My friend Ron, Vice President of Development for Mission India, sent me a note this week.
Karma.
On my last trip to India, a high-cast Hindu tour guide recently explained why it was not good to actually help the poor. He said:
“The gods put people in a food chain and those on the top have the right to prey on and have authority over all casts below them, while those on the bottom have duty to serve all those above. People kick dogs, dogs pester cats, cats eat birds, and birds eat bugs. Sometimes cats pester dogs, but it is karma that dogs pester cats and against the will of the gods for cats to rebel. This is karma.”
In Hindu Philosophy, the poor are paying for past sins. To help them is to violate karma and insure that they will be re-born into the present condition from which you helped them escape. Their only hope for the future is to suffer their karma and die. Then perhaps they will merit something better in the next round. This is karma.
Our response?
8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV)
Grace.
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