STORY OF THE WEEK - NO. 878
Tirumalesh Kumar
SATYAWADI RAJA HARISCHANDRA
"The vow of truth should never be broken."
Emperor Harish Chandra stuck to Truth in spite of travail and temptation. He refused to deny the word he had spoken.
A saint asked from him vast treasure and he promised to give them to him, whenever he needed it; the saint brought down vast ruin on his empire, drought, famine, floods, fire, quakes, and foreign hordes. And, when his treasury was empty, he demanded the promised treasure.
Harish Chandra sold his belongings, sold his wife and son into slavery, and himself served as a watchman in order to scrape together the amount for the saint.
He did not worry about the sacrifices he had to make for the sake of truth. He had to refuse the right of being burnt, to his own dead son and insist on the fees being paid by his own helpless Queen! He flatly refused to deviate from satya even if it cost his life.
That is why Lord Siva appeared before him and blessed him, giving him back his throne, reviving his dead son back to life, and restoring his wife, and making him rule the kingdom with renewed fame. Because of his extraordinary adherence to Truth, he is even now remembered as "Satyawadi Harischandra". Truth will win, whatever the obstacle; otherwise, the Vedas would not have commanded man to stick to it.
Your promises are sacred bonds. The Vow of Truth should never be broken. Once you have given a promise, you should not go back on it in any circumstance.
When you take a pledge or give a promise, you uphold it even at the cost of your life. Once you give your word, you must make every effort to fulfill it.
Nowadays there is little respect for the promised word. Promises are made freely and broken freely. Pledges are made and buried from moment to moment. Such persons are no better than living corpses.
You must remember that once you begin to treat your promises lightly, it will become a life-long.
JAI SAI RAM
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