Some Quotes from Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura on Altruism and Charity
From Bhaktisiddhanta Vaibhava, page 421:
"The thousands of karmis who have opened innumerable hospitals, old age homes, centers for the poor, and schools, and the thousands of jnanis who have undergone meditation and severe austerities, are insignificant compared to a single kanishta-adhikari Vaishnava once ringing the bell before the Lord's deity. This is not sectarianism, but plain truth. Atheists are wholly incapable of realizing this; thus they become either direct or indirect blasphemers of devotional service, or adherents to the doctrine of harmonistic all-inclusiveness" (Amrta Vani 102 – 3; Sri Srila Prabhupadera Upadesamrta 174).
"Being averse to Lord Visnu, countless jivas have come to Maha-maya's dungeon to envy Lord Visnu in countless ways. To deliver teven one of them from Maha-maya's fortress and make him a devotee of Krsna is unlimitedly better welfare work than the construction of countless hospitals and schools" (Sri Srila Prabhupadera Upadesamrta 286).
"Krishna-bhakti is the only way to deracinate miseries from the world. You are working only for the good of the body and treating the symptoms, not the original disease. Your patchwork schemes of various social, economic, and political ideologies are like blowing on a boil, which gives but a momentary and false sense of assuagement. The real cure is to lance the boil and squeeze out the pus. Similarly, the pus of material attachment must be excised by the sharp words of the expert devotee, the only genuine well-wisher of human society" (Jati Sekhara Prabhu, disciple of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura).
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