Loving Ganesha: Chapter 1 (Section 1) The Nature of Lord Ganesha--Shri Ganeshasya Svabhavah

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Namaste all,

 

Chapter one of Loving Ganesha is quite large, so I thought it would perhaps be

best to post it (and also any other large chapters to come) in smaller, more

digestible, sections.

 

This page can be found at http://www.himalayanacademy.com/books/lg/lg_ch-01.html

 

Om Shanti,

 

Neil

 

 

Shri GaneshasyaSvabhavah

The Natureof Lord Ganesha

TRIAD OF THREE GREAT PILLARS HAVE HELD Hinduism high, century after century: the

satgurus, the temples and the scriptures. Together they echo the greatness of

the loving God Ganesha, the Lord of Dharma, son of Siva. For untold millennia

our rishis and sages have proclaimed the profound depths of the mind, assuring

us that we, too, can and must come to know God and the Gods. It is the living

presence of these satgurus and their spoken teachings which has brought to life

the traditional practices and philosophy of the Sanatana Dharma. Now we shall

delve into the nature of Lord Ganesha, what He is like, what functions this

great God performs and find out how each seeker can make Him a vital part of

daily life's path of experience.

Once a psychic connection is made with Lord Ganesha -- the Deity who manifests

in several forms, including the elephant-headed Lord of Categories and Remover

of Obstacles -- one is brought slowly into the mysteries of the Sanatana

Dharma. Such an inner connection, which can be as subtle as a feeling, as

tenuous as a dream or as bold as a personal visit, is also an entering into

one's own muladhara chakra, governed by the planet Mercury, for every opening

into a new chakra is also an introduction to the Deity who governs that state

of consciousness and the planet to which that chakra is connected.The Sanatana

Dharma, known today as Hinduism, is the only living religion on the planet that

does not look to a human founder for its source of inspiration, scripture or

historical beginning. It is timeless and ageless. Sanatana Dharma, the root

religion of humankind, looks inward for its origins, into the subtle,

superconscious realms within the microcosm, which it calls the Karanaloka,

Sivaloka or Third World. This great religion has no single organized

headquarters on the material plane. Nor does it have a one hierarchy. Who then

is in charge of Hinduism? Why, it is none other than our loving Ganesha! He

doesn't live in Rome, nor in Salt Lake City. Lord Ganesha lives simultaneously

everywhere Hindus worship and pray within themselves. He doesn't have to be

reappointed from time to time, because yugas and yugas ago He was permanently

and irrevocably appointed when He was created for this work.

Ganesha, the Great Gatekeeper

Yes, it is the Great Ganesha who is the gateway for seekers into the world's

most ancient faith. He is the inner authority, the guardian, the one who grants

access to the spiritual mysteries of the Sanatana Dharma. All Hindus worship

Him, regardless of their sectarian or philosophical positions. He truly binds

them together in His love. This great God is both the beginning of the Hindu

religion and the meeting ground for all its devotees. And that is only proper,

inasmuch as Ganesha is the personification of the material universe. The

universe in all of its varied and various magnificent manifestations is nothing

but the body of this cheerfully portly God.

Ganesha sits on the psychic lotus of the muladhara chakra, the ganglia of nerves

at the base of the spine within everyone. This chakra governs time, matter and

memory. As the spiritual aspirant is lifted up from fear and confusion into

conscious awareness of right thought, right speech and right action, the

muladhara chakra becomes activated. It is then that the seeker, with heart

filled with love, encounters the holy feet of Lord Ganesha. As the spiritual

seeker worships the loving elephant-faced God, clearness of mind comes more and

more as he automatically and very slowly enters the Hindu path to enlightenment.

Once the connection is firmly established between the devotee and Ganesha, all

of the currents of the devotee's mind and body become harmonized. After that

strong connection is made, should he falter on the spiritual path, he has

gained divine protection.B ut the seeker loses one thing. He loses his free,

instinctive willfulness. It is lost forever. Yet it is not a great loss. Man's

own personal willfulness, his animalistic free will, is a feeble and

insignificant force when compared to Lord Ganesha's divine will. When beholden

to God Ganesha and inwardly awakened enough to be attuned to His will, it is

then quite natural that the instinctive will bows down. Personal likes and

dislikes vanish. Limited faculties of reason and analysis are overpowered and

subdued by a greater will, a cosmic will, the will of dharma. When sufficient

humility has been awakened, it is easy to surrender personal, instinctive

willfulness to the greater subsuperconscious will of dharma. It happens most

naturally, but very slowly, because Lord Ganesha, of all the many Gods,

proceeds with methodic deliberation. He is the careful, loving guide on the

inner path of all seekers. Among all the wonderful Hindu Deities, Lord Ganesha

is the closest to the material plane of consciousness, most easily contacted

and most able to assist us in our day-to-day life and concerns. In His hands

Ganesha wields a noose and a goad. With the noose He can hold you close or hold

obstacles close. Ganesha can capture and confine both blessings and obstacles.

