Mother Kali's boon

One day a middle-aged man entered into a temple. He was looking at the statue of Mother Kali and crying and crying and crying. For some time the priest watched the man. Then the priest told him, “It is too much. You are making so much noise and disturbing everyone. Get out! Get out of this sacred place. Others have to pray and meditate in silence. You are ruining the atmosphere.”

Then the priest dragged the man outside with the help of some other worshippers. When the man was outside the temple, again he started crying. The priest became extremely irritated. He said, “Now you have to leave these precincts. Do whatever you want to in the street, but not near the temple.”

The man continued to cry and cry, so they took him about a hundred metres away from the temple. Some strong men remained with him to prevent him from re-entering the temple.

All of a sudden Mother Kali appeared in her fiercest aspect holding her sword. Those who were guarding the man got frightened because she looked at them with such powerful eyes. Then she turned to the man, full of compassion and full of love. She changed her mood completely. Mother Kali frightened those guarding the man, and then she was full of love, affection and concern for the man himself.

Mother Kali said to him, “Now tell me, my son, why are you crying?”

The man said, “I am crying because one of my friends has become a magistrate. One has become a doctor, and another has become an engineer. All of them have become very, very famous. Poor me, I am nothing. I studied with them, but now they have become so famous in their own fields, and I am nobody. I do not think I will amount to anything, so I am crying. I am so grateful to you, Mother, for coming. What am I going to do with my fate?”

Mother Kali asked him, “What do you want me to do?”

He said, “Please give me one boon.”

“What boon?” Mother Kali asked.

The man said, “I am so jealous of my friends who have become so great in their own fields. I am so embarrassed to see them. They invite me to come to their homes, but they are such big shots that I do not dare to accept. In my case, I do not even have a wife. I tried to find one, but nobody wants to marry me because I am not successful.”

Mother Kali asked, “Do you want to have a wife?”

The man said, “No, now that you have come, I want to die here and now, in front of you.”

Mother Kali said, “No, no, your time has not come. Please ask me for something else. Any desire you have, I will fulfil. I do not want you to die, but I am ready to fulfil any other desire. Tell me what you would like to have, what you would like to be.”

The man was thinking and thinking. Mother Kali continued, “Do you want to be another doctor or another engineer or another very important person? Anything that you want I will grant you.”

Still the man was thinking and thinking and thinking, but his mind was not functioning. He said, “Already there is a doctor, there is an engineer, there is a magistrate. What else can I become?” Nothing was coming to his mind.

Mother Kali said, “What am I going to do? I am ready to fulfil your desire, to grant you anything you want, but you have to name something.”

The man said, “I do not know what I want to be. I only know that my friends have all become so great.”

Mother Kali said, “My son, in life there should be a goal. You earned your degree, but you did not pursue any field. They wanted to become a doctor, engineer, magistrate and so forth. In your case, you had no goal. You have the arrow, but there should be a target. If you do not aim the arrow at the target, how will you reach your destination? You have become the arrow, but you have no desire to go to the destination, the target. Always you have to have a goal. Then you have to become the goal. This is what your friends did. In your case, you did not want to become anything. Now I am telling you that it is not too late. There is still a chance for you.”

“Oh no, it is too late,” lamented the man.

“It is not too late!” insisted Mother Kali.

Then the man said, “Only give me this boon: I want to die because it is too late for me.”

Mother Kali said, “No, you can make a successful career.”

He said, “No, Mother, I want to die at your feet.”

Mother Kali said, “At my feet? Then where do you want to go?”

The man said, “I do not want to go anywhere. I will die at your feet and go wherever you take me.”

Mother Kali was full of compassion and affection for this soul. She said, “All right, I bless you. I will take you to the highest Heaven.” Mother Kali touched him, and he died. Then she disappeared.

Those who were passing by said, “What is happening? This noisy fellow is not crying and screaming any more?” They came closer and saw that the man was dead.

Those who had seen Mother Kali appear thought that she had looked at him with the same kind of anger and destructive power with which she had looked at them. They said, “We knew that he was a bad fellow. But he was also an idiot. He did not run away. That is why the Mother Goddess killed him. He deserved it.”

None of them wanted to take the dead body away. Everybody wanted to leave without taking care of this body.

Suddenly Mother Kali appeared. Once again the villagers all ran away. They were frightened to death. Then Mother Kali used her occult power and took the body away, flying in the sky. When the villagers came back, the body was not there and Mother Kali had also vanished.

The villagers thought that this man was very bad, but as it happened, he was the one to receive all Mother Kali’s love, affection and concern.