Then another thing She (Mahakali) does, which is a very beautiful thing She does, I think sometimes, that She creates an illusion to test your intelligence, to test your sensibility. She creates an illusion. “Branti rupena samstita.” She makes a ‘branti’ (confusion) in your head. Illusion. So you become illusive or others become illusive or a situation becomes illusive. And you are lost in it. Then you really understand that it’s wrong thing I have done.
It’s a very nice story about Narada. Narada was under an impression about himself and ultimately he became ego-oriented and he started saying, “Oh, look at me. I am never enticed by any woman. Even Shiva was enticed by Cupid. I am never enticed. I am the highest, of highest, Brahmachari.” So Vishnu sent two gandharvas to entice him. So they met him in a forest and told him, “Oh, Narada, you are such a handsome man, such a beautiful man and all your beauty is wasted. You must test your beauty. You must see how beautiful you are. You’re so handsome.” He said, “Really.” “Yes.” he said. “There’s a very simple way of testing you.” “It’s how?” He said, “There’s a wedding coming up of a very beautiful woman. She is the princess of the beauty city, is called [???] and you should go there and see how she will appreciate you.” So he, in his ego, became so stupid that he went there. And he was sitting and lots of people were coming, big big maharajas, rajas, all of them were witting and he was thinking, “Oh, I’m the best among all of them. Who are these? The princess will just garland me, no doubt about it.” And these two were putting that illusion in his head, ‘branti’. With the agnya, you get branti. This princess came round. She looked at him and she laughed aloud. She couldn’t control herself and she moved on giggling. He couldn’t understand why she laughed at him. She didn’t garland him or nothing but she just laughed. So he couldn’t understand, “I’m such a handsome man,” this thing. So these two gandharvas told him, “Oh, it doesn’t matter. You see, she doesn’t understand. She’ll come back,” this, that. Then they went out and near a lake and he sat down to wash his face and looked at in the water his reflection. He looked looked like a monkey. He looked at these two and he cursed them. He said, “I look like a monkey.” The said, “To us, you look like very handsome.” “But I really look like a monkey.”
So this branti, this illusion was created in his mind by his ego. But this power, itself, is Mahakali’s power; She puts this ego right by creating illusion, branti. And this is responsible for many illusions we run after. It’s a mirage, running after it, running after it. Once we are satisfied within ourselves, then we don’t run after mirages. This illusion, if it would not be created, people would be so egoistical that whole world will be finished.