The zamindar's temple

There was an honest, simple man. Everybody liked him because of his honesty. One day his house was robbed. He was very, very sad. But because he was very honest, his friends gave him money, clothes and everything else that he could possibly need. His friends were so kind to him that he soon had much more than he had originally lost.

One of the honest man’s friends, who was quite rich, became very, very jealous. He said, “Let me also tell people that my house has been robbed.”

That night he took his belongings outside his house, dug a hole and buried all his valuables, money and expensive things under the ground. Then he started crying that his house had been robbed. But because he was so rich, people were not showing any interest. He was not a good man, whereas the first one was a really good man. Nobody gave him any money, but he kept on crying and crying as if he had lost everything.

Then he did not know what to do. People were all watching him. He was miserable. He was only waiting for the day when he could dig up his valuables. He said, “Since my friends are not giving me anything, I will bring everything back into the house.”

Now it happened that the zamindar wanted to build a temple. The zamindar said, “I have done many, many bad things in my life. Now I have to build a temple so people can come and worship. I will also go there to worship.”

Since the zamindar could do anything he wanted to do, he gave some money to the rich man and said, “I am buying this plot of land.” The rich man was totally lost. What could he do?

The zamindar wanted to build the temple immediately, so he started digging. All of a sudden he found so much money! The money that he had given to the rich man was nothing in comparison.

The zamindar said, “Look at this! Already God is so kind to me. God knows that this temple is for Him. I am building a temple, so God is giving me this gift because I am doing such a good thing.”

The zamindar took away all the valuables. He felt that God was so pleased with him because he was building a temple for people to worship. The zamindar got the money and the rich fellow who wanted to fool people lost everything. So if you want to fool people, you also can be fooled.