This is a story of the Jagannath temple in Puri in India.
They have a beautiful temple there dedicated to Lord Jagannath who is same as Vishnu. Vishnu's wife is Lakshmi. Once long long ago, it was the day of Lakshmi pooja. Lakshmi went out of her temple out to visit all the people in he town. When she was walking, she came to very small, very poor house. The people were not wearing any fancy clothes. They did not have a lot of food, the children did not have toys. They did not have anything. In that house there was a very poor woman called Shreeya. She had cleaned the house, cleaned the floor and put rangoli designs on the floor because it was the day of Laskhmi pooja. She had decorated Lakshmi's image with lotus flowers and she was praying to Lakshmi with full devotion. Lakshmi heard Shreeya's honest prayers and asked what she wanted. Shreeya said 'Give me a son and give my family prosperity, so that we have enough to eat and live comfortably'. Lakshmi blessed Shreeya and walked back to her temple.
Now Balaram who was Lord Jagannath's brother called him and said, 'Look, Lakshmi does not even care which house she visits. She is going into all sorts of dirty houses and she will get dirty because of that. Dont let her come back home'
When she came back, Lord Jagannath was waiting for her. He said 'Why did you go to that poor woman's dirty house? That was such a poor house. Now you are all dirty. I dont want you to come in. Lakshmi said 'Why? I go to the house of anybody who prays to me. It does not matter if they are poor. All that matters is that they have a good heart. Fine, if you dont want me to come, I will go away'.
So she left the Jagannath temple. She asked Vishwakarma to build her a tiny hut. Vishwakarma is the engineer of the Gods, he knows how to build all sort of things. Vishwakarma built her a tiny hut, but its insides were made of gold and Lakshmi went to live inside. Now - what happened when Lakshmi left the temple? All the rice in the temple, all the food left the temple as well. Jagannath and his brother Balaram had no food to eat. They went looking and searched everywhere. Finally they came to the tiny poor looking hut where Lakshmi lived. There, Lakshmi fed them. They realised that they were wrong and agreed that it does not matter how poor somebody is or how small their house is. All that matters is how much they love God.
Some people heard that story and they told others. They realised that all the things we have and all the food we eat is from Lakshmi. So they learnt to work hard and take good care of everything they had. They learnt to share food and all their things. They all started celebrating Lakshmi pooja with a lot of devotion. Lakshmi blessed everybody and people lived happily in the town. They tell the story every Lakshmi pooja day to remind everybody to be good, because when you are good you will be happy and comfortable on the inside.
