The Mulla did not sleep well that night. He had known the truth of the beggar's words, but had been studiously ignoring it. He contemplated his options. He could sell the furniture and the cloak, and give the profit to the beggar in the alley -- that would balance his own karmic debt, but would do nothing to address the larger imbalance; and he suspected that the beggar would rightly spurn charity given only to assuage the giver's own conscience. He could sell his possessions and join the beggar -- but this would be unfair to his own family and those who depended on him. He could arrange for the punishment of the merchant, but this would be a long and costly process, uncertain of success but guaranteed to bring vengeance down upon his own head. He could leave the merchant's employ, but the Mulla knew that all the merchants for whom he could work shared the same methodologies. He could bring the beggar into the merchant's enterprise, or help him start one of his own; but in so doing the beggar would one day have to become like the merchant himself, and the cycle of plunder would continue. He could even destroy the merchant's livelihood, but this would force his fellow workers into hardships as well. He also saw that the merchant himself was a victim of the situation, as surely as the beggar; the merchant worked tirelessly and was under great stress, not to mention the price being exacted upon his spirit.
"Come now, Mulla," he said to himself. "Are you not well-known for finding creative solutions, for turning disadvantageous situations into opportunities whereby all might derive some learning?" He sat in meditation for a long while, until a plan of action began to suggest itself to him.
And so the Mulla paid some visits to the alleys, and also began to ask the merchant for more. "For the next celebratory feast," he said to the merchant, "I would like to wear a large, voluminous cloak, with a great train of cloth behind it. This would please me far more than the bag of gold, and would demonstrate how well you reward those who serve you faithfully." So the merchant made the necessary arrangements, and at the next feast the Mulla arrived in a stupendously ornate cloak that stretched for yards behind him.
"O Merchant!" he called. "I thank you for this wonderful cloak! But I fear that in order to sit at the table, my cloak will itself require several seats, so that it will not obstruct the aisle and impede the serving of the food." The merchant ordered additional seats to be provided. Other tables had to be installed, and there was some consternation as things were rearranged. There was more consternation as the cloak appeared to arrange itself across the extra chairs -- and the consternation became outrage as the cloak lifted to reveal the beggar and his family, seated at the banquet table. They were dressed not in rags, but not in finery either, for the Mulla had asked them what they needed and provided what he could -- and so they sat clothed in their own dignity as well.
"O Merchant!" called the Mulla. "I have come to understand that as far as providing this banquet is concerned, you are in fact but the middleman -- that our true hosts are these people. But fear not, they bear you no ill will -- in fact, they have brought you a gift as well." With that, the beggar pulled a golden thread from the cloak, and brought it to the merchant. The thread, it was then seen, ran all the way down the great banquet hall and out the door. "Follow this thread, wherever it leads," said the Mulla, "and I promise that you shall find the true source of all wealth." Intrigued, the merchant began to follow the thread, and bade all to follow.
Out the door of the banquet hall, down the dusty streets, through increasingly crowded and dismal neighborhoods the party traveled. The golden thread became a silk cord, then a rope, then a heavy hemp cable as they passed the harbors where the longshoremen unloaded the heavily laden freighters. It became an iron chain, and then barbed wire as they passed the prisons and the military barracks. It became a copper wire, and then a line of glowing glass as they passed through unfamiliar lands filled with gleaming metal spires and windows that glowed with pictures and words. It became a firehose, an irrigation line, an oil pipeline. It became a tube pulsing with air, and then with blood. The landscape around them became darker, they found themselves heading into a cave, and the glowing line was their only guide, their only connection...
When the darkness lifted, they found themselves seated around a simple table in a rustic farmhouse. The table was spread with freshly baked breads, greens just picked from the fields, the fruits of the harvest newly reaped. Each person was holding the hands of their neighbors on either side, and felt the pulse of their heartbeats. The beggar and his family sat at the head of the table, the merchant at one side, the Mulla on the other. The guests looked at one another, astonished, but not wanting to release their hands, to lose the connection they had found.
"Amen," said the Mulla. "Let's eat."