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Hanuman
a monkey. Once, Lord Rama asked Hanuman, “How do you contemplate on Me?” Hanuman replied, “At the physical level, You are my Master, and I am Your servant. At the mental level, I am a spark of thy divine Self. At the Atmic level, You and I are one.”
Pleased with Hanuman’s reply, Lord Rama asked His wife Sita to gi Hanuman with a pearl necklace that had been given to her by her father, King Janaka, at the time of their marriage. Hanuman held this very valuable necklace in his hand and began to remove all the pearls one by one from the necklace. He held each to his ear for a while, bit into it, and then threw each one away.
Sita was surprised to see Hanuman behaving as such. She thought that he had not given up his monkey traits. Rama knew the intention behind the act and in order to show Sita, He asked, “Hanuman, why are you biting and throwing away such precious pearls?”
Hanuman replied, “O Lord, I am examining whether I can hear Your name in the pearls. Since I cannot, I throw them away. The pearl is no beer than a stone if the name of Rama is not chanted by it. I want only You.”
A bewildered Sita asked, “You mean, Hanuman, that you expect inanimate objects to chant Rama’s name? Would you expect the hair on your body to be chanting Rama’s name?” Hanuman extended his arm, offering a hair to Sita. She plucked one and put it to her ear. To her surprise she heard the hair chanting, “Rama, Rama, Rama.” Hanuman’s love for Rama made him one with Rama. Even the cells of his body were chanting Rama’s name.
Professor Sampath then told me an unusual twist to the story. Aer hearing the story, some students appealed to him to ask Swami to materialize this very same Sita necklace.