Krishna, Balarama and the Monster of Fear
One night, under the light of the full moon…
Krishna and his elder brother Balarama were walking through a forest. The moonlight shone gently through the trees. The world was calm, but the forest was known to be dangerous.
As it was getting late, Krishna said,
“Baladeva, you stay awake and watch until midnight while I rest. After that, I’ll take the next watch until morning.”
Balarama agreed, and Krishna lay down under a tree and went to sleep.
A sound in the dark…
A few hours passed.
Suddenly, Balarama heard a low, deep growl.
It echoed through the trees and sent a chill down his spine. Curious but cautious, Balarama walked toward the sound.
And then—he saw it.
A giant monster stepped out from the shadows of the forest. Its eyes were glowing red. Its body was enormous and terrifying.
Balarama was scared.
He trembled.
And each time he trembled… the monster grew bigger.
The more fear he felt, the larger the creature became.
It roared again. The sound was deafening. The smell was awful.
Balarama couldn’t take it anymore. He screamed,
“Krishna! Krishna!!”
And fainted.
Krishna wakes up…
Krishna opened his eyes, having heard his brother call.
He saw Balarama unconscious, and without panic, thought,
“It must be my turn to keep watch now.”
So Krishna got up and started walking calmly through the forest.
After a while, the same monster appeared.
It growled fiercely.
But Krishna… wasn’t afraid.
He simply looked at it and asked,
“Who are you?”
And to the monster’s surprise—it shrank.
Krishna asked again,
“What are you doing here?”
It shrunk even more.
The more questions Krishna asked, the smaller the monster became.
No fighting. No running. Just questions—calm and fearless.
Eventually, the monster was only two inches tall.
It looked harmless now—almost cute.
Krishna gently picked it up and placed it in the fold of his cloth.
Morning came…
As the first light of the sun entered the forest, Balarama woke up.
He looked around in confusion.
“Krishna! You won’t believe it! There was a huge monster last night! It was so scary, I thought we were going to die! And then… I fainted.”
Krishna smiled.
He took the little creature out of his waistband and held it up.
“Was this the monster you saw?” he asked.
Balarama’s eyes widened.
“Yes! That’s the one! But it was so big! What happened to it?”
Krishna replied,
“Every time I asked it a question, it got smaller.
But when you were afraid, it grew larger.”
Balarama slowly remembered,
“That’s true… it got bigger every time I was scared.”
Then Krishna softly said,
“That’s how fear works.
The more you run from it, the bigger it gets.
But when you face it—with courage and clarity—it becomes small…
Sometimes, even harmless.”
Moral of the Story
Fear is like a shadow—it grows larger when we turn away.
But when we turn toward it and question it, it loses its power.
Face your fears. You may find they’re not as big as they seemed.
Source
- Oral Folk lore