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DISCOURSE 28
49
AN IMPURE MIND; IMPURE ACTIVITIES
Lawful activity means pure and upright activity. You must be clean and upright in your business or in your professions. As long as a man's mind is impure, his dealings cannot be pure. There is a great impurity in the mind of man and that is the craving for affluence, a strong desire to become wealthy. It is this desire that impels man to engage himself in ethically censurable activities. The ambition to become rich makes a man forget the principles of good and evil; or punya (merit) and papa (sin). “Only if my merit brings about its effect, I can become a rich man". The man who is eclipsed by desires forgets this great truth. "If my sinful Karmas emerge to the surface, I have to remain poor". This great truth is forgotten by the man who is blinded by the ambition to become affluent. Therefore, such people in their endeavour to earn more and more money forget the difference between what is lawful and what is not; what is moral and what is immoral; what is clean and what is unclean. On account of this reason, such man cannot experience happiness either in this world or in the other world. Their life will be replete with anguish and agony both in this world and in the other world. Discard illegal and immoral ways. Otherwise, your life in this world and in the other world will be ruined.
LAKSHMIDAS SETH, THE ARTFUL BUSINESSMAN
There was a small town. In that town, Seth Lakshmidas had been carrying on business in gold and silver. He was extremely dishonest. He possessed merit which he had earned in his previous janma but his mind was impure. By dishonest methods, he had earned a lot of money. Such a thing happens, on account of the effect of the punyakarma (merit). But such punyakarma will not remain throughout one's life. As the punyakarma ends, all the wealth also disappears.
Lakshmidas had a son. He was a simple and artless lad. He was not dishonest like his father. Lakshmidas was very unhappy because his son was incapable of dishonesty.
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