Amazing is the ' Absolute Faith ' of Child Prahalad !

What gives a special place to 'Narasimha Avatar' is its striking form. Child Prahalad is the architect for Narasimha Avatar to happen. Prahalad is faith personified which words can not describe to the fullest.

Total surrender to HIM will have efficacy only when a person develops total faith which task is not easy. There is a story which depicts what in its essence total fath is :.....

There lived an oil merchant long long ago, who did all jobs from 'a to z' in producing the til oil with the help of a hand set made of wood. The wood set once broke into two and he went in search of a sound tree for making a new wooden machinery for producing the oil. He selected the tree and brought four men to cut it. When he was about to do it, something fell and enveloped his feet and prayed " Oh Merchant , have mercy on me. I am a ghost who live in the tree for a long time and I don't have any other place to go". The ghost also prayed to him that it would take the responsibility to bring to his door the required quantum of Til plant with which he can produce the til oil every day. The merchant expressed his doubt by saying 'what if not'? The ghost reacted immediately that it was not a man and therefore it won't cheat like a man. The merchant believed the ghost's emphatic utterances and dropped the idea of cutting the tree.

The ghost kept up its promise and started bringing the til plant matching in quantity to that of the merchant's requirements. But it proved to be not an easy job. The ghost had to go 'helter-skelter' to search the til plant and it took almost whole day for it to do so. As a matter of fact, the ghost could never return to the old tree where it originally lived. The ghost blamed itself for the torture it was undergoing. It thought that for the sake of the tree or to save the tree from being cut, it offered the merchant to bring the til plant to his door. It appeared to the ghost that the purpose was not served once it could not get back to the tree.

The ghost decided to rest in the tree for sometime that day and was shocked to find another ghost to have taken his place in the tree. The new ghost made fun of the old by saying that it was man who usually came under the spell of a ghost but where as it was the old ghost who had come under the spell of the oil merchant. The two ghosts exchanged its plans on the pressing matter and the new ghost came forward to help the other one and said " I would kill the oil merchant, which would put an end to the whole episode ".

As the dialogue was going on between the ghosts, the oil merchant was busy in the cow-shed. He saw all the cows were brought out from the shed for giving a wash but the merchant noticed one cow which had been bought newly was left out. He shouted at the servants:- "Bring that new Ghost (he meant the new cow) also". The merchant's shout was heard by the new ghost now occupying the tree. it got terrified and came running to the oil merchant. It surrendered to the merchant saying that it would bring double the quantity of til plant what the old ghost used to fetch and prayed for its life.

The new ghost then went to the tree where the old ghost was also standing. The latter laughed at the new ghost and remarked " Where would you get time to return to the tree, as you had compromised to fetch double the quantum of til plant ".

Developing the total faith is as difficult as to fetch such an enormous quantum of til plant as promised by the new ghost.

Karma Yoga or Gnyana Yoga are difficult to practice. It does not mean that ' total surrender to God'- 'the doctrine of saranagathi'- become easy. What interferes between total surrender and man is lack of faith. It is as difficult as to fetch the til plant matching the merchant's enormous requirements.

We pray to HIM, garland the portraits of the Gods with variety of colorful flowers in the puja, offer him " Bhaksya Visesham " ( Nivedanam) and do ' Mangala Harthi '. Are we not supposed to be firm in our mind in the thought that the Lord is sitting in front and looking at the puja being performed and that HE knew what to Give. Yes that is called Faith or vehemently it could be referred as " Total Faith ".



Child Prahalad had such an admiring faith in Lord Narayana and Prahalad's faith is amazing when he, with the uttermost confidence, proclaimed to his father Hiranyakasipu " Sthambena Dhrusyathe "! (HE is seen in the Pillar ) where as Hiranyakasipu uttered to the child " Sthambe NA Dhrisyathe ". ( HE is not seen in the Pillar ) .

Child Prahalad's total faith is not only amazing but also stands as personification of what faith could be and could do in return !.


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