The Reward of Loyalty
By Karmayogi
In the sixties a worker joined a team of people collecting manure. He
was paid one rupee a day. He was young, full of energy, resourceful in
work. Soon he became the leader of the group. Agriculture work offers no
scope for labourers on daily wage. He was posted as a watchman on the
same salary. Communities are known for different attitudes. Families of
blacksmiths will be extremely skillful. So are the carpenters to a
lesser degree. Certain communities among the working class have
distinguished themselves for utter loyalty to the master. Other
communities are there where loyalty is of no value. Some other
communities set store by pilfering. Perhaps each has its own swabhava.
Luck gravitates to a man who denies himself the privilege of the defects
of his family or caste. Great luck is in store for one who exhibits the
attitudes of a higher community. This watchman was actuated by a sense
of loyalty, a value not espoused by his family. That was his value. That
VALUE in him began to translate itself into Prosperity in his life.
Loyalty in him was so great that all other defects, errors, and crimes
were overcome by this value. He was a leader of men. About forty to
fifty people were happy to carry out his behest.
Circumstances changed. His master left the town; he sought other
avenues. As he left the town, one of his closest friends, an elderly
politician desired to take back the house he had sold to the Master of
the watchman. Out of friendship, no document had been made or receipt
written. The buyer of the house, out of sheer good manners, had trusted
the politician. The politician now had other ideas and wanted the house
back as if he had simply rented it. The politician approached this
watchman and asked him to use his band of men to vacate the house so
that he could take it over. As the watchman had left his Master some
years before and was from a community not known for its loyalty, the
politician counted on this watchman’s help. The loyalty in the watchman
reared its head. He not only refused to do the bidding of the
politician, but warned him against vacating his former master’s house.
Years later, news came that that watchman had prospered and is now
wealthy, owning a Maruti van.