Once Sri Ramakrishna was the guest at the house of one of his nephews where a religious ceremony was going to be performed. One of the uninvited visitors of the host came into the room where Sri Ramakrishna was sitting and as soon as he left the room Sri Ramakrishna asked his disciples to get the place cleaned by sprinkling Ganges water and asked his nephew not to retain that person in his house any more.
The nephew, however, did not pay much attention to what Sri Ramakrishna told him and the man was not dismissed. Some time later, Sri Ramakrishna came to know that the man had not been dismissed and told his nephew that if his advice was not followed he would leave the house then and there. The nephew consequently, though reluctantly had to dismiss the man. Realising that his nephew had not understood the reason why he had given such advice, Sri Ramakrishna called him and said, “I shall tell you the story of a butcher who had to take a cow to the slaughter house. The cow resisted the butcher’s attempt to drag it and the latter feeling tired in his efforts to take it to the slaughter house, tied it to a tree, taking particular care to see that the cow could not get even a blade of grass. He then went to a house where a great feast was going on and had a hearty meal there. The cow who had been starving all this time had now become weaker when the butcher returned after his meal. So, this time he could successfully drag the cow to the slaughter house. The gentleman who gave the feast and fed the butcher sumptuously, though confident that he had been able to accumulate a lot of religious merit, had to share the major part of the sin due to the slaughter of the cow. That sin has more than outweighed his virtues. It is not desirable that you, by associating with a man who appeared to have been a man of endless vices, should become subject to heinous sin unnecessarily.”