Stories told by Śrīla Prabhupāda
<< 8 The worthless worshipper of Kali >>

The next story is called “The worthless worshipper of Kali”. You know the goddess Kali. She is very popular in India, especially in Bengal. Kali’s form is dark, she is blackish deity and she is depicted with at least four hands, usually actually with ten and in every hand there is a different weapon and she has a garland of human sculls, or, actually fresh human heads, freshly cut. And she has a long tongue and big sharp teethes. Goddess Kali is worshipped by materialistic people because she is actually the consort of Lord Siva, so she gives very easily, like Lord Siva does, material benedictions. And the way of worshipping goddess Kali in these temples in Bengal is animal sacrifice. They sacrifice usually a goat. So an insensitive worshipper of the goddess Kali went to the temple and prayed to the goddess in a materialistic way – typical of the demigod worshipper he asked for a material benediction. After his prayers and a little puja he soon got his desired result, but part of the ceremony, a part of the offering that he had taken, the wow he has taken, was that after this result came he was supposed to go back to the temple and sacrifice a goat. But he didn’t come back.

After some days he happened to come into the temple just to pay obeisances to the deity and while he was standing there in front of the deity after paying obeisances, the deity spoke to him and she asked him: “Where is the goat? You promised some days ago that after you got what you wanted you would come here and sacrifice a goat.” So the man replied: “Oh, getting a goat, you know, that’s very expensive. I don’t have so much money.” Then the goddess said: “All right, but you have to offer something, so you at lease sacrifice a pig.” He said: “All right.” Then he went away and he didn’t come back for many days. Then after sometime he returned and again just offered his obeisances and stood before the deity. This time the goddess asked: “Where is the pig? You said you’d offer a pig.” The man replayed: “I am sorry, but I couldn’t find a pig anywhere, it’s not so easy.” So the goddess replied: “This is not very good, you’ve received your benediction and now you must give something in return. But just to make it easier for you I’ll request that you just offer something that is very available, that you can get without any trouble. For instance why don’t you offer me a fly?” So this lazy man, he replied: “But goddess, there are so many flies buzzing around here in the temple and you have so many hands. Why don’t you just reach out and grab one?”

The moral is the demigod worship does not involve any love whatsoever. This type of worship is very selfish. And one who has his own interest at heart he approaches demigods.

Donate to Bhaktivedanta Library