Sharing with others

Wealth corrupts so much that the more we have, the less willing we are to share it with others.

Often, we begin to love wealth so much that hoarding money gives us more pleasure than anything else. But of what use is such wealth?

There was a miser who converted all his wealth into gold bricks, which he hid away in a secret chamber in his wall. He did not tell anyone about it. As he was on the death bed, he wanted to inform his family of what he had done.

But he lost his power of speech, and his family could not make anything out of his frantic signalling. And he died without letting them into it. The family sold the house; with it went the gold the man had so carefully hidden.

God and cobbler

We must give to others, and our acts of generosity will please God, said Ilampirai Manimaran. Leo Tolstoy wrote a story of a cobbler who prayed to God to appear before him. God promised to appear before him on a certain day.

He eagerly awaited God’s appearance. An old man came to him to have his shoes repaired, but the cobbler turned him away, saying he had no time, for he was waiting for God.

A child came to him for help and so did an old woman, but he turned both of them away. He spent the whole day waiting for God, and was disappointed when God did not appear before him.

Word kept

That night, God again appeared in his dream; the cobbler said God had let him down by not appearing before him as promised. God said He had indeed kept His word and visited him.

The cobbler wondered how this could be true, as he had waited the whole day without any sign of God.

God replied that He had come thrice — once as an old man, once as a child and once as an old woman, but had been turned away all three times.

The moral is that we must learn to see God in our fellow human beings and realise that serving them is akin to serving God Himself. We must set aside half of what we earn for charity.