How Throwing Stones at Shivling Won Lord Shiva’s Heart

This is a story of two villagers who lived in the same village. One of them was rich and used to love God. The other man was very poor and hated God for making him so poor. Both of them used to go to the same village temple. The rich man used to worship the Shivling in the temple every day and performed all necessary rituals, while the poor man used to go to the temple every day to pelt stones at the Shivling and curse God for making him so poor and deprived.

Once in the monsoon season, it started raining heavily. It became very cold and dreary. Not a soul was seen on the streets. The rich guy decided to stay back at home thinking, “I go to the temple every day and pray with all my devotion. Today the weather is terrible, God will surely understand, if I don’t go!” But the other poor man was even more aggravated. He could not go out and do manual labor or beg for food. Having had nothing to eat and no way of getting food, he made it a point to go the temple and pelted twice the number of stones at God and called Him a lot more ill names. Seeing his uninterrupted (‘nirantar’) devotion and faith, God appeared before him and blessed him.

​MORAL
​God does not take note of the number of hours spent in performing rituals or place of worship. He notices the faith and sentiment of love towards Him. The rich man was methodical and sincere in his worship, but lacked the faith that God Himself was present in the idol. He worshiped Lord Shankar as a Shivling made of stone only, while the poor man worshiped Shivling with an unwavering faith that Lord Shankar Himself was present in the form of Shivling. And the way he fought with His Lord was full of cordiality. This selfless and innocent cordiality, pleases God immensely.