International Childhood Cancer Day
Yesterday was Valentine´s Day, for those who care about corporately inflicted happiness initiatives, today is International Childhood Cancer Day.
Few things in life make me more sad than the fact that even children can get cancer and die of it.
In my home town there is Bärenherz (Bear Heart), a hospice for dying children and their parents can also stay there with them.
I remember how heartbroken my grandmother was, when my mother died of a stroke aged 46, she kept saying
“This is not right, children are not supposed to go before their parents!“
But at least her only daughter got 46 and also gave her her only grandchild, imagine the parents´ pain if a small child dies of cancer.
I know one German couple whose child slipped in the bathtub, hit her head, was not diagnosed properly and died later on because of internal injuries to the brain, so a tragic accident with some probable failure by some doctors.
But at least in that case the child did not suffer long.
I have no medical background whatsoever, but I know that cancer is big business.
And I learned that we always have some cancer activity going on in our bodies, it is quite natural, it only becomes a problem if the body can´t handle them cancer cells on its own any longer, for whatever reasons.
Then all those therapies set in and, according to the laws of the country you´re in, you might be allowed to be bombarded with lots of dangerous stuff, while some plants which could make a difference, probably even mean cure, are deemed illegal.
Just thinking about all this madness and hypocrisy fuelled by lobbyism and law-and-order politicians makes me even more sad, but my sadness won´t change anything anyway, so I better rejoice at the fact that soon Inshallah I will be 54, eight years older than my mother ever got.
I don´t know what words of consolation to say to parents whose child died of cancer or other causes, since I think that nothing really can be said and done about this, only time and human resilience will help.
But when I heard of my father´s death in 2007, he had died far away in the Phlippines, I went to the Krishna room of the ashram I was on staff at that time in Germany and repeated the Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra 108 times for him.
That was very helpful, soothing, calming and cleansing for me, and a kind of last communion over a distance of thousands of kilometers, so to try and do something similar to what gave me this experience is all I can say to anyone suffering the death of a loved one.
I believe it would also be beneficial if institutions like hospices, hospitals etc. would include mantra chanting in general and the chanting of Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra in particular in their daily routine with patients and their relatives.
Any kind of singing of songs with a positive mesage of love, salvation etc, in any language would be helpful, but I believe that Sanskrit is a very special language when it comes to the vibrational level or energetic level of languages and therefore has many benefits on those levels.
Some more background information about the mantra, meaning etc. can be found here.
There are many videos with the Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra on youtube, many of them of the kind which I call Bollywood mantras, with lots of instrumental musical company and high pitched singing by Hindi speakers.
So that´s the kind I don´t like at all.
It is generally accepted among purists that some of the best spoken Sanskrit in India nowadays can be be found with South Indian brahmins, still classically trained, since the Sanskrit of the North Indians tends to get corrupted by their native Hindi tongue, so I am happy to have found this video on youtube.
Just get an add blocker to keep Churchill out of it.
Churchill of all people! Blasphemy! 😎
In general, if children are at risk or in danger, then their parents carry about them and will provide help, because children are most expensive their parents. Children are parental blessing.
Thank you @likedeeler for sharing this mantra with us x
Sadgurunath Maharaj Ki Jay
Japa and chanting play a huge part in my life.
The English language is a very mechanical language. Great for operating machinery and understanding basic instructions.
I feel that Sanskrit was written for the benefit of all, constructed with a full gnosis of sound, and how to imbue it into the speaker, accurately.
How much more thought would you put into what you're about to say, if you knew the sounds you were about to make were imprinting on your person?
Much like our posts becomes a part of the blockchain :P
A good 2 hour chant in Sanskrit, always reaffirms for me that this language was sung, not spoken.
Will it bring a dead child back to life?
I don't know. Do you?
What it will do though, is reconnect you to a bigger picture, a much better place to process grief and confusion :)
Peace.
Well, as a non-native speaker of English I don´t feel it to be very mechanical but rather intuitive and associative, at least compared to German, my mother tongue, which is great for creating exact definitions of the most complicated stuff, but not the best language for singing for example, with its staccato intonation.
Somewhere I read though, that Sanskrit would be the most logical language in the world, most perfect for computer programming. Who knows?
I think the Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra is more for the wellbeing of the bereaved than the deceased, offering solace and consolation, easing the pain of loss, calming the mind.
Yes, I believe all bereavement is about the loss to the self, not the deceased. We can only try to understand their state, if only we weren't so transfixed on the loss.
Peace.