Grandeur of God’s Name

Swami Vivekanand’s Guru, Ramkrushna Paramhans used to talk regularly with his disciples. He often used to narrate to his disciples stories about some devotees who appeared simple like any other devotee, but were different from others, in the sense that they used to perform spiritual practice even while living a worldly life. He also used to tell incidences that occurred in the life of great Sages that he had seen. He used to narrate stories of various Spiritually-evolved personalities and Sages.

One day, while narrating these stories to his disciples, Ramkrushna Paramhans narrated an interesting incident which he witnessed. ‘Once, an ascetic came to a village. He had no belongings with him, except a small pot and a holy manuscript. He had immense devotion towards this holy manuscript. He used to perform ritualistic worship of the holy manuscript everyday, by offering flowers and applying sandalwood paste to it.

He also had immense faith in God’s Name. He used to devote most of his time in chanting God’s Name. In between, he used to open his holy manuscript and read a few verses from it. Gradually, as I became familiar with the ascetic, I (Ramkrushna Paramhans) once asked him to show me his manuscript. After hesitating initially, he finally allowed me to see the manuscript. Very eagerly, I opened that book. To my surprise, only one line, that is, ‘Om Ram’ was written from the first to the last page. When I asked him the meaning of this, he replied, “What shall I do by reading other holy books? The Vedas, Purans, etc. have been created from God Himself; and that God and His Name is one. Hence, the 4 Vedas, 6 Scriptures, 18 Purans all these exist is His Name. So, I have only written His Name from first to last.” At that time I realised how tremendous was his faith in God’s Name.’

In this way, Ramkrushna Paramhans explained to his disciples the grandeur of God’s Name.

Children, by reading the story you must have realised the greatness of God’s Name. Hence, in order to be constantly in close connection with God, we should continuously chant the Name of God in our mind while doing any work or activity.