Sunday, December 1, 2013

Funds for Orphanage

A lady came to our door collecting funds for an orphanage. I contributed but then thought to google the orphanage's name to ensure that the amount did not go to a wrong place; since we keep seeing news of orphanages used for religious conversions and even for human trafficking. I found an Art of Living member sharing her experience at the link below; which came as a relief. Because if you believe in karma then we have puzzles in store. If you donate some rupees to a beggar who goes on to buy liquor and harms someone in drunken state, will you not get your karma account debited a bit? I think this is why our scriptures have many shlokas where sages tell about importance of donating to "supatra" सुपात्र (the deserving). They say that if we donate to "kupatra" कुपात्र (ill minded and undeserving persons), the person taking the alms as well as the one giving it will go to nark नर्क (i.e. have to suffer). 


Btw, this Orphanage is "Matoshree Niradhar Bal Ashram" run by Matoshree Pratisthan. The Art of Living member who went there has posted pics of her celebrating with the kids which can be found in the email on the same above link, or else you can click here. This is a local orphanage and in google search I found that it did not have good web-presence. I think this is where Indian NGOs and organizations have to learn a lot. Otherwise how can they compete for funds with NGOs with international links and hence good marketing strategy?

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