Acharya Prashant addresses a question regarding the controversy over a filmmaker depicting Goddess Kali smoking and a politician defending the right to imagine her as a meat-eating and alcohol-drinking deity. He explains that the entire Shakta tradition is about knowing, understanding, and worshipping Prakriti (Nature). To understand who Kali is, one must refer to the most important scripture, the Devi Mahatmya, also known as the Durga Saptashati. All goddesses, including Durga, Ambika, Kali, Gauri, and Saraswati, are symbols of Prakriti and its various powers. Acharya Prashant narrates the story from the third episode of the Durga Saptashati, which is related to Kali. It begins with Goddess Ambika residing peacefully on the Himalayas, symbolizing Nature in its serene state. Two demons, Shumbha and Nishumbha, who represent the ego's accumulative tendency, establish their empire on Earth and want to control all natural forces for their own pleasure. Their servants, Chanda and Munda, see the beautiful Goddess Ambika and suggest to their masters that she too should be possessed. This symbolizes the ego's desire to possess everything. When their proposal is rejected, they send an army to fight her. In response to their demonic behavior and disrespect, a power emerges from Ambika's anger—this power is Kali. Thus, Kali is the destructive power of Prakriti that arises in reaction to demonic exploitation. Her appearance is described as skeletal, with sunken eyes and a lolling tongue. Regarding meat and alcohol, Acharya Prashant clarifies their symbolic meaning from the scriptures. In the Durga Saptashati, Kali declares that she will be satisfied by consuming the flesh of the demons, whom she calls 'great animals' (mahapashu). Therefore, the animal sacrifice associated with Kali is the sacrifice of one's inner demonic, animalistic tendencies. Similarly, the scripture states that the blood of the demon Raktabija is itself the intoxicant (mad or madira). To defeat Raktabija, whose every drop of blood creates a new demon, Kali drinks his blood. This is the symbolic context of her consuming 'alcohol'. The meat is the flesh of our inner demons, and the alcohol is their blood, representing the intoxication of ego and desire. Acharya Prashant concludes that those who offer actual animals as a sacrifice to Kali are ignorant and are the very demons Kali comes to destroy. He states that the story of Kali is a timeless metaphor for the inner battle against the ego's destructive tendencies, which are currently causing crises like climate change and species extinction. He criticizes those who comment on religious matters without understanding the scriptures, emphasizing that freedom of expression comes with the responsibility of being informed. The symbols of religion are not for imagination but for understanding (bodh), and Vedanta is the key to decoding them.