How independent, how happy was the men in primitive days! He has been becoming dependent since he has stepped into the day of civilization. The things, he had created or produced for his facility, have been blocking up his facilities one way or the other.

 

He invented the currency of rupee, but that time nobody knew that the then slave would turn the master through the days to come. The rupee was accepted as the base of fulfilment of his desires, but the same rupee is today dominating his brain.

 

Today man is so mad after rupee that he has lost his conscience between his own things and of others. For the rupee he kills the best of the best relations within a moment. He even murders in a blink any of his friends, relatives, known and unknown ones.

 

Once upon a time a village was afflicted with famine. The angel of death started swallowing the public. Everybody was wandering here and there for want of relief.

 

A man from that village left for the city where one of his cousins had a good business. The next day he could search out the cousin’s address. He met him in his office.

 

He was happy to have a look at his business.

 

But the cousin, taking him as an unfortunate guest did not deliberately pay proper attention to him. At the ding table the cousin clearly told him he must go somewhere with rupees fifty or a hundred as a help, but he will not be allowed to stay permanently with him. The poor fellow burst in tears. He described his calamity. but the cousin did not show any mercy. After all he left next morning.

 

He met another man of his nature village with whom. however, he had no relation. The man took him to his house and served him food with love and made necessary arrangements for him. He made him a fifty percent partner of his farm. Both were happy living together.

 

The villager was hurt whenever he thought of his cousin’s behaviour. Had he been a moneyed man he would have not been so insulted. Money does not bring respect and honour but brings just insult.

 

If a moneyless man calls on one of his moneyed relatives. he would suspect that the moneyless one has come to snatch his wealth. He, however, does not know that in the days of need moneyless man will dedicate all his possessions to him, while the moneyed man will spend not even a single paisa.

 

Subhagika Jhopda. the cottage of a poor woman Subhagi. is a story. Subhagi had a cottage in the Chandni Chowk locality of Delhi. Just opposite that cottage there was a ‘haweli’ of a Seth. He wished to buy that cottage for a better show of his building, as the cottage looked like a patch of jute on velvet. The Seth threw many attractive offers, but Subhagi could not be prepared to sell the cottage.

 

Once Subhagi fell ill. The Seth called on her. He managed her medical treatment and looked after her. In a few days she was allright. The Seth again raised the question of her cottage. Subhagi declined it. The Seth then told, ‘Subhagi, you will have to sell your cottage, or else you will not be able to pay my debt off.

 

Subhagi was stricken. ‘Debt, what type of debt? I have never asked you for any debt.’

 

The Seth told. ‘I have spent rupees eight hundred for your medical treatment.

 

Subhagi understood. The Seth’s intention was not good. His eye was on her cottage. She called on some other man the same night. She sold the cottage to him for rupees twenty hundred. She threw all that amount to the Seth. Take back rupees eight hundred spent on me and keep the rest of the amount as a reward from me. The cottage has now been sold. 

 

What a role is played by rupees! How wide is the crookedness hidden in the mind of these moneyed men! As they look different from outside and inside. Should it be possible, they will earn only money by all the four strategies: negotiation. bribery, punishment and detection. They perhaps believe they will be able to carry the wealth with them even after they die. Which is why they are all the time busy collecting money, even putting all the relations aside.

 

One day a poor relative paid a visit to a moneyed man. The poor had brought with him a golden coin which he had earned by selling his crop. The Seth was busy with counting the cash, pouring the golden coins from one bag after the other. One of the golden coins fell into the inkpot, while being poured from the bag. The accounts book showed a coin missing

 

The poor relative thought he also had a golden coin in his pocket, while nobody was going to believe that the coin belonged to him really. Hesitation and the question of credibility perturbed him and he managed to put. unnoticed by others, his coin in the heap of coins and left the place with his credibility remaining untouched.

 

The golden coin was found from the inkpot when it was cleaned at the time of Dipavali. The Seth thought over the whole situation and he remembered the incident of that day.

 

The poor relative of the Seth would have been suspected. had he not have a golden coin in his pocket. On search that coin would have been found and, misapprehensively of course, the suspicion would have been confirmed.

 

Many families have been shattered because of the wealth. The young boys of wealthy families often come in the grip of drinking, womanising and gambling. They shed their money in share business which, within no time brings them on roads to beg. When they were millonaires they had helped nobody, rather they had laughed at the poor, insulted the poor and they, doing thus, felt themselves in a high position.

