Wisdom story: Don't be a smartass because karma will get you

On the edge of a small village stood two houses side by side. In the first house lived a very wealthy farmer who had lived his whole life on the farm, had a bunch of servants from when he was a small boy and could get anything he wanted. In the other house lived a poor old man who lived modestly and devoted most of his time to cultivating the land and praying. When the poor old man was younger he traveled all around the world and his most valuable lesson was to always be kind to others because if you are not karma will get you. Every time they met the rich man talked about his money and the old man about his faith and sometimes about his travels around the world. “Ah, faith…” the rich man scoffed. “I don’t understand, if you accumulated so much knowledge traveling the world how come you didn’t think of asking your god for enough gold coins to live your life in comfort? If your god is as powerful as you say he could for sure send you enough gold coins so that you will have everything you need or want?” “You are right,” replied the old man and went to his house. When they met the next day, the old man’s expression was as happy as ever. “What happened, old man?” asked the rich neighbor. “Nothing much. But I took your advice and asked God this morning to send me a hundred pieces of gold,” replied the old man. “Really?” the rich neighbor looks in amazement. “Yes, in my prayer I told him that I lived by his commandments and that I deserved a reward for that and that I wanted one hundred gold coins as a reward. Do you think I asked too much?” asked the poor man. “It doesn’t matter what I think,” said the rich man mockingly. “It’s more important that your god doesn’t think it’s too much. He might think you deserve twenty or fifty, eighty or ninety coins as a reward, who knows?” The old man replied, “Of course, God will decide how much I deserve, but my request was clear. I want one hundred pieces of gold. I will not accept twenty, not even ninety-nine. I asked him for one hundred pieces of gold, and I have no doubt that he would grant my request. In all these years that I have worshiped him, I have never negotiated with him about his commandments, so I expect he won’t negotiate with my request.”

The rich man looked at the old man a bit surprised at how adamant he was about his request and replied, “I don’t think you are capable of giving up the twenty or thirty pieces of gold that your god would send you just because there wouldn’t be a hundred of them.” The old man replied with full conviction, “I’ll give up all the gold coins if he doesn’t send me all of the one hundred gold coins that I have requested of him. But if he decides to send me more, I’ll give them up, and won’t keep not a gold coin over one hundred.” “Ha, ha, you’re really crazy. And I’d like to believe that you would do as you say but I doubt it. No one would give up any amount of gold coins if they just happened to fall in their possession.” After the rich man was done mocking the old poor man they both went home for the night. But the rich man couldn’t forget what the old man said. The old man’s words troubled him a lot. He was convinced that it was his duty to expose the old poor man as a liar and a man who did not stand by his words. The rich man thought for a long part of the night about how he would expose the poor old man and then came up with an idea to put ninety-nine gold coins in a pouch and throw it down the chimney. The rich man quickly filled the pouch with ninety-nine gold coins and made his way to the poor old man’s house. There he saw and heard the poor old man through the window praying, “Dear god, help me in my need. Remember god I only ask for one hundred gold coins, nothing more, nothing less.” While the old man prayed, the rich man carefully climbed onto the roof and threw the coins into the chimney. Then he climbed down to see what would happen. The old man was still kneeling when he heard a clanking in the chimney. He slowly got up, walked over to the chimney, picked up the pouch full of gold coins, and shook off the ashes. Then he emptied the pouch on his table where to his surprise saw a pile of gold coins.

Immediately when he saw the gold coins he fell on his knees and thanked the good God for the gift he had sent him. When he finished the prayer, he began to count the gold coins. “Ninety-nine!” the old man yelled in shock. The rich man felt the joy of seeing the poor old man wondering. The poor old man counted the gold coins two more times and he always came to the same result, ninety-nine gold coins. When he was done with counting he again turned to his prayers and told god that he trusted him and was still waiting on one more gold coin, but if he didn’t get it soon he would return the ninety-nine gold coins in a short time to the local church because this must not be his to keep as he asked for one hundred gold coins and not only ninety-nine. The rich man hearing the poor old man burst into anger and started pounding on the poor old man’s front door and yelling, “You’re a hypocrite! You said you wouldn’t accept any less than one hundred pieces of gold. But there are ninety-nine pieces of gold in this pouch which means you’re a liar.” The old man opened the door and asked the rich man, “How do you know that there are ninety-nine gold coins in the pouch?” The rich man explained his plan to the poor old man, “Because I dropped the pouch down the chimney to prove to you that you are a fraud. Today you said that you will give up all gold coins if you get less than one hundred of them, but now I heard you that you will keep what’s in the pouch even though there are only ninety-nine gold coins.” 

