Long ago there lived a boy-prince named Prahlada, the son of a fierce king who hated God. The king, Hiranyakashipu, had grown so proud and so powerful that he wanted everyone in the world to worship *him* and no one else.

But little Prahlada loved God. Wherever he was — in the palace, in the garden, in the schoolroom — his heart kept turning to the Lord, the way a flower keeps turning to the sun. He could not stop. He did not want to stop.

This made his father furious. "Stop saying that name!" the king roared. But Prahlada only smiled and said, "He is everywhere, Father. How can I stop?"

So the king tried to frighten the love out of his son. He had Prahlada thrown among hissing snakes — but the boy sat calm, his heart full of God, and the snakes did not bite. He had him pushed off a high cliff — but the boy fell softly, his heart full of God, and was not hurt. He had him placed in roaring fire — but the flames curled away, and the boy stepped out unharmed, still quietly singing.

Through pain and fear, through threats and cruelty, one thing in Prahlada never moved: his love. It did not stray for a single breath. It did not grow smaller in danger or larger in safety. It simply burned on, steady and true, like a lamp in a windless room.

And here was the wonder: because his love never wavered, none of the world's storms could really touch him. Snakes, cliffs, fire — these were the world's three weathers, its ups and downs, its pleasures and pains. But Prahlada had, without even trying, floated right across all of them on the small steady raft of his devotion. While his angry father was tossed about by greed and rage and fear, the boy rested in a happiness no one could take away.

Krishna points to such a heart and says: this is how you cross. Not by being strong enough to fight the three qualities, but by loving so steadily that you drift clear above them, and so become ready to melt into the vast, bright truth that holds the whole world.