in the Bhagavad Gita, then that joy and that happiness increases and increases and increases. Focus on this first.

I've done a lot of teaching about positive psychology and NLP and achieving your goals. It's all fine. I'm glad I achieved those things in my life and I want you to as well, but I recommend to you, especially if you're unhappy for some reason in your life, if your life doesn't seem so satisfying, maybe you feel kind of lonely, maybe you just feel anxious or worried or unhappy for whatever reason.

Focus on contribution first. Make this your first focus, your first goal. Not making more money, not getting a better girlfriend or boyfriend, not getting in better physical shape. None of that other stuff.

Do this first. Go outside of yourself. Focus outside of yourself first. Get that feeling of joy and contribution, which is the reward of contribution.

And then all the other will have meaning. serve give contribute help others thrive and you will come alive there's a nice little rhyme for you help others thrive and you will come alive and it's so true

We just stop focusing on ourselves so much. And you start focusing on helping others. You come alive. A feeling of liveliness. An energy. And it's a spiritual energy.

I've been talking a lot about energy. And there's physical energy, which comes from what you eat and nutrition and exercise. There's also a spiritual energy, which is deeper and more powerful.

And you can tap into that energy. When you help others thrive, you focus on helping others thrive. And then you come alive more. That energy starts to grow and grow and grow inside of you.

Help others thrive. And you will come alive. Lots of love to you. See you next time.