"Destitute's Plight"

“Destitute’s Plight”

If you eclipse taking to heart, transcend bearing in mind, and attend to the destitute instead, He will listen to you.

No matter how much you pray to God and the thousands of pilgrimages you will have sojourned before your commencement in the afterworld, if you have ever calcitrated an aching heart, then every one of your good deeds stands invalidated.

Listen to Destitute’s plight, He will be kind to you.

Even if you’re parceling a penny to the penniless but politely, He will recompense tens of millions.

Listen to the destitute!

In hunger, Destitute’s children have only their tears to gulp. Whatever the compulsions of poverty, these children must endure all!

These are the days of their childhood, the time to play! This is not the age to suffer hardships. Have mercy, forgo mercilessness, and lift them up! Theirs are ours!

Hold them near, shoulder them closely, and embrace them with ease, not upset! Don’t let these flowers become windswept by wrangling tempests. Listen to destitution!

This ill, old man stumbling upon every sanctuary step, still insists upon extending his hand for alms for the sake of Destitute’s children, rather than subject these innocent unfortunates to the brutalities of begging. He roams around with his hand outstretched for the sake of these children.

If perchance this accompaniment should fade as a result of the ill, old man’s cessation, where will they go, these ill-fated ones once overseen by the ill, old man?

These dimming lamps, these faintly twinkling stars, these homeless, helpless individuals whose fates rest in your hands, our hands!

Listen to the destitute’s plight! He will be kind to you!

Prem Dhawan (13 June 1923 – 7 May 2001)

Translated from the Hindi by M.S. Alverston, 12/30/14.