Generosity and Vanity
By Karmayogi
Generosity in man rises to
benevolence. It ennobles the human heart. Its opposite, meanness, is described
as asking another man to do what one cannot do. Generosity is to give the other
man what he by his best efforts cannot reach. To do so by exerting yourself to
the utmost is desirable. Its cultured expression emerges when it is given to
the other man before he asks for it.
In another sense, Vanity is its opposite. We do not come across pure generosity
or pure vanity. We meet with generous vanity or vain generosity. Timon of
Athens was too generous. He learnt his lesson that it was not true generosity
but was only vanity when he had to declare that he be buried where no man
walks. Goldsmith was generous to a fault and ended up in debtor's prison.
Generosity is natural to the Spirit. Spiritual generosity, though informed of
the same weakness to some little extent, is strong enough not to be offended by
life circumstances. Spirit is naturally generous as Spirit emerges into
existence by an expansive movement. The pure Spirit is all expansiveness and
knows no failure of weakness. The weak person trying to be generous becomes
vain because the generosity of the weak arises out of a desire to give what it
does not have. These human traits were taken note of two thousand years ago and
their wisdom is enshrined in poems. One such poem says the rich man's
generosity is like the golden flower having natural fragrance. The poor
man's flower wilts. The rich man's golden flower has no perfume. Both
can be combined, the poem says, in a metaphor that does not exist.
Vanity belongs to the ego. Spirit gives generosity to a man. Generous behaviour
brings the Spirit to the surface. While vanity cannot survive without
generosity, generosity can survive without vanity. Shade needs light; light is
not dependent on shade. Sri Aurobindo said the higher consciousness does not
need the lower human consciousness, while the lower cannot exist without the
higher. We can move to the higher and be rid of the lower. Generosity is a
pleasant feeling and hurts no one. Vanity offends everyone who comes into
contact with it. Vanity does good to others while it destroys the person. In a
philosophical sense, vanity too does good to a person as its urge for expansion
dissolves all the other weaknesses in him.