Sri Nishtala Prahlada Shastri was born in Visakhapatnam on September 26th, 1934 to Sri Narasimha Rao, and Srimathi Lakshminarasamma. His sister SuryaLakshmi, who was hardly 4 years old then, went to her dad and said, “Dad! Prahlada is born! Please go and see him.” Father felt that possibly listening to Bhagavatam stories since childhood, she had inculcated that culture; he decided to name his son Prahladhudu. So, his sister was the one who had named Guruji. It was not a coincidence that he was a very special child from a young age.
As a child, Guruji would sit all alone looking into horizons, the landscape, lost in thoughts and hardly played with kids of his age. He always had lots of questions in his mind that he’d ask his elders.
Guruji: “How did the world come into existence?”
Elder’s response: “God create the world, my child.”
Guruji: “Why did God create this world?”
Elder’s response: “God created the world just for fun.”
Guruji: “Did God create this huge world just for fun?”
Elder’s response: “Dear child, please go and play for a while.”
Guruji: “I will go and play. Please answer my question. How did
God get the desire to create this world? Why did he? For what reason did
he create the world? What does God derive from this? If the wide world
was created for fun, is he amongst us to enjoy the fun?”
Elder’s response: “Man can talk. Animal cannot. If animal can talk and man cannot, how will it be? Will heavens fall? The answer is NO! If that is unimportant, so is this! Why does it bother you how things are?”
Guruji had many unanswered questions as no one was able to answer them in a true sense. Even if one question was answered it always led Guruji to have his next question ready. Even if anyone dared to answer him, being impressed with Guruji’s curiosity and innocence, they would realize that it was an uphill task and so no one dared to venture making an attempt.
Disappointed that no one responded to his queries, Guruji as a 5-year-old boy when sitting alone and thinking, would hear strange sounds. Sometimes it sounded like a veena, sometimes like a flute, sometimes like ghungroo, and sometimes like temple bells. At such a young age it was hard for Guruji to understand why and how he was able to hear such rhythmic melodies. But it was always made him happy! Though Guruji was unaware where these sounds were coming from, he always enjoyed paying utmost attention to this divinity. This in turn enhanced strong focus and concentration in Guruji.
From a very young age, Guruji had a very strong photographic memory. So, he had the ability to visualize every aspect that he had read in books. Because of this he always scored top marks during his education.
Once Guruji read questions on his question paper, he was clearly able to visualize the correct answer from the books he had read for exams. Guruji had a great analyzing power. He would analyze every important issue, and safely store it in his memory.
Between the ages of 5 years and 8 years, when many such astonishing wonders were happening, he on the other hand had also completed studying religious epics such as Bhagavatam. In addition, he had also completed reading Ashta Dasa Puranas.
Reading these epics gave Guruji immense happiness. Guruji was able to visualize and spend time with heavenly deities he was reading about. Whether Guruji was hearing or reading the holy epics, there were multiple situations that would appear in his vision as a reality.
Unable to bear the excitement, Guruji at that young age would tell other young kids, “See Krishna there! He is sitting on the tree and playing the flute.” Other kids, unable to visualize any of that would stare blankly. To top that, as Guruji would sit all alone looking into horizons, the landscape, lost in thoughts and hardly spoke otherwise, kids of his age considered him a weirdo.
FIRST EXPERIENCE
Guruji was around 11 years old. He would rarely play with kids of his age. He was once watching the kids playing, yelling, jumping and running all around. All of a sudden all the kids playing around, crowd nearby, passing vehicles, all the landscape was whirling around him in circles. This continued at such great speed, as if the entire world around Guruji was getting sucked into a huge whirlpool. At that stage, Guruji just fainted.
Nearby playing children shouted, “Shastri fell down! Shastri fell down!” and surrounded him. Hearing the children shouting, Guruji’s mom Smt. Lakshminarasamma came running out of the house. “What happened? What happened? Why did he fall down? Does he have any fever?” Everyone surrounding Guruji was anxious. News reached Guruji’s father. He came running to find his unconscious son lying in front of him. He carried his son into the house, and rushed immediately to get hold of a doctor.