 

There was a capitalist, an ordinary businessman. Hard labour brought him a shower of wealth. But all the wealth was lost because of his son’s addict of share market. He had come to the state of hand to mouth. He was shocked to death.Most of the families are caught in the disputes of partition of the property. In a wealthy family dispute arose between the two brothers after death of the head of family and all the property was equally divided. Only a chakki’ or the conventional apparatus made of stone in two parts for grinding flour. remained undivided. Neither of the two was prepared to leave his share: after all the upper part of the ‘chakki’ was given to the elder and the lower to the younger.

 

The addiction of wealth maddened them to the extent that they could not leave even a part of the ‘chakki. They even agreed with its being useless. This they felt better. but they could not leave even a piece of stone, that also for their own blood. Neither the elder brother, nor the younger one was liberal.

 

Earning wealth has no limit. The needs of man are infinite. Those can be increased or decreased as one would like.

 

Wealth is a cause. For the fulfilment of necessities it is a good source. It is surely desirable, but to a certain limit. The day the importance of wealth is raised from hand to head, wealth would treat like a mad man riding one’s head and it would never like to get down.

 

The excess of wealth brings a certain type of pride for the wealthy. He counts the poor ones as useless. A baseless pride stepping into his mind ruins him.

 

The consequences of wealth are placed in three parts:

 

Enjoyment.

Charity,

Distress.

 

Most of the men are not able to enjoy their wealth. They are not destined to enjoy it for their pleasure of eating. sleeping. sensibility and luxury. They are not able to eat freely to their natural taste. Nor are they able (in their own words) to enjoy the life in its real sense. They do not understand the difference between use and enjoyment even.

 

During the earlier ages man used to utilize wealth for charitable purposes. Now they hesitate in sparing money for such purposes. Those making charities for religious purposes are yet fewer in number. Most of the wealthy men feel pride making in donations to the institutions, societies and clubs of luxurious nature.

 

Most of the wealthy men live with diseased mentality. They are so unhealthy that everybody seems unhealthy to them. They are so suspicious that they find nobody as a meritorious one.

 

A comparative study will make it clear that a wealthy man is more gripped by worries than a poor man who is free from worries. A poor will enjoy his life among laughters inspite of the fact that his clothes are torn out. his house is just a cottage and his food is insufficient. On the other hand, a wealthy man is always in tears and lives a dead life, inspite of his silken clothes, palatial houses and full-fledged dishes of food.

 

A Seth had to stay in an inn. A ‘faqir’, also came and stayed there. Thiefs entered the inn during the night. They stole their belongings. The Seth started crying, ‘Oh! all my belongings have been stolen by the thiefs. They have left not even a single paisa with me.”

 

The ‘faqir’ told, with a smile on his face, ‘O Sethji, how much is all your wealth?”?

“Why

 

Just for nothing.”

 

In crores, I am the seth of the city. I own many multistoreyed houses, farms and gardens. Many mills. factories, horse-driven carts, motor cars, ships also belong to me etc.

 

Just calculate all this wealth and tell me the percentage of your belongings which have been stolen.

 

The Seth calculated to find that the belonging stolen amounted not even to a one hundredth of one percent of all his wealth. He told. ‘My belongings stolen do not amount even to .001 percent.’

 

‘Still then you are crying so much, while 100 percent of my belongings has been stolen.

 

‘How? How does it amount to 100 percent ?’

 

‘I had only one blanket which I used as bedding, pillow. clothing and all that; the thiefs have stolen that blanket.

 

The Seth had lost his conscience because of the wealth. He was not conscious enough to mind what he had uttered.

 

The sources of income suggest the virtues and vices of wealth. The mentality takes the same shape as that of the source of income. The food eaten leaves its effect on the feelings. It, therefore, is a fact that the feelings get much flickering when the food taken is offered by the one whose source of income is not according to the religious rules. Impure sources of your income will certainly pollute your feelings.

 

The food taken at the place of ascetics and saints brings a pleasure which has no comparison with the food taken at the place of the wealthy persons, because the food at the place of ascetics and saints is earned through Sattvika sources. That earning is genuine. Having that type of food brings an unexpressible satisfaction to the mind.

 

The neo-capitalists of today are earning in a wrong method. Income through smuggling, slaughtering cows for the non-vegetarians, business of meat of other animals. fishery, trade of wine and such other sources generate big funds. This chain has now got one more link, the business of drugs.

 

All these sources of income are not genuine from the point of view of religion, metaphysics, morality, because enjoying the facilities earned by such sources pollute our mentality. They influence our way of thinking also. Even the children are influenced like that. Maybe, the children also are caught by the same evils, to the extent that they shatter all the wealth.

 

The manifesto of prosperity is that the sources of income should be in accordance with religious law. With this type of income our mental pleasure grows. Every man knows how to properly evaluate his labour. He had been dishonest. He will get more pleasure if he will spend his income according to the same knowledge..

 

We should always remember that wealth is a cause, not the effect at all.