The Illusion of Paying Back
- Madhukar Dama
- 16 minutes ago
- 11 min read
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Prologue
From the moment we are born, we begin receiving. The warmth of a mother’s body, the air that fills our lungs, the milk that flows, the sunlight that touches our skin, the soil that bears our food — everything is given, unasked. Not once does the sun pause to ask for return. Not once does the earth present a bill for her grains.
We live in a world already nourished by countless unseen hands. Our breath itself is borrowed from trees that never demand it back. Every morsel of food we eat is part of a chain that stretches back into rivers, rains, animals, and men who toiled before us.
To imagine that life is built on accounts of repayment is to close our eyes to this great stream of generosity that flows through nature and society. To believe in “paying back” is to misunderstand the very ground we stand upon.
This is why the illusion of payback must be seen for what it is: an error that breaks relationships, destroys trust, and burdens love. Only when we recognise this illusion can we step back into the natural rhythm of life — a rhythm of receiving and passing forward.
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Nature: the first teacher
If we look closely at nature, we see that there is no such thing as payback. The sun rises every day, pouring light on the Earth. It does not ask the Earth to return anything. From this light, warmth comes, winds move, oceans rise in waves, and clouds are born. The clouds carry water, pour it on mountains and fields, and disappear. Rivers swell and flow across the land. Trees drink this water, grow tall, spread branches, give fruits, and scatter seeds. Birds eat the fruits, carry the seeds elsewhere, and new forests rise.
In this vast movement, nothing is returned to the source in the same form. No tree sends sunlight back to the sun. No river delivers water back to the clouds that carried it. No bird returns the fruit to the tree. Yet the cycle continues, endlessly nourishing itself.
A cow grazes grass, digests it, and gives milk. The milk feeds the calf, or a family. The family does not and cannot return the milk. They may use the strength it gave them to plough, to sow, to raise children. Life continues, never backward, always forward.
Even in death, there is no repayment. When a deer falls in the forest, it is consumed by other animals. Whatever remains is eaten by insects, absorbed into soil, and taken up by roots of plants. The deer never pays back the grass it ate, nor the water it drank. Its life is carried forward into soil, into leaves, into another body, into another cycle.
Nature teaches us this clearly: life is a forward movement, never a balance sheet of returns.
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Tribals and villagers: living the truth
This natural law was once reflected in the way humans lived, especially among tribals and traditional Indian villages.
In tribal communities, if one person hunted a wild boar, the meat was shared with the whole settlement. Nobody asked, “When will you return this share to me?” Because tomorrow, when someone else hunted, they too would share. What was received was not returned to the same giver, but passed forward into the circle.
In villages, when one family faced loss — say, a house burned or crops failed — others came forward with grain, labour, or cattle. It wasn’t a “loan.” It wasn’t to be “paid back with interest.” It was a way of keeping the community alive. Tomorrow, if another family suffered, the same flow of support continued.
Even childbirth was not a private event. When a woman delivered, neighbours cooked food, fetched water, and cared for her. When another woman delivered, the same hands extended. Nobody calculated hours and favours.
This culture of paying forward made survival possible. Villages flourished not because of wealth, but because of trust. The moment payback thinking enters, the village breaks apart into debts, accounts, and disputes.
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Personal relationships: where payback kills love
In families today, the poison of payback has entered deeply.
Parents sometimes say: “We raised you, we educated you, now it is your duty to repay us.” This thought turns love into a contract. Children grow under guilt, and affection turns heavy. The relationship loses its warmth.
In marriages, the same virus spreads. “I did this for you, now you must do this for me.” A husband counts his sacrifices, a wife measures her efforts. Slowly, love becomes bargaining, and marriage becomes exhausting.
Even friendships suffer. When someone offers help, the other immediately begins planning how to repay. If they cannot, they avoid the friend altogether, ashamed of the imbalance. What began as kindness ends as distance.
In truth, relationships are not meant to be accounts. A mother cannot be repaid. A friend cannot be measured. A partner cannot be balanced. They can only be honoured by living forward, by passing on the love and care into the next act, the next generation, the next circle of life.
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The healer: beyond transactions
A true healer is not someone who holds power over others. He is simply one who healed himself, embraced minimalism, touched silence, and became capable of guiding others. When seekers come, they receive strength in his presence.
But seekers, trained by society’s market habit, feel a burden: “How can I repay this?” Some offer money, some offer loyalty, some cling to the healer as if they owe him their life.
But healing is not a loan. It cannot be paid back. It was never given with the condition of return. Just as a tree does not demand that a bird return the fruit, the healer does not demand that seekers repay the guidance. The only way seekers can honour the gift is to live with wholeness, and pass the strength forward when another person seeks their help.
When healers themselves forget this truth and begin demanding repayment, they turn into merchants, and their guidance becomes exploitation.