The poor old man explained, “Yes it’s true I said that and I will do so when I will be sure that this is all that god has intended me to have. But I’m sure that at this moment god is testing me if I have faith in him and withheld that one gold coin on purpose. He will send it to me soon, and if not I will give the pouch back to the church in the village.” This angered the rich man more and he said, “God will not send you anything, because as I told you, I gave you this money, now give it back to me. I threw it down the chimney to prove that you are like any other person and would keep any amount of money if you would receive it for free.” The poor old man calmly replied, “I will not argue with you why you have thrown the pouch full of gold coins down the chimney, but since I was praying to god at that moment about the gold coins you must be an instrument through which he has chosen to reward me with. Therefore this pouch full of gold coins is mine.” The rich man couldn’t believe the justifications the poor old man made to keep the gold and continued to argue with the poor old man to return the gold coins to him. Since the argument wasn’t going anywhere the poor old man suggested that they present their case to the judge in a nearby town. The rich man agreed and left for the night. The next day he knocked at the poor old man’s door and told him that it was time to go to the judge in the nearby town. The poor old man replied, “You’ll have to wait until I buy a horse, which I don’t have now. An old man like me can’t afford the luxury of walking so far to town”. The rich man angrily replied, “We won’t wait for anything. You can ride one of my horses.” The poor old man thanked his neighbor but still had one more issue to resolve before they could go, “Dear neighbor thank you for the horse, but we will have to wait a couple of months so that the winter passes as I do not have a thick fur coat to make the journey so far in this cold conditions. I would get sick and most probably die.” The rich man got even more angry, “You’re trying to delay the trial. I’ll give you my fur so you can travel in it. Do you have another excuse?” The old man nods and wraps himself in the thick fur coat, climbs on his horse, and heads for the town, with the rich man following him in his own wagon and horse.

When they arrived, the rich man immediately asked to be admitted to the judge, and when the judge received them, the rich man detailed his plan to expose the old man how he was lying about his faith and his principles and how he had given him the money, but the old man refused to give it back. “What will you say in your defense, old man?” asked the judge. The poor old man replied, “Your Honor, I am astonished that I had to come here and confront my neighbor about this matter. This man is the richest villager and has never shown an ounce of solidarity, let alone generosity to anyone in our village, and anyone from the village will confirm. I don’t think I need to defend myself against such accusations from this man, because which fool would believe that such a stingy man would put almost a hundred gold coins in a leather pouch and throw it down the chimney of someone else’s house? It is obvious that this man was spying on me, and when he saw how many gold coins I have, he invented this story to get them for himself.”

“Made it up! You damned old man! You know very well that I’m telling the truth. You can’t believe that god really sent you those gold coins. Give me back my pouch full of gold coins right now!” The judge was stunned. He had no idea how to make his ruling so it would be fair. While the judge was thinking, the rich man suddenly in anger jumped over the wooden fence that separated him and the poor old man and tried to tear out the old man’s hand the pouch full of gold coins. The judge quickly restored peace and the guards escorted the rich man back to his place in the court. As this happened the poor old man saw an opportunity and said to the judge, “Dear judge, as you can see greed has driven him completely crazy. I wouldn’t be surprised that if you would rule that this pouch full of gold coins is his, that he would also insist that this fur coat or the horse that I rode in with was also his.” The rich man lost his temper and started yelling, “Of course that fur coat and the horse outside are mine. I lent them to you!” The judge seeing all this now made his decision, “Aren’t you embarrassed how greedy you are. I can’t believe what I am seeing, you are so greedy, that you want to take everything from this poor old man. Shame on you. I have made my decision. Because you tried to defraud the poor old man, I will sentence you to a week in jail and to pay five hundred gold coins in damages.” The old man quickly interrupted the judge, “Judge, excuse me for interrupting you. but I think he learned his lesson. Despite his intentions, I’m asking you to spare him from prison and award him only the payment of a symbolic fine of one gold coin.” The judge looked at the old man in amazement and ruled, “You are very generous. Not because of the court’s opinion, but because of the generosity of this old man, we impose a symbolic fine of one gold coin on you which you must pay immediately,” and the judge points at the rich man. The rich man protested, but the judge quickly explained, “Either you accept this penalty, or you can pay the five hundred gold coins, as the court suggested. Remember karma will get you in the end if you try to con others.” The rich man agreed and paid the old man one gold coin and quickly returned to his home. On the way home, the old man said a small prayer in which he thanked and said that he really doesn’t owe him anything anymore.