In plain words
The greatness of the name of Rāma
When I went to Madras the other day, I told this there. Once upon a time, it seems, three mothers came together. One was Rāma's mother. One was Hanumān's mother. One was Agastya's mother. “Where three women meet, O treasure of virtues, stars fall in broad daylight,” so it has been said. Could these who had come together not simply keep quiet? Whom did Kausalyā question, it seems? Hanumān's mother. “Mother! Do you not know? Hanumān is a son known to the whole world itself. Where one chants Hanumān's name, Rāma will be there. Where one speaks the name of Rāma, Hanumān will be there. Rāma and Hanumān: love for each other, a bond that cannot be broken. The principle of one Self. I am the mother of that Hanumān,” she said. “Oho! So he is the one who crossed the whole great ocean to reach all of this Laṅkā!” she said. Hearing these words, Agastya's mother: “Oho! What your son did is nothing great. Your son is one who crossed the ocean. My son swallowed the ocean itself!” “I am the mother of that Agastya,” she said. The two together questioned Kausalyā, it seems: ‘Who are you, mother?’ ‘Mother! That Hanumān who crossed to Laṅkā, that Agastya who swallowed all this water: their power is Rāma. I am the mother of that son,’ she said, it seems. When this exchange of questions was over, Rāma came in, it seems. “What is this, mother! You are speaking of me in such grand terms,” he said. He questioned them like an innocent. Though he was the very form of God, though he was Nārāyaṇa himself, he went on behaving like an innocent. ‘Mother! Hanumān crossed to Laṅkā by his own devotion and surrender alone. Agastya swallowed all that water by his own devotion and faith alone. It was not I. I am not a great man. I am a common man; the very name this body of mine was given is the embodiment of all power,’ he said. “I am merely an instrument. That name must keep drawing everything in.