Pt. Shriram Sharma Acharya
Those who accept dishonesty as dignified, and adopt it to be their ideal, are failing to analyze the situation in a thorough enough manner. They are disillusioned. The truth is that money simply cannot be earned by dishonest means. Even when we do acquire some wealth temporarily, the wealth can not stay permanent and really be ours. True living can only be earned through courage, wisdom, discipline, dexterity, and skillfulness. Dishonest earnings through inappropriate means lead to results that are not only unstable but that are also eventually painful. There might be temporary escape from direct punishment, but eventually, in the long term, dishonesty invariably leads to public anger, outrage, hate, isolation, and sadness. In practice, deceit and corruption must be sugar coated with a fake layer of honesty for it to work. Conning does require establishing trust and confidence. If any suspicion arises, the person being conned is likely to jump out of the trap. Once proven guilty, the con man loses credibility forever and ends up bearing more eventual losses than profits. There could be scores of everyday examples where the people who are caught bribing, cheating, evading tax, doing back marketing, and illegally hoarding not only get severely punished by the law but they also loose their social status and prestige. Once their deeds become public, everyone starts hating them.
