It's me, Lord Shiva....

There were serpentine queues in every SHIVA temple on the eve of SHIVARATHRI. Seeing all this, PARVATHI asked LORD SHIVA, "Just look at those thousands of devotees thronging your temple to have your DARSHAN. Many of them stay awake during the night; keep fast, sing Bhajans and so on. You must be really please with their devotion."

The LORD always likes to test his devotees to check if the devotion is strong enough. Just like how we feel the nail and try to move it after it is hit on a wall to hang a picture frame!

The LORD said to his consort, "Poor devotees! They're braving the crowds unmindful of the pull and the push waiting to have my glimpse. They don't realize that I'm their 'indweller'! Anyway, let us go down & give them our darshan." PARVATHI agreed to this suggestion and both of them decide to go & give darshan in their original form itself! So they picked out a temple that had the maximum crowd and started moving along with the crowd smiling at them & blessing them.

The people started laughing at SHIVA & PARVATHI & said, "What a beautiful costume you people are wearing? From which drama troupe have you come? Are you both going to give a play here in this temple?" they asked.

SHIVA said, "It's me…LORD SHIVA! We're real. We thought we would come and give you live darshan so that you don't have to put up with hours & hours of waiting just to have my glimpse inside the temple."

The crowd roared in laughter & seemed to enjoy the show. "Fantastic piece of make up. Is that snake for real?' somebody asked. Another asked PARVATHI, "WOW! Look at those jewels. If they're real, they should be worth a few crores!!!" People continued to push their way through the queue to get inside the Sanctum Sanctorum.

PARVATHI said to the people, "We can perform whatever miracle you want us to do because we're really what we claim to be. What proof do you want?"

To that somebody said, "Turn this temple into GOLD. In fact anything that is metallic should turn into GOLD. Can you do that?" Everyone joined the chorus. Yes, yes. Turn this temple into GOLD. The people started mocking them & ridiculing them.

SHIVA just smiled & the next moment the entire temple complex was glittering with GOLD!!! "Is this real?" some people asked. People who had coins in their hands realized that even the coins had turned into GOLD. There happened to be a GOLDSMITH there who shouted excitedly, "Hey! This is all real. No doubt at all. IT IS ALL SOLID GOLD!!!"

Then pandemonium broke loose. People started running all over the place trying to take whatever was loose outside the temple compound.

PARVATHI asked SHIVA, "Instead of taking our blessings and considering it their fortune to have seen us and getting liberated from this cycle of birth & death, why are they all running here and there?"

SHIVA told her, "They're not only taking the GOLD that's there but also getting whatever metallic objects they can lay their hands on, like vessels, coins, tools & so on. Then they would ask us to turn them into GOLD as well!!! Having said that, SHIVA & PARVATHI just vanished and all the GOLD came back to its' earlier original metallic form leaving everyone shell shocked trying to figure out what had happened!!!