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you identify as "mine", you turn that person into a slave. You convert the person into one of your possessions. You say, "my wife, my husband, my son, my father...", what goes on behind the backdrop of this "my-ness"? What is the basis of your relationship made evident by calling someone as yours? You exploit the other, you take advantage of the other, you take the other for a ride. And if this is what you call as altruism then you are indeed carrying a false notion.
An emperor had three sons. As he grew old he became concerned as to which of the three sons would be worthy of inheriting his kingdom. Because all three of them were equally capable and qualified, and that made the choice very difficult. One day he called his sons and said, "Tell me about the greatest act you may have done the whole of last year."
The eldest son reported, "Before leaving for a pilgrimage, the richest man of this city left with me his precious diamonds and jewelry worth millions of rupees without counting them or making a list of them with his signature on. He asked me to save them until his return. If I had wished I could have seized all his treasure, for the man had neither made any documents nor were there any witnesses to prove the treasure belonged to him. Since the man had not kept any count, I could have easily saved at least a few diamonds for myself. But instead, I handed him over the pouch left in tact."
The father said, "You did right, but let me ask you this, wouldn't you have been besieged with the feelings of guilt, shame, embarrassment if you had kept some of the diamonds for yourself?" The son replied, "Indeed I would have."
Then the father said, "You can't call this an altruistic act. What you did was nothing but simply saving yourself from your own feeling of shame and guilt. What good did it do? Since saving diamonds would have pricked your conscience, you preferred to give them back to the owner. It was a kind act alright, but there was no altruism involved in it. You were only being kind to your own self."
Hearing all this, the second son got a little worried. He said, "Once I was passing by a lake. It was evening, no one was around.
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