Doing something for good deeds

It is often used in the sense of doing something without expecting anything in return.

But even the essence of this word does not match the essence of the word. After all, the purpose of what is done is clear, we talk about doing good deeds. 

Okay, after all, it is not clear today whose good deeds and whose sins are more. These things will be decided tomorrow in the hereafter with the weighing of our deeds. We think like this as a requirement of our beliefs.

Some people even do not hesitate to sin in some matters in order to balance the balance. They do something that will earn good deeds, and that's it for such people. What a wrong point of view, isn't it?

These are matters of faith, of course, and I don't like to comment on them.

Have you ever done anything without expecting to get something in return? I mean, without even expecting a good deed in return?

Of course I have. It is human nature to do some things without expecting anything in return. It just comes from within. I don't know, for example, if a stone fell on the road, maybe you picked it up and put it aside. Or some people put a bowl of water aside for the birds, for example in the hot summer months.

But we do most things with an expectation in return. 

Maybe it will be a very contradictory example, but there are those among us who make even their children to avoid loneliness in the future.

Isn't this also the case with the sacred concept of family? Okay, the beginning is based on emotions that we cannot control, love, affection, desire, maybe lust. Then the family is built on mutual love and respect. But at the center of it is still getting rid of loneliness, a life together, supporting each other, so we have expectations even from the concept of family.

Then work, I think no one would accept to work without getting something in return. After all, we all have to earn something to sustain life, they call it bread and butter, the wages or earnings we get for the sweat of our brow.

And what about friendship? Isn't this also clear from the etymology of the word? A friend is someone you can lean on, someone you are sure will not stab you in the back when you give them your back. So again, there is a mutual expectation in friendship.

What about society? I could list a lot of things we expect from the society we live in. But I think the main reason why we prefer to live as a society is the feeling of trust that being together gives us. 

What about the state? Do you think the state should expect something from us in return for what it does? Can't it do what it has to do just because it is the state? The state is an abstract concept, a mechanism with its institutions and principles. In the end, it is we, the people, who make this mechanism work. Therefore, the state can be expected to be of the same nature as human nature requires. So the state naturally does what it does for its citizens with the expectation of something.

Let's look at a more innocent person. For example, a child!

I think a child's attachment to his/her mother or father also involves an expectation. At a young age, this expectation is a need. 

At a later age, our parents are a support for all of us. This is not just a selfish point of view, I am not ignoring our love for our elders. 

I'm just saying that when it comes down to it, even our relationship with our mother or father is based on mutual expectations somewhere deep down. Do you think I'm wrong?

So is it actually the mutual expectation in our relationships that motivates us to be a good person? 

Is karma, one of the teachings of Buddhism, the reason why we try to be a good person? 

Is it the synergy of goodness?

If so, then even this understanding does not involve pure goodness, it means that we think that the goodness that emerges through karma will also benefit us and that's why we try to be good. 

From this point of view, even the examples I gave at the beginning are not things that we do for free, so even putting a bowl of water for the birds seems to have a benefit in the back of our minds. A good world and our share of that goodness!

I really wonder, is there such a concept as pure goodness? Is it possible to do good without expecting anything in return? 

If there are those among us who have reached nirvana, maybe this applies to them.

Even Mevlana's love for God was probably not unrequited. Paradise! Isn't it promised in our faith in return? When we say for good deeds, isn't the goal to reach heaven?

I would say that there cannot be such a thing as pure goodness.  

Because even goodness is not so innocent as a concept. After all, it gave birth to an opposite concept, namely the concept of evil. Maybe if there was no concept of goodness, there would be no evil. 

So what should we do? All these years of trying to be a good person, all for nothing?

Look, even in this question there is an expectation of something in return! In vain? What do you mean, being a good person has to be worth something?

As a result, when I heard this phrase somewhere today, "doing something for the sake of doing something", this is what stuck in my mind.

We do whatever we do for the sake of something, I wish it wasn't so, but I guess that's the nature of life.

I wish everyone a good life. Let's live with the synergy of goodness, being good is still better than being bad.

Love and respect to everyone from Moscow