This Short Story – The Cause of Greed (The Snares of 99) is taken from Parables of Rama. The fable reminds us how we keep on clinging to our nature and habits and look for change without changing them.
A man with his wife used to live very happily in their small hut. Very happy they were.
The man used to work all day long and get a pittance to make the two ends meet. He had no other worldly ambition, no other desire, no feeling of envy or hatred, a good honest worker he was.
He had a neighbour who was a very wealthy man. This wealthy man was always immersed in anxiety, he was never happy.
A Vedantin monk once visited the houses of the rich man and his poor neighbour and told the rich man that the cause of his worry and anxiety was his possessions.
His possessions possessed him and kept him down, his mind wandering from this object to that. The monk pointing to the poor neighbour said “Look at him, he owns nothing, but on his face you find the bloom of happiness, and you find his muscles so strong and his arms so well built.
He goes about in such a happy, cheerful, jolly mood, humming tunes of joy.” This happiness the rich man could never enjoy. He had his property fashioned and moulded in the way other people liked it. Then the rich man wanted to test the truth of the monk’s remarks.
According to the advice of the monk, the rich man stealthily threw into the house of the poor man Rs. 99 (Indian Rupees). The next day they saw that no fire was lit in the house of the poor man. In the house of the poor man there used to be a good fire and they used to cook certain things purchased with the money earned by dint of the poor man’s labour. That night they found no fire in the house, they did not cook anything; they starved that night. The next morning the monk taking the rich man with him went to the poor man and enquired as to the cause of his not lighting fire in his house.
The poor man could make no excuse in the presence of the monk; he had to tell the truth. He said that before that he used to earn a few annas (An anna or ānna was a currency unit formerly used in British India, equal to 1⁄16 of a rupee), and with those few annas they used to purchase some flour and vegetables, and cook and eat them but on that day when they lit no fire, they received a little box containing Rs.99.
When they saw these Rs. 99, the idea came into their mind that there was only one rupee wanting to make them full Rs. 100. Now, to make up that Re. 1, they found that they might forego food on alternate days, and thus they might scrape up some annas and in a week or so would save up Re. 1, and thus they would have Rs. 100. Hence they were to starve. This is the secret of the niggardliness of the rich people. The more they get the poorer they become. When they get Rs. 99, they want more, if they have Rs. 99,000, they want Rs. 1,00,000.
MORAL: The Short Story – The Cause of Greed (The Snares of 99) reminds us that The more you get, the more you become greedy, niggardly and less happy. Happiness lies not in the accumulation of wealth but in content only.
There’s another story on it. In Hinduism, there was a demon called Rakhtabeeja, who had a boon to multiply himself as soon as his drops of blood touched the ground. All the gods failed to kill him and they finally manifested Mother Goddess Chandika who then asked Mother Goddess Kali (The Time) to drink his blood when she would be killing his forms, thus reminding us if we don’t control our desires, it will keep on multiplying.
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P.S. – We have not written the Short Story – The Cause of Greed (The Snares of 99). All the credits of the story are to the rightful owner. Another aim to put up such short stories is to inspire students from ESL (English as Second Language) countries to develop reading habits and improve their worldviews. Voxcel is an educational platform, thus we make efforts so they can change lives. We aim to not only teach IELTS and English language courses or help the students/clients to travel the world or secure their visas, but we ensure that we impart wisdom to them and in this way, we grow with them together.
Voxcel aims to impart not only world-class IELTS coaching but also we look forward to develop the overall personality of our students.