Doctor diagnosed young Guruji, and told his dad not to worry, gave Guruji some medicine, and said, “I will come back and check him tomorrow to see if he has Malaria.” Next day Guruji had high fever. Doctor came and checked young Guruji, confirmed he had Malaria, and gave young Guruji a dose of Quinine and left for the day. How in the world would the Doctor know that it was not Malaria, and could not be controlled by Quinine? This dose of medicine had in fact diminished Guruji’s photographic memory.
A couple of days later after Guruji’s fever subsided, his elder sister SuryaLakshmi with all love and affection sat next to her brother and asked him, “What happened to you the other day? How come you fell unconscious?”
Young Guruji innocently replied, “I really don’t know! My head was not spinning! I was just standing and watching kids playing in the street. All of a sudden, everything around me started spinning. I just kept watching what was happening. All of a sudden, I fell unconscious without my knowledge.”
Guruji’s sister: “So, when you fell unconscious, did you see anything or hear anything?”
Guruji: “I did not hear anything. But, I saw different worlds. I was unaware where I was going! I
wandered in the skies. I had been to different worlds. Everything looked great!”
Guruji’s sister: “You didn’t get any malarial fever. After having seen all those wonderful sights, being a young kid, you were unable to take it. That’s how you got this fever.”
Guruji: “I don’t know sister! Sometimes I keep getting these doubts, and no one has given me a right response until now!”
Guruji’s sister: “What doubts?”
Guruji: “How did this world come into existence?”
Guruji’s sister: “God created this world.”
Guruji: “Why did God create this world?”
Guruji’s sister: “God likes you, me and all of us. That’s the reason why he created this world for all of us.”
Guruji: “How did we become his favorites? Does he know us?”
Guruji’s sister: “Yes.”
Guruji: “How does he know us? Where does he live?” Having reached this far, patiently responding to all her younger brother’s questions,
Guruji’s sister, with a blank face, said, “Only elders would know all that. We can’t understand all that.”
Guruji: “Then, how come, even elders are not answering my questions?”
Guruji’s sister: “They should know the answers to your questions. Only then, can they answer.”
Guruji: “It was just now, you said elders would know answers!”
Guruji’s sister: “I said so, but…”
Guruji: “I always have these questions! Where does God live? What does he do? Why does he have to hide? How do you know that God created this world? Sister! Please let me know!”
Guruji’s sister: “Don’t irritate others by asking such questions. Everyone will not understand such topics.”
Guruji: “I don’t know why! But such questions bother me always!”
Guruji’s sister: “Don’t worry about all this now! Focus your efforts in your studies and do well. What do you gain by bothering others with such questions?”
Whoever expected that this was Guruji’s first experience of true consciousness!
FAMILY FOUNDATION
Under the guidance of such a noble being, his kids also grew leading a simple life devoid of movies, picnics, and other such extracurricular activities. Once Guruji had asked his dad four annas to see a movie.
His dad responded, “With four annas would you like to give your family the opportunity to buy some lentils or would you like to go ahead and watch a movie for your own enjoyment? What would you like to do?”
Guruji was a very young kid at that stage. Taken aback by his dad’s response, not knowing what to do, Guruji decided not to pursue his plans to see a movie. Guruji was aware of the simple and frugal life style that his family was leading. Though Guruji was feeling sad inside, he did not reveal his feelings to his dad or anyone.
Because of the economic conditions of his family, even when Guruji was attending college, he could only afford to wear khadi garments instead of regular pants. No one in Guruji’s family wore clothes made in mills. Guruji’s dad was bed-ridden and became paralytic.
Guruji was about 15 years when he lost his dad who was 55 years then. The entire responsibility of the family fell on Guruji’s shoulders. Guruji had to take care of the family and his brother’s education while having to stay focused on his studies at the same time.
Though Guruji scored very good marks and got admission into Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, not only was he able to afford the fees to go to college, Guruji could not even afford to buy a train ticket to attend the college interview though the train fare was only 10 rupees in those days.
So Guruji’s only alternative was to continue with his college education locally in Visakhapatnam. Guruji continued with his higher education, and earned a Master’s degree in Nuclear Physics.
Though Guruji’s desire to become an engineer remained unfulfilled, he made sure that his younger brother did not get into a similar situation. He sold off one house, and took a loan on another to ensure his younger brother became an engineer.
No comments:
Post a Comment