VAGDEVI SPIRITUAL PROCESS [#15087] THE STONES ARE NOT GREEDY

This is a story of a poor sculptor who carved out small idols of one particular deity (Goddess) from stone. He had learned the art of such sculpturing from his father and his father had learned it from his father. In fact, the poor sculptor did not know since when his forefathers had been doing this. A little surprising thing was that although the religion of the said sculptor did not allow idol worship, he sculpted idols of deities with great devotion for the benefit of those who worshiped them. The idols he carved out were purchased by poor villagers in the surrounding area. The poor villagers happily bought them because they could afford to buy them being less expensive due to their small size, and also that the man who sculpted them sold them at very low prices.

The sculpture had to work very hard to feed himself and his family. He worked from dawn till very late in the evenings in a hilly location where stones of proper size and type were available. The villagers believed that the idols of the deity carved out by the said sculptor blessed their worshipers with much peace and contentment. It was also believed that in the villages where such idols made by the said sculptor were worshiped, the inhabitants became less greedy and could resolve all their disputes quickly; and hence, peace and happiness prevailed is such villages.

It was not that the sculptor was never offered more money for his skill. He often received many tempting offers that could have made him wealthy overnight, but he invariably turned down all such offers. It was because his father had instructed him, while lying on his death bed, that as long as he made small idols affordable to the poor and sold them at a price much lower than others, the benevolent face of the deity would remain visible to him while he was doing his work. That would help him improve his work day after day; but, if he collected a price with even the smallest of the greed, not only the face of the deity would become invisible, but, he would not even be able to copy his own work properly. His father also told him that his forefathers had experienced that the greed, the biggest cause of sorrow, can never be confined; it expands, propagates and circulates. The man has learned to become greedy; he can tolerate greed. The stones are not greedy; they cannot tolerate greed. We are not the worshipers of idols, but, our family has the blessings of the stone. If the stones have blessed us without worshiping them, we must never, ever go against their wishes. “Please, remember, this my son”, the dying father had told the sculptor. “And, finally, if you have to surrender to the greed ever, going against the family tradition, please bury your hammer and chisel with full honors and never touch them again”, the father had warned him.

The times were changing; the worship of the deity had become a matter of much pomp and show. The traders from the nearby big city had started paying regular visits to the sculpture, offering him huge compensation for his work. The offers from the traders had been so tempting that even his family and close friends began to persuade the sculpture to accept the lucrative offers considering them to be the reward given to his family for their hard work with dedication and devotion.

The sculptor succumbed to the pressure from his family and friends. He decided to make money by carving out big idols for the city market for the coming festivals and then to bury his hammer and chisel. He did make much money, much more than his expectations, and was about to say goodbye to his profession, but his family and friends intervened and forced him to continue. The sculptor agreed, he said, “Alright, one more year of making idols for sale in the city market. I will need some assistants also this time.”

Next morning, the villagers who had come to convince the sculptor to continue with making of small idols for them, did not find him and his family. There was no trace of him, his family and the big money he had recently made. Apart from some cheap household goods, his chisels and hammers there was nothing in his house. The villagers became sad. The one who dispelled greed through his service to the stones without greed was no more with them. They decided to place the tools of the sculptor, the hammers and chisels, in a temple of the deity that was visited by many and worship them just as the worshiped the deity.

This is a story of the traditional battle of the mankind against his own greed that he has ever been trying to win.

PROMOD KUMAR SHARMA

[The writer of this blog is also the author of “Mahatma A Scientist of the Intuitively Obvious” and “In Search of Our Wonderful Words”.]