Take a leap of faith in total surrender

“Pleaserecite Gajendra Moksham for me" We get occasional SOS calls from our daughtersoftware professional in the US whenever she is faced with a persistent illnessor an intractable situation at theworkplace My wife and I sit down inprayer and recite the celebrated Bhagavatam story of the Elephant King Webelieve in the efficacy of this prayer, for it has seen us through many a crisisin our nearly four decades of family lifeThe story is well known: KingIndradhyumna is a devout Vishnu.Bhakta. Vanity over his devotion to God bringsupon him Saint Agastya's curse and he is born as Gajendra, the proud elephantking In order to redeem His devotee entangled in mundane pleasures, divine playis enacted by way of Gajendra getting caught by a crocodile while playing withmembers of his royal household in a forest lake He fights the crocodile withall his might but in vain Weary, anguished and helpless after struggling tofree himself for long, the elephant laments why no one has come.forward to savehim. He prays to God, in the context of his pastsanskaras:"God is the Universal Selfwhich is eternal and has no beginning or end He is the cause as well as theeffect for the universe that is but His illusory play with Himself playing allthe roles like actors on a stage He is omnipresent, omniscient and Almighty Heis beyond speech and thought and can be realised only by the yogis who haveexhausted allvasanasand steadfastly see Him in their mind's eye" But there is no Divine responseGajendra.is distressed why theomnipresent and Almighty God who is said to come to the rescue of the destituteis not answering his prayers and has not granteddarshanor given him relief. He now begins to doubt His existence As he deeplycontemplates over this, realisation occurs within him that God alone is theprotector for the universe; all his doubts vanish like mist before the Sun andhe entreats Him for ending his agony in a spirit of total surrender The SupremeLord soon appears, kills the crocodile with His Sudarshana Chakra and releasesGajendra Similarly, man,egoistic and proud of his power and pelf, struts about the world unmindful ofGod until defeat and dejection.make him realise his limitations. He turns to Godfor instant solution to his problems and when it does not happen, he loses faithin Him Instead of surrendering to His will and praying for relief, he specifiessolutions and action plans without realising that God being Almighty andOmniscient will give relief in His chosen wayLike the Ramayana'sSundarakandaand the HanumanChalisa, recitation ofGajendraMoksham is a common ritual among Hindus asit offers solace for the distressed It is particularly dear to people in.AndhraPradesh because ofBammeraPothana's soulful rendering in Telugu ofVedavyasa's BhagavataPurana.