In plain words
Embodiments of Prema! Many women have come hoping to hear Swami's Telugu words. “The students learn so many subjects and speak about all such matters, technical, engineering. Swami too encourages them. But all such things make no sense to us at all. If Swami speaks in Telugu, we want to listen,” they are asking.
Sweeter than sugar, more savoury than the essence of curds, more savoury than thick honey, as the mouth speaks it over and over again, it seems the very nectar, most delightful; so, all of you, remember this lovely thing with your mind, the name of Rāma!
Embodiments of Prema!
Bhārata is a land with an ancient and renowned history. In Bhārata there is no village without a temple of Rāma. In whatever village you look, there will surely be people who bear the name ‘Rāma’. From ancient times the name of Rāma has kept shining radiantly, unchanged in any way. The atheist, the believer, and even those who are both believer and atheist keep uttering the name ‘Rāma’. A person who has been sitting says ‘Rāma’ at the moment he gets up. In Bhārata the name of Rāma has won renown. Not only here: in the land of China too the name of Rāma is very renowned. The whole world is filled with Rāma!
For a long time no son was born to Daśaratha. He had three wives. He kept hoping intensely that through one or other of them a son would be born to carry the line forward. But nothing but disappointment was left to him. To gain a son he kept doing tapas without ceasing. Whether in that age or in this, tapas is bound to bear fruit sooner or later. Not only that. Together with his three wives he performed the Putrakāmeṣṭi rite. On that occasion the Yajñapuruṣa appeared, handed Daśaratha a vessel and said, “My dear Daśaratha! Share the pāyasam in this vessel equally among your three wives.” Daśaratha shared the pāyasam the Yajñapuruṣa had bestowed among the three, equally, in three bowls. But in some books it is written another way. They say that Daśaratha did not share the pāyasam equally among the three, that he gave more to one and less to another. This is a great mistake. In Vasiṣṭha's presence he poured the pāyasam equally into three bowls and handed them to his wives. ‘May your desire be fulfilled!’ Vasiṣṭha blessed them. With great joy the queens took their bowls of pāyasam, each her own, to their shrine rooms. But Sumitrā's mind was turning this way and that. There was a reason for this. When the king of Kekaya gave his daughter Kaikeyī to Mahārāja Daśaratha in marriage, he set this condition: ‘You must crown none but the son born to my daughter.’ Daśaratha promised that he would surely do just that. Daśaratha could not go back on the word he had given Kaikā. So Kaikā was very happy, sure that the son about to be born to her would himself become king. Kausalyā, for her part, being the chief queen, was most content in the hope that Daśaratha would crown the son born to her. So Kausalyā and Kaikā were both happy. But Sumitrā had no such hope at all. She washed her hair and went up to the terrace to dry it. In those days there were no fans or hair dryers, were there! She set her bowl of pāyasam down on the terrace and was drying her hair.