My reaction to today's WTP about temples and money.

There are two types of people who donate to the temple. One who doesn't care how the money is spent, whether it is just lying in the attic or is used to buy Bently's for baba to roam around in. They are just happy to give money to their guru or baba who they think has changed their life and deserve their money.

But most of the people donate for the upkeep of the temple and for the temple affairs and as a sort of salary to the babas and pujaris working there. Also they donate for various charities run by the temple be it schools or hospitals and contribute indirectly to them by donating to temple. In the second kind of people who are giving with these specific goals in mind clearly millions and sometimes billions of rupees just lying around in the temple basement or in the temple locker is clear violation of their faith and trust. Clearly money is not being used for the purpose they were intended for. They are not being either used for upkeep of the temple or as a salary to the baba to live a relatively comfortable life and they are certainly not being used for various charities that the trust is running. The money is just lying around. What is worse is the money is not even put in bank and no interest is earned on it thereby forgoing a huge benefit that can be accrued on the money. Clearly the reluctance to put the money in bank and earn interest will be seen as hiding the money and not wanting to declare how much wealth you have. This is clearly the violation of the faith and trust of the devotees who donate the money.

Another reason for people's disquiet and anger about babas and spiritual gurus roaming around in luxury cars is they have collected this money by telling people to part with their "maya" and to let go of the worldly possessions as a way to achieve spirituality and to live a simple life . So naturally when the gurus themselves are enjoying that money to live very material life with luxury cars and jet planes it is obviously seen as hypocrisy or a way to fleece people of their money by telling them lies.

Also as religious gurus who keep telling us to show compassion to fellow human beings and keep saying things like "to help one human being is to help the whole of humanity" and "janseva is prabhuseva", how can you yourself not show any compassion for your fellow countrymen living in such poverty and misery. How can you then live such luxurious life and waste money when you see so much misery all around you. Especially in a country such as ours where we see so much poverty and misery all around us all day how can you "waste" money by keep it lying around in your attic without even earning interest on it or spend on luxury items for you and your temple. Where is your compassion that you talk of in your daily sermons; where is your sense of dharma and decency to the people. You may be running few schools and hospitals but clearly the money lying around suggests that you could have done a lot more or you could have refused to accept money from devotee if you cannot spend it in such large amount. Many times these schools and hospitals are just a front to show that they are doing lot of charity work but the actual spent on charity could be very low compared to the money they receive, hence money just lying around in the asharm in the crores.