Why does God give more to those who have and take away from those who do not have?

[sridatta]

[Shri Anil asked: Padanamaskaram Swami! Please grace us with Your response to the following questions. At Your Lotus Feet - Anil

In Mathew: Chapter 13:10 Then the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Why do You speak to the people in parables?”11He replied, “The knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. 13This is why I speak to them in parables.]

Swami replied: O Learned and Devoted Servants of God! The Gītā says that the person with intensive interest to get divine knowledge will certainly attain the entire divine knowledge (Śraddhāvān labhate jñānam…, Satvānurūpā sarvasya…). A person who has tremendous interest only in the worldly bonds and worldly affairs, will not care for the spiritual side. Even if he has a little interest in spirituality, it will be lost in the course of time because such a person gets more and more involved in worldly life alone (Āvṛtaṃ jñānametena…, Balavānindriyagrāmo…, Tadasya harati prajñām…—Gītā). This loss has been stated as “what he has will be taken away”. It should not be misunderstood as if God will take away that little spiritual interest that the person had. God always wishes for the spiritual welfare of souls and He always tries to help souls by giving more and more spiritual guidance to them. But if a soul has no spiritual interest to begin with, any effort to create more spiritual interest will be of no use. This is because the Gītā says that the soul is nothing but a personification of specific interests (Yo yat śraddhaḥ…).