give same to your students

 
Imported quote 19586
Some of them, they agree that "I belong to Christian religion," "I belong to Hindu religion," or "I belong to Muhammadan religion," but at the present age, mostly they simply claim that "I belong to this religion" but do not believe in the scripture, mostly. So those who are believing in the scriptures, they are mostly attracted by pious, philanthropic activities. They, some of them, those who actually believe that charity is very good thing, and... Religious means these three things: yajna-dana-tapaḥ. Yajna-dana-tapaḥ. Yajna means sacrifice, dana means charity, and tapaḥ means penance. Just like brahmacari. It is tapasya. Tapasya. A sannyasi, it is tapasya. Tapaḥ. Tapaḥ means penance, voluntarily accepting very rigid principles of life. That is called tapasya. And charity. Charity means voluntarily giving away his material possessions. That is charity. And yajna, sacrifice. Sacrifice, of course, you have no experience. Not you, but we all. Nowadays, in the present days, there is no sacrifice.
But we get information from such historical literature as Mahabharata. Mahabharata is called history in the Vedic literature. So kings were performing very big sacrifices. Millions of rupees, millions of valuables, gold and silver, they were distributed. Oh, that is not possible. That was being done by the kings. Kings used to collect tax from the citizens but at the same..., at the time when they performed sacrifice, they were distributed to all the citizens, all of them. So that process is not. Nowadays the state simply collects taxes but never distributes. So we have no idea what is yajna. But this yajna is the performance of kings or the heads of the state, and dana of the general householders, and tapasya for brahmacari, sannyasi, vanaprastha. So these are different kinds of rules in religious life.
So those who believe in scriptures, they adopt, not all. Just like I explained that mostly people, they simply accept a certain faith. Mouth, in mouth only. Actually, they do not do anything. Do not do anything. So out of that many, millions of people like that, somebody are religious, really religious, who perform this sacrifice, charity, and penances. So Lord Caitanya says, "Out of many millions of persons who are actually engaged in charity, and," I mean to say, "penance and sacrifice, some of them become in perfect knowledge what he is." So this knowledge is... Just see how He's making analytical study of the living entities. Beginning from eighty-eight, er, eight hundred, 8,400,000 species of life, He's selecting only few human civilized life; then addicted to the, I mean to say, certain kind of faith; then extracting them who are actually believing; and then those who are actually believing. Out of them, those who are sacrificing, making charities and adopting penances, out of many millions of like, persons like that, some of them are actually in knowledge what he is.
You'll find in your country also. There are many foundations. They are making charities. But hardly you'll find amongst them that he knows that what he is. So out of many millions of these religious persons, some of them know what he is, "I am not this body." In the present day most people claim to be devoted to some religion-Christian, Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist, etc.-but in fact they do not really believe in the scriptures. Those who do believe in the scriptures are, by and large, attached to pious philanthropic activities. They believe that religion means yajna (sacrifice), dana (charity) and tapas (penance). One who engages in tapasya undertakes voluntarily very rigid regulations, such as brahmacari students (celibates) or sannyasis (renounced order) undertake. Charity means voluntarily giving away one's material possessions. In the present age there is no sacrifice, but from historical literatures like the Mahabharata we get information that kings performed sacrifices by distributing rubies, gold and silver. Yajna was primarily for kings, and charity, on a much smaller scale, was meant for householders. Those who actually believed in scriptures usually adopted some of these principles. But generally in this age people simply say that they belong to a religion but in actuality do nothing. Out of millions of such people, a very small number actually perform charity, sacrifice and penance. Caitanya Mahaprabhu further points out that out of millions who perform such religious principles all over the universe, only a few attain perfect knowledge and understand what they are.    (More...)

Link to this page: https://prabhupadabooks.com/?qg=4165