They tried everything to make the boy stop loving God.

Prahlada was the son of a mighty demon-king named Hiranyakashipu, who believed he himself was the greatest being in all the worlds. He wanted his son to bow to no one but him. But little Prahlada, from the time he could speak, loved only the Lord — singing his name, seeing him in the trees, the river, the sky, in every face he met.

His father was furious. "Stop this nonsense," he roared.

Prahlada smiled and kept singing.

So the king grew cruel. He sent soldiers with swords — and Prahlada, gazing inward at the one he loved, was not harmed. He had the boy thrown off a high cliff — and Prahlada fell gently, as though carried. He was trampled by elephants, dropped into pits of snakes, given cups of poison. Each time, the boy came through untouched, his heart still turned, like a flower to the sun, toward the God he adored.

But here is the part most people miss.

Through all of it, Prahlada never once cried out, "Save me!" He never asked for rescue. He never asked for anything at all. He was not loving God to get protected, or rewarded, or made safe. He simply loved — the way you love something just because it is beautiful, with no list of wishes attached.

"Why do you keep loving him," his father demanded one day, "when it brings you nothing but trouble?"

Prahlada thought about it. "I don't love him for what he gives me," the boy said. "I love him because he is. That is the whole of it."

And that, Krishna says, is the rarest love of all — the love that wants nothing back. The wise one does not come with an open hand asking. He comes with a full heart, giving. Such a soul is dearer to God than he can ever know. For while Prahlada loved without asking, God loved him right back, every moment, more than the boy could measure.