The Man Who Prayed for Himself
Once upon a time, at the edge of a huge forest where cool waters flowed gently, there lived an ambitious man named Kaan. This man, who lived all alone in his showy mansion, would never turn to look at his neighbours in need of help. Every evening he would climb up to the marble temple on the hill and pray at length in the light of the oil lamps. But the wishes that poured from his lips were always built only upon multiplying his own wealth. "O supreme power, let only my granary not remain without abundance, let only my coffers be filled with gold," he would whisper. One day a merciless drought fell upon the town and the joy of the soil withdrew completely.
The villagers, left without hope, joined hands and gathered in the temple for a common prayer of mercy. All the people sincerely wished that the fields would grow green again, that the streams would surge and that everyone would be satisfied. Kaan, however, pushed selfishly through the crowd to the front row and greedily raised his voice. "Save my crops, the famine and the helplessness of other people do not concern me at all!" he cried out. Just then a wise old man with a white beard glided out of the dim shadows of the temple. The old man looked into Kaan's eyes and said, "He who asks only for himself perishes in the cold bosom of loneliness."
Kaan ignored this moral warning, embraced his purses of gold and walked away from there with arrogance. The next morning, while abundance rained upon Kaan's garden, his neighbours' barren lands remained in dust and smoke. But while Kaan was gathering his enormous crops all alone, he could not find even a single friend to share his joy with. The man, left utterly alone in his deserted mansion, was dragged into a deep gloom brought by excessive greed. Before long, the gold he kept in locked chests and the crops he did not share rotted quickly and turned into ordinary stones. This great ruin caused by selfishness awakened an irreparable regret in Kaan's hard heart. True abundance and peace appear only when we are able to add the happiness of others to our own wishes as well. One stone does not make a wall.