Thought for Everyone

The Significance of Rama Nama

• Sage Vishwamitra took Sri Rama and Lakshmana to the forests for 'yagna samrakshana' (protecting their fire austerities from the demons). Out of the boundless love for Sri Rama, Viswamnitra wanted to gift Him something. A sage that he was, he had no worldly possessions, nevertheless, he had performed abundance of austerities. He had penanced for a very long time on the 33 crore 'Devatas' with mantras for each of them. He initiated Sri Rama with these Mantras.
• As soon as the Mantras were initiated to Sri Rama, the 'devatas' appeared before them! Viswamitra was jealous of the fact that those devatas who could be invoked by him only after severe penances, now appeared the instant Sri Rama chanted their Mantras!
• In our Shastras it is prescribed that when the devatas are invited, they can be installed in one of the three -- water (that is the reason we install 'kalas' - pots of water for japa, kumbabhishekam and the like), fire (that is the reason we perform homam) and the third being, installing them into one's own body (during Sandhyavandanam, Godess Gayathri is installed thus). Here, when the devatas were invoked, they refused to go back to their abodes. Hence Sri Rama invited one and all of them into his body. Thus, by merely chanting the Rama Nama, one gets the benefit of invoking all the 33 crores of devatas as well.
• Ramayana is filled with instances where merely the Name ‘Rama’ has solved so many miseries and disentangled so many situations.

Source : www.namadwaar.org