In Ksheer Sagara Lord Vishnu was reclining on his Shesha bed as usual. With a smile he looked at Laxmi and said, “Mahamaya! I can see lines of worry on your face. Why?”
“My lord, you know well what is causing the lines to appear on my face. So what is the use of my spelling it out?” Laxmi said seriously.
“You are correct, my dear,” Vishnu spoke with a smile and added, “I know the cause of your worries and the woes of all the worlds and the after worlds. I know.”
“So, do banish my worries.”
“Laxmi! The scene that your divine sight is witnessing is not hidden from me. I also see it. The end of the dreadful scene is about to come.”
“Yes, Lord. The demon lord, Hiranyakashipu had subjected your child devotee Prahlada to so many tortures and torments. That demon is merciless and terrible. Prahlada is yet a tender child. Hiranyakashipu is supposed to be the father of Prahlada but it is unimaginable a father being so cruel to his son like the demon lord is. Even the demons are now sympathetic to the boy.”
“You are true, my dear. The misdeeds and other signs of Hiranyakashipu are crossing the limits. You know well when such situation arises what happens as a consequence.”
“That means Lord is about to take a new form of incarnation to redeem the faith and punish the sinners. Am I right?”
Lord, Vishnu did not reply but just smiled very meaningfully. Laxmi stared at his face asking for a clear answer or explanation.
“Lord, you are protector of your faithful,” Laxmi reminded him, “Your ardent devotee Prahlada has been enduring demonic excesses for so long. The demon lord is finding pleasure in exercising the cruelties on that little boy. It is strange that the boy is not complaining?
“You see, my dear how our faithful is braving all the torments yet has not lost faith in us even for a moment. Very remarkable,” Vishnu admitted.
“Yes, I can see that. He is being sworded, speared, pushed off the mountains, thrown in water to drown him, trampled upon by elephants…put into flames and being poisoned. It is a terrible list of torments.”
“Laxmi, you know that the mundane woes and troubles test the tenacity of the devotion of our faithfuls. If the faithfuls don’t suffer woes and adversities their devotion does not get purified. The woes and the troubles don’t drag too long but they do educate the faithful not to lose trust in us.”
“My devotees are determined characters. They have examplery endurance power because of their faith. They don’t call for our help for small woes. In that act they try to reform the tormentors by using patience and hoping for the better sense to prevail. But when they see that the tormentor is beyond any scope of reform and the cruelties continue then they seek my help. Any pain to them beyond that limit wrenches my heart. We do everything to save the life and the honour of our devotees in whatever possible way.”
“What is possible and impossible for you?”
“We too are subject to rules, my dear. Various forces of the universe need to be balanced. Checks, balances, ironies, paroxysms etc. are used to strike the right equations otherwise the universe will collapse. We must honour certain rules and conditions to maintain the balances. That is where ‘possible’ and ‘impossible’ factors come in. Impossible acts for us are those which are likely to upset the fundamental laws of the universe and the time element. At right time impossible acts also become possible and acceptable to keep the faiths alive.”
“My Lord, accepting your creation and faith is as easy as difficult to understand them.”
“Look Laxmi, other divinities are also our own fragments. Any boon given by them to anyone and curses put by them also become binding on us too in varying degrees. We have to respect them. We may not give any consideration to any boon or curse if it does not seriously violate basic rules or become a tool for the destruction of the faith. Generally, we don’t want to act against any boon or curse given or put by any divinity. Our empowered devotees and divinities when give a boon to someone or put a curse on someone carry some obligations. If we grant results opposite to what the boon or curse stands for then it will be grave insult to them, their devotion and our own self. Hence, to uphold the dignity of our devotee we normally use only possible ways to maintain the balance between various forces, effects and the factors involved.”
“But Lord, you can grow seeds of possibilities from the mindset of impossibilities by using your maya.”
Lord spoke mysteriously, “That was what I was trying to impress upon you. The possible things we can do are infact impossible ones but made possible by the force of the devotion of our faithful. In that way our true devotee can make us do impossible acts.”
“How does it become possible my Lord?”
