By Dr. Muhammad Sameer Shafi Siddiqui

The religious traditions and the sacred scriptures have throughout highlighted the importance of charity and benevolent behaviour. Although one who receives is not to be taken as a lesser mortal and one who gives is likewise forbidden to boast about his generosity, yet spiritually or psychologically speaking, the one who gives ontologically reclaims a sort of higher meaning to his existence, thereby not identifying himself with the mere material possessions at his disposal but with something higher.

The possessions may have a limited utilitarian meaning, but identifying oneself to these limited meanings doesn’t allow one to come out of a narrow and low-ceiling psyche, consequently making one’s life devoid of a higher transcendental meaning, which otherwise is the be-all and end-all of all religious and moral disciplines.

The possessions are worth possessing only if they provide us logistics for a better and joyful life, but if kept with the intent of mere possessiveness, then these might be nothing but the projections of our fears about an uncertain future for which we want to hoard them.

The fear of the need for tomorrow, in fact, inhibits our acts of benevolence for today. When we possess everything today and still........

© Kashmir Observer