“Yes, Betty – twenty dollars.”
“And who is that brunette with her? Man, she’s really stacked!”
“Dolores – forty dollars.”
“Ah, but look what’s coming! That’s what I call really first-class.”
“Gloria – eighty dollars.”
“My God!” cried George. “Aren’t there any nice respectable girls in this town?”
“Of course” Charlie answered. “But you couldn’t afford their rates.”
Morality goes only so far, beyond that it stumbles and disappears. Everybody has his price. The moral man has a price. You watch yourself. If you are walking on the street and you find one thousand rupees, maybe you will not take them, but if you find ten thousand…then you hesitate…to take or not to take? But if you find one hundred thousand rupees, then there is no question, you take them That shows how deep your morality is – one thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand; everybody has a price. One can only afford that much, beyond that, it is too much. The morality is not worth it! Then you would like to choose the immoral.
The moral man is not totally moral; only a few layers of him are moral, beyond that the immorality waits. So you can drive any moral man into immorality very easily. The only question is that you have to find his price.
I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin was traveling with a woman in a first-class compartment. They were alone. He introduced himself, and then he said, “Would you like to sleep with me tonight?”
The woman, who was really angry, said “What do you think? Are you mad? What do you think of me? I am not a prostitute!”
Mulla said “I will give you ten thousand rupees.”
The woman started smiling, she came close, she was holding Mulla’s hand.
And then Mulla said “What about ten rupees?”
And the woman said “What do you think of me!”
Mulla said “I know who you are. Now we are haggling over the price.”
It is always a question of “the price.” Ten rupees – and the woman is angry. Ten thousand rupees – and the woman is willing. And don’t laugh at her, this is the situation of everybody. Morality does not transform you. It goes deeper than reform, it has a bigger price, but still, at the very core of your being, you remain the same.