Once Swami Vivekananda during his itinerary arrived at Alwar. The Dewan of the state kept him in his house as a guest, being impressed by the Swami’s personality, learning and spirituality. He once invited the Maharaja to his house to enable him to listen to the Swami’s talks. When the Maharaja arrived, he was given a seat of honour on both sides of which golden spittoons were placed. After listening to the Swami’s talk for some time he asked him, “Swamiji, I see that you are a learned man. You can remain as a Sabha Pandit in any state. Why do you instead go about like a beggar from place to place?” The Swami replied, “Maharaja Saheb, I hear you have a comfortable palace. Why then do you go out for hunting in different forests in your state?” The Maharaja replied that he was very fond of hunting. Vivekananda then said, “I lead a beggar’s life because I am fond of it.” The Maharaja then said that his forefathers had installed the image of Sri Krishna in a temple inside the palace though he himself had no faith in image worship, and he asked the Swami whether image worship was not a harmful practice. Swami Vivekananda sat silent for a while and then asked some persons assembled there to get him a picture of the Maharaja. They took one picture from the walls of the big room where the conversation was going on and brought it to the Swami. The Swami showed the picture to the people around and asked them to spit upon it. All the assembled persons were surprised and nonplussed and the Dewan said, “Swamiji what are you saying? How can any of us do what you have asked, seeing that the picture is of the Maharaja whom we all revere?” The Swamiji then turned to the ruler and said, “Maharaja Saheb, you see that nobody dares to spit on your picture, though it is only a paper on which your image is printed. You see the golden spittoons by your side and the silver spittoons placed in this room. None minds spitting into these spittoons of precious metals, but nobody dares to spit on this photograph, out of their respect to you. The image of Sri Krishna in your temple reminds the visitor of the Lord whom we all worship. We do not look upon the image as a piece of stone. The image represents the real God whom we wish to worship and they do worship Him in reality through the idol or image installed.” The Maharaja said, “Swamiji, you have opened my eyes today. Never shall I look down upon image worship.”