The village head said, “Get a jar of his butter and I will make him drink it in front of us. Since his ghee has caused so many people to suffer, he must drink some of it himself.”
They brought the clarified butter for him to drink, but the businessman said, “I am going to the magistrate, the higher court. Let him decide what I should do.”
When the magistrate heard the story he said, “Either drink this ghee, or you will be whipped five hundred times. Choose one of the two.”
The businessman said, “Oh no, I am not going to drink this and I do not want to be whipped. I am now going to bring my case to the governor. The governor has to decide my punishment.”
When the governor heard the case he said, “If you pay a fine of two thousand rupees, then you don’t have to drink the ghee or be whipped. You make the choice.”
The businessman said, “I don’t want to pay anything and I don’t want to be whipped. So I shall drink the butter.” He started drinking the ghee, but after drinking only half of it, he was feeling so miserable that he could not finish it.
The governor said, “Look, this is what you used to give others to eat!
The businessman said, “Since I can’t finish the butter and I don’t want to pay any money, let me be whipped. But since I have drunk half the ghee, let me take only half the whipping. Let me be whipped two hundred and fifty times instead of five hundred.”
After being whipped a hundred times, the man was crying and screaming. He said, “Now I am ready to pay. But let it be only a thousand rupees, since I have already got part of the punishment.”
So the businessman drank the butter, suffered a whipping and had to pay money. In the end he got the punishment of the village head, the magistrate and the governor.From:Sri Chinmoy,Is your mind ready to cry? Is your heart ready to smile? part 4, Agni Press, 1981
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/mrc_4