Treat a Stone as God & not God as Stone
Treat a Stone as God & not God as Stone
“Throw away the broken image, Make a new one and worship,” they said.
“You can’t do it,” Ramakrishna replied, “Would you throw away a kin of yours, if he broke his leg?”
At Dakshineshwar, besides the Kali temple, there are the temples for Radha-Govinda and twelve Siva temples. All the gods and goddesses are worshipped daily by different priests.
A few days after Sri Ramakrishna had devoted himself to the service of Mother Kali, an accident occurred. It was on the day of Nandotsav, the festival that fell the day after Sri Krishna’s birthday. After the worship at midday, as the priest of the Radha-Govinda temple was carrying the image of Govindaji to place it on a bed, he slipped and fell. The leg of the image was broken off.
A broken image could not be worshipped. What would happen now? Mathur Babu and Rani Rasmoni were informed. They called the pundits and asked their opinion. The pundits ruled that the broken image should be thrown into the Ganga and a new image made and worshipped.
Then, it struck Mathur Babu that Sri Ramakrishna had not been consulted. When Sri Ramakrishna was asked, he said, ”If one of the Rani’s sons-in-law was to break a leg, would he have been thrown away and a new son-in-law brought? Or would a doctor have been called to cure him? The same thing should be done in this case. Mend the leg of the image and worship it as before.” Then, everybody understood. True, we must think of God as a near and clear one, and love and serve Him like mother, father, child. But, they were thinking of God only as an image. Sri Ramakrishna himself mended the broken leg of the image beautifully.
Questions :
- What was the view of the pundits about the broken idol of Krishna?
- What was the view of Ramakrishna?
- What is the moral of the story?
Source – Stories for Children – II, Published by – Sri Sathya Sai Books & Publications Trust, Prashanti Nilayam