During my Australian tour from April to June 2026, when I arrived in Melbourne from Wellington to take a connecting flight to Adelaide, I happened to be fasting as part of my naturopathy regimen. Normally, when fasting, I drink a good quantity of water. But on that flight, somehow I forgot to ask the flight attendant for water after boarding. Then I fell asleep, and by the time I woke up, the flight was already in descent. The flight attendant said that they could not provide me with water at that stage.

After I landed, I asked the wheelchair assistant for water, and he said that we first had to get through immigration. That took some time. The queue was long, and immigration procedures also seemed quite slow. Given the recent rise in anti-immigrant sentiment in Australia, especially after Indians became the country’s largest immigrant community, I couldn’t help wondering whether that broader atmosphere was having some effect.

After we finally got through immigration, he looked around but couldn’t find a water tap anywhere along the way. He suggested buying it from a shop, but I was hesitant because, thinking in Indian rupees, paying some four hundred rupees (about five Australian dollars) for a bottle of water seemed extravagant. Then, after we collected my baggage from the carousel, he took me to the transfer counter because my flight to Melbourne had been with one airline, and my connecting flight to Adelaide was with another. The wheelchair assistant handed me over at the transfer counter and left.

By this time, my thirst had become quite severe. I asked the attendant there how long it would take for a wheelchair assistant to come. She said, “Give me a minute.” She made a few calls, and after more than a few minutes, she came from behind the counter, walked behind me, and started pushing my wheelchair.
I was a bit surprised. I asked her, “Do you regularly have to double as a wheelchair assistant?” She replied, “Not regularly, but we all do whatever is required whenever it’s needed. Since no assistant was available just now, I’m helping out.”

She was quite slender and petite, and I am not particularly lightweight—to use the more politically correct term nowadays, I am horizontally gifted. Concerned that pushing the wheelchair through the large Melbourne airport might be difficult for her, I asked whether it wasn’t too strenuous. She replied with a chuckle, “I just treat it as part of my workout.” I thought that was a particularly clever reply—both polite and honest.

By this time, my thirst had become almost unbearable. I asked her whether there was any place where I could get some water. She said, “I’m sure we’ll find something ahead.” Eventually, we reached the boarding gate, but we still hadn’t found any water.

She dropped me there and walked away. I was a bit surprised that she didn’t mention the water and left without any parting word, such as “Have a nice day.” But within a couple of minutes, she returned with a bottle of water that she had bought for me.

I told her that there was no need for her to have bought a bottle of water for me. I offered to pay her. I was just entering Australia, so I didn’t have any Australian dollars, but I could pay her in American dollars, which I carry for emergencies. She smiled, waved her hand, and said, “No need to pay.”

I was amazed by her generosity. I thanked her once again. As she walked away, I wondered what had motivated it.

Goodness of the Heart

No wheelchair assistant in India would likely have bought me a bottle of water. That is understandable because many of them belong to economically struggling families. Nor did I think this was something routinely done in America, where wheelchair assistants often expect tips as part of their income.

I still feel a bit of hesitation because, when we Indians are abroad, we instinctively think in terms of Indian rupees. Five American dollars means around four hundred rupees, which feels like an outrageous amount to give as a tip. In fact, that same way of thinking had also stopped me from myself buying a bottle of water in Melbourne, before that attendant had bought one for me. Paying nearly three hundred rupees—about five Australian dollars—seemed too much for just a bottle of water.

I wondered: could her generosity simply have been an Australian thing? From what I have read, Australians are certainly charitable, but they are not distinctly or uniquely more charitable than people in other Western countries.

Then I wondered whether her generosity had been prompted by her faith. But I hadn’t seen anything overtly Christian about her. She hadn’t been wearing any prominent cross, nor had she tried to speak to me about Christianity.

Her kindness seemed free from any agenda—it was simply an expression of the goodness of her heart. And that was what had touched my heart.

Nowadays, we are bombarded by so much negative news—immense human suffering caused by wars, which are driven by religious ideologies or political agendas or personal egos. Amid all that noisy negativity, this small reminder of the quiet goodness still alive in humanity was much-needed; it was reassuring, encouraging, heart-warming.

Kindness Beyond Ideology

Yet another question now became prominent in my mind. Why had this particular act of kindness affected me so deeply?

After all, while traveling across the world, I was receiving so much kindness from so many people. Devotees were hosting me, driving me, arranging my meals, and giving donations to me. Had I become an exhibit A of the saying—familiarity breeds contempt, or in my case, forgetfulness? Had I stopped appreciating devotees simply because such kindness had become so routine for me that I felt entitled to it, rather than grateful for it?

That was definitely a possibility. But I felt the reason went deeper.

When devotees render service, especially to a brahmachari, they know that it is a way to grow in piety and spirituality. I remembered a challenging statement made by an atheist student after one of my classes in America. He had said, “When religious people do good things, that doesn’t prove their goodness of heart. It only proves their allegiance to their religion and their calculativeness—charity is just their way to curry favor with God. When we atheists give charity, we expect nothing in return. That is why our charity is more laudable.”

I had replied, “That’s a possibility, but it’s also an oversimplification. Atheists too can have an agenda: they may want to challenge and counter the narrative that religion brings goodness—they may want to prove that atheists are better than theists. Richard Dawkins proudly trumpets the fact that in some parts of the Western world, atheists give more than Christians. That’s charity in service of the atheistic ideology—it’s quite distinct from the goodness of heart that simply wants to benefit another person. To what extent the charity we give is because of our ideological beliefs and to what extent it is because of the simple goodness of the heart is not easy to determine.

“I had concluded, “The bigger point is this: why do we all, be we theists or atheists, consider charity to be a good thing. If we are just products of nature and are governed by the principle of the survival of the fittest, why do we value charity, when it demonstrates the opposite principle—sacrifice by the fittest?”

The Moral Compass in Everyone

Whether we acknowledge it or not, our appreciation of goodness ultimately points to the presence of God within us. The Bhagavad-gita (10.41) says that all attractive things are sparks of the supreme attractiveness of the Divine. It is because God is all-good that he has placed deep within each one of us a moral compass by which we can know what is good and, more importantly, feel inspired to do what is good. Our actions may not always align with our God-given moral compass, but the compass always remains. And that airport attendant’s kindness had reminded me that goodness still exists in the human heart.

I prayed for her well-being—that her compass would point her further beyond goodness to God, the source of that goodness. I prayed that I may never become so accustomed to kindness that I stop noticing it. And I prayed that whatever service I render while traveling and speaking may arise not merely from a desire for my own spiritual advancement, but from a genuine desire to help others.

May my moral compass thus become more active—and may my service help activate that same compass in others.

***

10.41 Know that all opulent, beautiful and glorious creations spring from but a spark of My splendor.