sri ram jaya ram jaya jaya ram meaning

Story of transformation from life to life Once Rishi Narada asked Lord Shiva, “Oh Lord, everyone knows that you are always chanting the name of Rama in your mind. What is so great about the Rama mantra? Can you please enlighten me?” Shiva showed Narada a worm living in a lump of cow dung and said, “Narada please go to the worm and chant the mantra ‘Om Shri Ram Jaya Ram Jaya Jaya Ram’ to it and tell me what happened.” Narada went to the worm and did so. Immediately the worm died. Narada became sad. He came back to Shiva and told, “Oh Lord, I must have chanted wrongly. The worm died immediately on hearing the chanting.” Shiva replied, “Narada, nothing was wrong in your chanting.” Shiva showed Narada a newly born puppy and said, “Narada, can you see that lovely puppy that was born just a few moments ago? Go and chant the mantra ‘Om Shri Ram Jaya Ram Jaya Jaya Ram’ into the ears of the puppy.” Narada went to the puppy and chanted. Immediately the puppy also died. Narada came back to Shiva with a lot of sorrow. Narada told Shiva, “Oh Lord, I do not understand. The puppy also died. What should I do?” Shiva showed Narada a newly born calf of a cow and said, “Narada, go and chant into the ears of the calf.” Narada went hesitatingly to the calf and chanted ‘Om Shri Ram Jaya Ram Jaya Jaya Ram’ into the ears of the calf that was born just a few moments back. As expected by Narada, the calf also died. Narada came back to Shiva and complained, “Oh Lord, you have made me the messenger of death. Why are you asking me to do this? Why is the mantra, which is supposed to be a saving mantra, killing every jiva that hears it? I am confused. Please tell me.” Shiva replied, “Narada, do it just one more time. There is a noble king to whom a son is born a few moments ago. Go and chant the mantra into the ears of the little prince.” Narada was shocked. He replied, “Oh Lord. No, please do not make me the messenger of death again. My heart is already tormented by being the cause of death of three lives.” Shiva smiled and said, “Narada, do not worry. It will not happen this time. The baby will tell you the greatness of the mantra.” With great hesitation, Narada went to the palace. The palace was fully decorated with flowers and arches. There were lamps lit all over the palace. The king was extremely happy to have the great Rishi Narada visit the palace on the occasion of the birth of his son. With great respect, the king took the sage to the cradle of the new born prince and asked the sage to bless the baby. Narada shivered with fear. He had no choice but to follow the instructions of Lord Shiva. With great reluctance, Narada chanted ‘Om Shri Ram Jaya Ram Jaya Jaya Ram’ into the ears of the baby. Narada closed his eyes tightly not wanting to see the tragedy that had happened on three previous occasions. Narada felt the soft hands of the baby touch his cheeks and the baby told in a sweet voice, “Thank you, Oh great rishi, for taking me through three lowly births within a short time into this noble human birth. I was the one who was the worm in the cow dung. By the power of the mantra, I was immediately freed from that wretched body and was born as a puppy. You came and blessed me again with the mantra. By the power of the mantra, I was freed from all the suffering of that birth. I was born as a calf. You came and blessed me once again with the mantra. I got freed from that body and took birth as a prince in this noble and devoted family. How can I thank you enough for the great blessing that you have been giving birth after birth? Glory to you. Glory to the great Rama mantra. Glory to Lord Shiva, who always chants the Rama mantra in his mind.” Narada was full of joy. He went back to Shiva and said, “Oh Lord, please forgive me for doubting the greatness of the mantra and doubting your words. Now I understand the glory of the mantra.” source: http://practicalphilosophy.in/writings/death-what-to-do-about-it/

damo mitchell (nei gung / gi gung teacher) - the qi gong body videos

from: http://www.scholarsage.com/the-qi-gong-body-part-1/

the cause of depression is happiness

Everyone is looking for happiness. All over facebook people are playing the game of "look at this - I'm happy", and this is somehow good... presumably better than sad. We take this completely for granted, like wi-fi, but actually it's a very strange thing which is totally unique to the tiny slice of time we inhabit.

Let me be more clear. The idea that being happy is good, to be pursued, and being sad is bad, is not a universal human thing - at all. It is probably as recent as 9-5 jobs, or at least big agriculture.

If you look at older times in history, or indigenous cultures, you don't find such emphasis on people questing for happiness, or trying to repair sadness. If you look at their myths and cultural stories - no-one is pursuing happiness. They pursue physical safety, power, honour, restoring balance to natural forces, people to breed with. Happiness is just a boring side-effect of your world being roughly in natural order. 

The quest for happiness is really is a uniquely modern thing. It got caused as we started to get lifestyle choices. Pre-industrial people didn't really have lifestyle choices. But now, people could offer us choices. (Incidentally for those interested in anthropology, the Buddha was born right at the time where a middle-class of free merchants started to exist).

When you try to convince someone to want something, you need to tell them that their state of being will be improved by it. So there you go, the appropriation of temporary happiness as some kind murky indicator that your life is better.

And I'm not talking just about consumerism here, it's more the birth of the idea that we have any right to be happy, or any choice to be happy.

Now, as soon as you do this - as soon as you start to have some belief systems which tell you that happy is better than sad - then you have given birth to depression. Depression is the unwillingness to be sad, which can take various twisted and cyclic forms, depending how bad it is.

From as soon as our kids exist, we feed them images and stories which portray loss and sadness as a bad thing (e.g. Disney). Same with mainstream entertainment, adults consume a diet of emotional-junk food with happy endings. Then we wonder why so many people are depressed. That's the thing with cultures, it's hard for us to see the hidden assumptions we are making which are actually causing our problems.

And therefore even our spirituality is utterly infected with this idea that it is meant to improve your emotional life in any way. When you look at old spiritual teachings, there is simply no emphasis on improving one's emotional well-being life. People in the old days had all the same "psychological" problems - guilt, low-self-worth, jealousy, chips-on-shoulders... and no-one tried to make them feel any better. This is why it worked...!

Hippies, yogis, singing in circles or spiritual songs to feel good - this is not practice! The purpose of devotional practice is to break the heart, to learn to love in a way which is painful, futile, insane - and free.

I wish I had something useful to say, but I don't. I don't even have a practice for you. All I can say is everytime you notice yourself wanting to feel better, stop, and watch some David Attenborough, the hard shit, where some baby animals die in a very beautiful yet sad struggle for existence (in HD). And know that this is the Perfection of Life.