Rays of Dharma

Author(s): Chitrabhanu
Publisher: Divine Knowledge Society

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The Lasting Wealth
give, whenever the opportunity occurs.
Another aspect that we have discussed is gentleness, the modesty associated with discretion. People generally tend to take credit for success and attribute failure to others or incidental factors. While writing invitation cards for a wedding ceremony, we show our pleasure for planning the occasion and invite others to share it. While intimating about death, however, we write 'we have to accept what the Lord has ordained.'
There was a gardener. It rained well and his garden blossomed out. One stranger came there and looking at the blossoming flowers and fruits he asked, 'Who made such a beautiful garden?' The gardener said with pride, 'I did it.' Meanwhile a cow came there and started eating the flower plants. In order to push it out, the gardener hit with a stick and unfortunately the cow died. When he had, however, to face the court for killing the cow, he pleaded, 'a cow does not die by a stroke of stick; it must have died due to other factors.'
The ego thus operates in all our activities, religious, social as well as national. It is seen that the man is getting narrower, but his ego goes on expanding. We need to reverse that trend. Instead of taking pride for any performance, we should be humble enough to attribute the credit to the Grace of the Lord or to the help and cooperation that we might have received from other people.
A few years ago one entrepreneur decided that he would retain only a fraction of the profit and distribute the rest among his employees. That led to improvement in performance and the profit went up. He was a man of integrity and was reputed for his sense of justness. The people referred their problems to him and felt satisfied with his decisions. When his son broke his engagement, people asked the man to decide what should be done. In similar cases earlier he had fined Rs. 1000 for such faults. Since it was the case of his son, he decided to levy a fine of Rs.5000. When the people pointed out that it was too heavy, the man replied that as a father he was responsible for his son's action and being the leader of the community, he needed
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