nachiketa(continued)

Nachiketa (continued)...
now,..what made nachiketa ask his father that kind of a question??
the upanishad says.."dakshinasu neeyamaanasu SHRADDHA aavivesha"..seeing his father giving away those cows, there was a sudden surge of SHRADDHA in him..so what is shraddha??
this word is derived from SHRAT dhatu which means truth..SHRAT ASYAAM DHEEYATA ITI SHRADDHA..ie a firm belief that this is true or we can say CONVICTION..so this is what makes us achieve something in life..coz unless we have a firm belief that something is true and good to us we cannot put in efforts to own it..thats why krishna says, SHRADDHAAVAN LABHATE JYNANAM , TATPARAHA SAMYATENDRIYAHA..ie this shraddha results in a person gaining knowledge..and we can see this in nachiketa's story..interesting the SHRADDHA that ought to be in his father, had cropped up in him..from this we need to learn that although we may not be having lots of devotion in doing good deeds, but still we have to do those, coz there may be a NACHIKETA in the people observing us, who will learn from our deeds and grow up to become a role-model for others..