A Random Act of Kindness

Nikolai Berdyaev was a Russian thinker and existentialist. He once said, “The question of my bread is a material question but the question of my neighbor’s bread is a spiritual question.” This is kindness in a nutshell. Compassion may just be limited to a feeling, it is a form of empathy, a sort of acceptance, but kindness is compassion accompanied by a gesture of giving.

An unexpected gift at an unexpected time given to an unexpected (or even unsuspecting) person with no expectation in return is a random act of kindness, a kind gesture for someone who is not expecting it from you. You do it because your heart is open. Our heart has a peculiar property: it can operate in both states — open and closed. An open heart is naturally kind, compassionate and joyous. A closed heart blocks all positive emotions. It does not mean the person is certain to be negative or unsuccessful. On the contrary, a person with a closed heart can be quite headstrong, they may be successful in their careers and positive about their material endeavors. But, their heart remains closed to understanding, appreciating and expressing the love and pain (of others).

Until you can understand the pain of the other person, your heart remains closed to any kindness, it remains blindly focused on your own agenda. The saddest part of a closed heart is that you only realize it was closed when it opens. Those with closed hearts, unable to perform random or planned acts of kindness, don’t even know their hearts are closed, like the frog in the well that doesn’t know the sea exists outside. It is when the door of your heart opens a bit, even a little bit, that you experience a whole new world of peace and bliss. I once read somewhere, “On the gateway of my heart I wrote, ‘No thoroughfare.’ Love came in passing by and said, ‘I enter everywhere.’” And when love comes, it never comes alone — it brings a ton of virtues in tow. It is impossible to be kind without being loving; you be one, and you become the other automatically.

There was a rich man once who scoffed at and mocked beggars. Anytime any beggar approached him for alms, he would chastise them and cuss at them saying they had fit bodies, they were well-built, they were young and they ought to work and not beg. This went on for a while until one day when God appeared and said, “Listen up, you. If you don’t have the heart to give, that’s fine but at least don’t condemn what I have given them.” 

This is another way of being kind, it’s not the best, but it’s second best, that is, don’t be unkind. If you can’t or don’t want to give for any reason whatsoever, that may just be fine but at least don’t stop others or pollute your own mind and speech by being negative about it. A random act of kindness needn’t always be a material offering. Even a word of encouragement, a compliment or a helping hand could be equally, if not more, profound.

When you regularly do random acts of kindness, one day, something amazing happens — Nature chooses you as the subject for its random act of kindness. Such kind acts are always happening in the Universe, at every moment, to millions out there. Even the rain, a breeze, snowfall, sunshine, flora and fauna, origination, and sustenance — these are Cosmic acts of kindness.

A man used to give a beggar twenty dollars every month. He had been doing it for years. Once, he did not pay the beggar and told him that he was sorry because he had to use the money to buy a bouquet for his wife. “What?” the beggar said. “You spent my money on her?”

Just because we have something doesn’t mean it’s ours. No one is an owner in our universe, everyone is a medium, a custodian at the most. Whatever you share grows — this is the fundamental law of the universe. You share rage, anger grows in you. You share love, love grows in you. You share contempt, hatred grows in you. You share knowledge, wisdom grows in you. You share your time, peace grows in you. You share what you have, and you grow as a person.

Make random acts a regular affair and Nature will reciprocate in kind.

Peace.
Swami