In a bustling prosperous village, there lived a merchant named Arkad who was well known for his ability to profit from his trading and amass a vast fortune. He had built his wealth through hard work and honest trade, but as time passed and the eagerness of youth turned to maturity, his greed grew unchecked. He longed for more riches whilst exerting the least amount of effort. And the easiest way of doing so, was based on the efforts and successes of Others.

Due to his obvious ability to increase wealth, Arkad was easily able to persuade the Village Elders that he could look after and increase the funds stored in the village’s communal treasury.

At first, he was able to add to the funds held and his additions encouraged many of the Villagers to add further monies to increase the accumulations of the treasury. Excited by the prospect of easy wealth, Arkad decided that he could siphon small amounts of money from the treasury each day – an action that would be difficult to detect if done subtly.

At first, no one noticed the missing funds, and Arkad revelled in his growing fortune. However, greed as greed is, began to know no bounds, and soon, he began to treat the funds as his own personal pot of gold and took larger sums to satisfy his own purchases and investments. After some time, the villagers noticed that their communal projects were suffering due to a lack of funding being made available to them. They turned to a wise elder member of their community, a farmer called Ludari, known for his honesty and integrity. He agreed to investigate the treasury and Arkad’s involvement with it.

At first, Arkad was able to convince Ludari that his involvement with investment of funds meant that, at times, large sums were not present in the remaining funds but were easily replaced by the investment returns and profits. Ludari knew nothing of investments and so was unable to question what he was told. But he certainly knew about the nature of how things grow and flourish if nurtured in the right way.

Over a period of time Ludari was able to observe that the treasury coffers showed no evidence of increasing returns but were actually decreasing in total. Not knowing how the money was being invested, was overridden by the fact that no monies were being replaced. And so Ludari’s investigations of the treasury discovered Arkad’s deceitful siphoning of the Villager’s hard earned funds.

Confronted with the evidence, Arkad’s reputation was shattered, and he faced the villagers’ wrath. Ludari, with his wisdom, reminded the villagers of an important lesson: “Greed and dishonesty may bring temporary gain, but they ultimately lead to ruin.” He stated that rather than receive physical punishment as a direct result of his dishonest actions, Arkad would be forced to repay the stolen funds from his own personal sources. This led to the selling of his properties and investments to fulfil his debts and so he spent the rest of his days in shame and poverty.

The villagers, having learned their lesson, vowed to keep a closer watch on their communal treasury, and demanded a public record to be created to show what funds were added or removed ensuring that no one else would siphon their hard-earned wealth.

Moral of the Story:
Gradual withdrawal of funds for illegal and immoral gain (known as siphoning) may seem like an easy path to riches, but it ultimately leads to disgrace and downfall.
Honesty, accountability and vigilance are the true paths to prosperity.