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The disaster of payback thinking
Expecting repayment for our deeds, or developing the urge to pay back everything we receive, only leads to disaster.
In families: Demanding payback from children destroys natural affection. It turns homes into courts of duty and guilt.
In marriages: The urge to balance every act creates endless quarrels. Every meal, every gift, every sacrifice is counted, and love suffocates under the weight of calculation.
In society: Loans with interest create unending debt. Farmers, unable to “pay back,” fall into despair and sometimes even take their own lives. The entire rural economy collapses under this illusion.
In work: Employers demand repayment in the form of loyalty and overwork. Employees exhaust themselves trying to settle a debt that never ends, because salary is not a favour — it is a fair exchange. Yet the narrative of “repay us with your life” turns work into slavery.
In spirituality: When gurus demand repayment, whether in money or obedience, seekers are exploited. The pure gift of guidance becomes contaminated.
In every field, the illusion of payback breeds exploitation and exhaustion. It converts love into burden, kindness into guilt, help into slavery.
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The way forward
The way out is not payback, but paying forward.
What you received from your parents, you pass to your children, not back to your parents.
What you received from your teacher, you pass to your students, not back to your teacher.
What you received in kindness, you pass into another act of kindness.
This is how life flows, how nature thrives, how communities survive.
Payback is an illusion. Paying forward is the truth.
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Epilogue
Life is not a ledger. It is a river. What comes to us is not meant to be returned backwards, but carried forward, widened, and released again. The tree does not demand the fruit back; it allows birds to scatter the seed. The river does not reclaim its rain; it carries it to the sea. A mother does not take her care back from the child; the child passes it to the next generation.
When we break free from the illusion of paying back, love becomes light again. Help becomes natural. Healing becomes whole. Relationships breathe without fear of accounts. Communities survive without falling into debt and guilt.
To live this truth is not philosophy — it is the way life has always worked in villages, forests, and families that remembered the law of nature. To live it again is not a dream, it is a return.
The illusion of payback ends where the wisdom of paying forward begins. And in that flow, life thrives — endlessly, abundantly, without exhaustion.
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🌿 Summary
Nature shows us that there is no payback, only forward-giving; the illusion of repayment poisons families, friendships, healing, and society itself, while the wisdom of paying forward sustains life.
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The Illusion of Paying Back
-- a dialogue with Madhukar
Scene:
Yelmadagi, early morning. The air is cool, the soil still moist from the night’s dew. A rooster has crowed somewhere in the distance. Smoke from a neighbour’s chulha curls upwards. Madhukar sits on a mud verandah, a brass tumbler of hot tea in hand. Around him are a few young visitors — villagers, seekers, friends — drawn to his homestead for conversation.
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Basavaraj (a young man from a nearby hamlet):
“Anna, we all keep hearing this word — paying back. Our parents say, we must pay back what they gave. Teachers say, we must pay back the knowledge. Even banks keep shouting about paying back loans. Is life only about paying back?”
Madhukar (smiling, pointing to the rising sun over the hills):
“Look there, Basavaraj. The sun has just risen. Do you think the Earth pays the sun back? Or does the river return its water to the clouds that rained? No, life doesn’t work like that. It flows forward.”
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Meenakshi (a middle-aged neighbour, carrying fresh lemons she plucked for pickle):
“But anna, in our village too, we never thought of payback. When my son was born, all the women came to help. When my husband fell ill, neighbours brought food. Nobody kept a notebook of accounts. Nowadays, even in villages, people have started saying — ‘I did this for you, when will you do something for me?’ It has spoiled our hearts.”
Madhukar:
“You’re right, Meenakshi. Once we lived like rivers — flowing, nourishing, moving. Now we have become like closed ponds — stagnant, waiting to calculate what comes and goes. Payback is an illusion. It suffocates love.”
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Basavaraj:
“But anna, even with parents — they say: ‘We gave you food, we sent you to school, now it is your duty to repay us.’ How do we face that?”
Madhukar (voice soft, steady):
“A mother’s milk can never be returned. A father’s struggle cannot be repaid. To imagine you can pay them back is to insult the depth of their giving. The only way to honour parents is to live rightly, to give the same care to the next generation, to pass the strength forward. That is how gratitude lives. Not in repayment, but in continuation.”
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Hanumanthappa (an old farmer, leaning on his stick):
“Hmm… anna, even farming has changed. Before, if my neighbour needed bullocks, I gave mine. He helped me when I needed. No question of payback. Now everything is hire. You pay me for bullocks, I pay you for tractor. Money has entered, and relationships have become business.”
Madhukar (nodding, gazing at the fields stretching beyond):
“Yes, Hanumanthappa. The illusion of payback turns community into marketplace. Villages that lived on trust now live on receipts. Earlier, if a house collapsed, the whole village rebuilt it. Today, you call a contractor and settle in cash. But can cash carry the warmth of twenty hands lifting your roof together?”
