On Giving

Since I have arrived in India, I have wrestled with the old familiar dilemma about giving to beggars. I just seem to have this incredibly awkward feeling come over me when someone obviously in need asks of me something that is easy to give.

Many voices...
The feeling is hard to describe because it is loaded with all sorts of thoughts. All sorts of voices go off in my head. My own voice saying."Marcia, just give the person ten rupees...that's less than a friggin quarter"
Then Marcia argues with Fair Marcia who says, "Why should I give this person ten rupees and not the other twenty people checking me out to see if I'm gonna give them the same amount."
Then Practical Marcia says, "You're not doing a beggar a favor by just giving him money."
Then Scared Marcia says, "If I give this person ten rupees, I will have to engage with him or her. I will have to make eye contact. Have the mental conversation that happens with eye contact.".
By the time all of the Marcias have spoken, I'm already past the person and Guilty Marcia says, "You're just as cold and callous as the rest of the world."

My new plan....
In Ganeshpuri, I have decided, with some help from meditation, that I will give only when I have the urge to do so and then I will be "fully present" with the person that I am giving to. So often I give the person something while feeling all kinds of reactions like "just leave me alone" or "I know this is not enough" or "this feels incredibly awkward and scary, so just take this money and don't look at me". So my new plan is to stop, decide, reach in my pocket, take out the money, look the person in the eyes and say something like, "I'm choosing to give this to you. Have a nice day."
So far it has been okay. I haven't suddenly become a philanthropist or anything, but I feel comfortable with my strategy... and I get to actually have some benefit from it as well.

A funny story about giving...
Rupees. I'm mathematically challenged, and I know I'm not supposed to say that cause I'm a woman and it establishes a stereotype for math and girls, but I am mathematically challenged. Here is an example of how much of a hardship it is for others. John has explained to me that the best way to figure out the exchange of the rupee for the dollar is to take the amount of rupees and double it. That is how many cents it equals. So I come out of this temple, feeling good about my new plan and there's this little guy who always bugs me to buy these strands of flowers as an offering to the saints. And there's this other guy that competes with him. It's all very entertaining.
Usually I just wave them away, but this time I decide to buy a strand of jasmine flowers from him. I reach into my pocket and offer him twenty rupees. It's not a coin, it's an actual bill with Mahatma Gandhi's picture on it and a shiny iridescent bar across the front. It looks pretty important, so I decide to give it to him. He keeps asking for more and I tell him that's all I have to give. He won't take it, so I just smile, slip it into his pocket and stroll away without the jasmine, but feeling good about what I did. When I get back to our room, I tell John about it. Then I ask him how much twenty rupees equals and he says, 40 cents. All that time I was thinking it equaled about four dollars.