Why are We Here? - J P Vaswani

"Why are we here?" asked boy of his mother. The mother answered: "To help others!"

"What are the others here for?" asked the boy.

The mother had no answer.

How true it is that we are here to help others. And the others—specially those that are in need, in suffering and pain—are here so that we may extend to them our helping hand. In doing so we pay off—in some measure—the debt we carry on account of the blessings we receive from God and the surrounding world.

"Look around you!" says Sadhu Vaswani, "and see that the world is sad, is broken, is torn with tragedy and smitten with suffering." Living in such a world, we must share the good things of life with those in need.

One day, as William Gladstone, the great English statesman, was preparing a speech to be delivered in Parliament the next day, he was called to visit a dying boy. When he returned to the writing of his speech, he said: "That speech may fail or not; the Empire may fail or not; but in helping that boy I have tasted exquisite joy."

© "East and West Series" (June, 2002) published by East and West Series, 10, Sadhu Vaswani Path, Pune 411 001. Website: sadhuvaswani.org. Reprinted with permission.

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