“Laxmi, here you are a bit confused. On the one hand you say that there is nothing possible or impossible for us but on the other hand you question the power of our faithful to make impossible things possible,” Lord remarked with a mild smile.
“We exist in the heart, mind, soul and voice of our faithful. Whatever we wish our devotees do and say. They reflect our own divine will. In other words you can say that we do whatever our devotees wish or pray for. It is the same things. Spiritually we and our devotees become one entity.”
Laxmi sat at the feet of Lord Vishnu and listened to the sublime mysticism being revealed by Lord Vishnu.
Lord was continuing his speech, “Laxmi, you can understand it in this way, suppose a devotee for certain purpose invokes me anytime, we shall have to go to enact a kind of divine miracle to gain the positive end of that purpose. One such act is about to happen now…this moment.”
“This moment?” Laxmi looked at the Lord.
“Today, the heart of devotee Prahlada and the end of Hiranyakashipu calling us, dear. “We shall have to go to make what looks impossible in mundane situation possible.”
“But Lord, Hiranyakashipu has got a boon from Brahma which makes his death impossible.”
“Because of that boon Hiranyakashipu has forgotten his reality and runs arrogant,” Lord grimly said and revealed, “He set out to conquer the world and we allowed him to. We put no hurdles in his way. He tormented the gods and the goddesses, again we did not say anything against him. But when he began to torment a little boy our meditative withdrawal was broken. No more could we keep silent….”
Laxmi looked at her lord puzzled at the sudden change in his mood. Several questions stormed through her mind.
“There is no puzzle, my dear Laxmi. When our faithful is being tormented and subjected to cruelties… how long could we tolerate? Our faithful have limit of endurance. When some sinner or a tyrant crosses that limit, the call for help from our faithful awakens us and we have to go to his help. It is our divine duty.”
“Is the creation giving to see some upheaval?”
“Yes certainly,” Lord Vishnu had risen up from his Seshabed and announced, “When the sinner will get eliminated from the creation there is bound to be a great upheaval.”
Laxmi stood before Lord Vishnu with folded hands and bowed her head in obeisance. In that posture she had frozen herself. She had invoked her divine vision and could see the scene at the demonic court of Hiranyakashipu. There some debate was taking place.
The demon lord was snarling, snorting, howling and roaring. Those sounds echoed in the air and the walls shook. But Prahlada stood calmly betraying no signs of fear or awe.
Maa Laxmi adored the sweet boy who spoke very polite words against the abusive words of his sire. The words spoken by Prahlada sounded as if he were echoing the sentiments of Lord Vishnu. It brought tears to her eyes. The boy looked so lovely and innocent. She smiled.
Meanwhile, Hiranyakashipu was haranguing with a mighty sword in his hands. He looked hell bent on cutting his son to pieces. Instead of a father he looked more like an executioner. Prahlada was not worrying at it. He had his eyes closed and his mind was beamed into his Divine Lord. And in Lord Vishnu he had full faith. That was the real state of Prahlada. He had surrendered his life, its fate and good or bad to Lord. From his own physical reality he had detached himself. Now it was the duty of the divine Lord to protect him or let killed by the tyrant father.
And that was the fact that the power of the true devotion of Prahlada had forced Vishnu to leave his Shesha bed and stand up.
If Vishnu was the true Lord he could not afford to fail the true devotee Prahlada. If the boy was let down the entire world would lose faith in God being protector of the faithful. Prahlada was a devotee and weak as well. Vishnu must answer the prayers of his faithful.
Meanwhile, Maa Laxmi could hear the words spoken by the lips of the boy silently and she was sure that Lord was hearing every word of the prayer and was readying to answer it.
Prahlada was saying, “My lord, manifest out of this red hot pillar and save the honour of your devotee.”
Hiranyakashipu was mocking at him, “Fool! Your Vishnu can never materialise before me. He is scared of me. You should better get the feel of my mighty sword on your neck. Your lips will never say ‘Vishnu’ once your throat is cut.”
Hiranyakashipu tried to bring down his sword on the neck of Prahlada but he could not.
Laxmi heard a great sound like a thunder clap and mountain high wave rose in Ksheer Sagara.