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Lakshmi (a young woman, curious):
“And what about healing, anna? When you guide us, some of us feel like we must give you something in return — otherwise we feel guilty.”
Madhukar (chuckling, pointing to the neem tree beside them):
“Look at that neem tree, Lakshmi. It gives shade, it gives bitter leaves, it gives flowers, it gives seeds. Has anyone ever returned those gifts to the tree? Healing is like that. A healer has healed himself, found peace, and shares it. If you try to repay, you will only burden yourself. Instead, heal well, live deeply, and when someone comes to you tomorrow, pass it forward. That is enough.”
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Basavaraj (frowning, thoughtful):
“But anna, sometimes when people don’t pay back, others get angry. Even in small matters — money borrowed, help given. That anger becomes fights.”
Madhukar:
“That is the disaster, Basavaraj. Expecting payback turns generosity into slavery. It poisons relationships. Parents become creditors. Friends become accountants. Marriages become bargains. Even spirituality becomes business. And when you carry the urge to pay back everything you receive, you exhaust yourself — running like a bull tied to a cart that never stops. That is why suicides happen over debts, why families break over property, why love dies in calculation.”
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Hanumanthappa (sighing):
“So anna, what do we do?”
Madhukar (eyes steady, voice calm):
“Do what nature does. Receive without guilt. Give without demand. Pass forward what you can. That is enough. That is the law of life. Look at this morning itself — the air is cool, the soil is damp, the birds are singing. Who will pay them back? Nobody. Yet life is full. That is the truth. That is freedom.”
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[Silence for a while. Only the sound of a koel echoing from a distant tamarind tree. The group sips tea quietly, each person absorbed in the words.]
Lakshmi (whispering softly):
“Then anna, life is not about balancing… it is about flowing?”
Madhukar (smiling):
“Yes. Life is not a ledger. Life is a river. Payback is an illusion. Paying forward is the way.”
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The Illusion of Paying Back
the rooster breaks the silence of dawn
but the sky does not demand payment for its light.
smoke rises from the chulha,
the stone grinder groans,
a mother’s hands work before her eyes are fully awake.
nobody pays the stone back.
nobody pays the fire.
in the fields, bullocks pull the plough.
grain grows because rain fell,
because soil stayed patient.
men harvest, women store,
children eat chapatis smeared with chutney.
who owes whom?
the field doesn’t send a bill.
the stomach doesn’t write a receipt.
but the word payback entered our tongue
like rust entering water.
parents say—
“we fed you, now repay us.”
fathers speak like creditors,
mothers become accountants of sacrifice.
children bow their heads with guilt,
love grows heavy,
and the house becomes a court of debts.
wives and husbands bargain—
“I gave you my life,”
“I gave you my name.”
marriage, once a shelter,
becomes a contract written in invisible ink.
in the city,
everything is settled in advance.
a scooter borrowed must be balanced with another.
a shared lunch carries the weight of return.
apps ping on phones—
“your EMI is due.”
banks circle like vultures.
a farmer hangs himself from a beam,
because the rain failed,
and the officer at the branch said: “repay.”
the temple too has become a marketplace.
gold-plated towers stretch into the sky,
while beggars sit outside the gate.
devotees line up with offerings,
bargaining with gods:
“give me a son, I will donate this.”
priests chant like clerks tallying accounts of heaven.
and beneath it all,
women carry the heaviest debts.
a daughter told to “repay” her parents with dowry.
a wife told to “repay” her husband with obedience.
a mother told her milk must be repaid in old age.
no man sees that she has already paid forward
in sweat, in silence, in endless work.
even caste speaks the language of repayment.
the labourer told he must “repay” society with his back,
the cleaner told her hands are “duty,” not dignity.
a thousand years of bondage disguised
as unpaid debts.
and what about the healer?
he healed himself,
sat with his silence,
and now shares his strength.
but the seeker arrives with guilt,
presses money into his hands,
bows too deeply,
clings as if a loan must be cleared.
the healer shakes his head.
his guidance was never a debt.
his presence is like the neem tree’s shade.
you cannot return shade.
you can only walk cooler
and offer shade to another someday.
this illusion of repayment—
it poisons families,
turns friendships into transactions,
kills marriages,
exploits seekers,
destroys farmers.
it has made life a bad business deal.
but outside,
the koel sings without contract.
the tamarind bends with fruit,
children throw stones at branches,
the tree does not shout: “return my tamarind!”
nature flows forward.
tribal people knew this.
hunters shared the kill,
villagers rebuilt a house,
water was drawn from a neighbour’s well
without a receipt.
the circle stayed alive
because nobody asked for balance.
this is the truth:
life is not a ledger.
life is a river.
there is no payback,
only passing forward—
grain into seed,
milk into strength,
love into care,
healing into guidance.
payback is the illusion that exhausts us.
paying forward is the law that keeps us alive.
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