With the goad, Ganesha can strike and repel obstacles. This Lord is called the

Remover of Obstacles; but He also places obstacles in our way, for sometimes

his devotees are proceeding in the wrong direction, and His obstacles block

their progress and guide them slowly back onto the straight path of dharma.

When instinctive willfulness causes the seeker to decide to step out of the

boundaries of dharma, the Lord of Obstacles is there to block the way. His

emblem is the swastika, symbolizing His circuitous course in guiding the seeker

through life's perplexing experiences.

Adopted by the Elephant God

Seekers of Truth come from many backgrounds, many religions, and have trod many

paths. Having become acquainted with Lord Ganesha, they may wonder how their

past can participate in their present aspirations. "What am I doing worshiping

an elephant-faced God and loving it?" they may wonder. "What do I do now to

harmonize this unfoldment with my previous upbringing?"

There is a way to reconcile this subconscious dilemma. Let's not "pack it away

in denial," as they say; let's face up to the spiritual awakening. Truth is,

you have a loving friend in Ganesha, who, if we may use the word, is the pope

of the Hindu religion. And you are by no means alone. One fourth of the human

race is acquainted with Ganesha -- twenty-five percent of the people on this

planet -- 1.25 billion, and that number is growing year by year.O ur loving

Ganesha leads his devotees deep into the oldest religion on planet Earth. There

are two ways to come into Hinduism. One is to be born into the Hindu religion

and be carried in your mother's arms to the temple, there to be inwardly and

psychically connected to our loving God, Ganesha. So strong are those early

impressions and samskaras that they carry you through life. Another way is to

unfold naturally to the point of being ready to formally enter Hinduism, to

supplicate, to sincerely entreat the guardians of that religion to allow you to

be a part of that immense and ancient tradition. You have to want to be a Hindu

so strongly, so sincerely, that Lord Ganesha lifts you out of the fog of the

materialistic conscious mind, establishing a connection and a relationship with

you. This is a personal relationship with the Deity. There is nobody in-between

-- just you and the God, Lord Ganesha. It's like being adopted, in a way. If

you were an orphan or abandoned on the streets of Sao Paulo or Madras or on the

streets of wherever there are little kids running around, you would be "free."

You could go through life listening to no one and exercising unrestricted free

will, free instinctive will. If you had a developed intellect, then you could

exercise an intellectual will. You could do anything that you wanted to do,

absolutely anything. Of course, you would find that as you attempted to fulfill

your desires, you were limited, sometimes prevented, by the natural forces

within and without. But you could attempt anything. If you were fortunate

enough, foster parents might come along to help you. They would adopt you and

take you into their home. Your new mother would begin to lovingly guide and

direct your life. She would tell you, "You can play as you like in this room,

but not in the others." She is a wise mother and knows that you are accustomed

to having your own way, so she lets you play freely within the confines of your

own room. But if she catches you playing in another room, she might say firmly,

"You may play in your room, not here in this room." You have lost your "free

will" in being adopted by a mother and father, you are a part of their family

now, and your well-being, your education, your training all now come under

their will, to which you must adjust yourself and obey. They will watch over

you and discipline you morning and night. They will protect you from getting

into trouble with your "free will." The modern concept of freedom leads to the

darker chakras below the muladhara chakra. Anguish is there. Developing a

Personal Relationship

It is the same when you evolve a relationship, a personal relationship, with the

Deity Lord Ganesha. He will not allow you to use your free will to get into

difficulties. Guiding you carefully and protecting you along your way in your

natural karma through life is His concern. Someone once said, "I worship Lord

Siva, I worship Lord Murugan, but I have never really gotten acquainted with

Lord Ganesha." I responded, "You worship Siva and Lord Murugan, and that is

wonderful. But unless you have established a personal relationship with Lord

Ganesha, your worship of any of the Gods is probably more according to your own

thoughts and fancy than true worship. Until you have established a rapport with

Lord Ganesha, you cannot establish a relationship with Krishna, Ayyappan,

Amman, Vishnu, Rama, Hanuman, Lakshmi, Sita, Radharani, Siva or Murugan,

outside of your own limited concepts. It is Ganesha who introduces you to the

millions of Gods of the Hindu pantheon, no one else. That is the way it works."

Yes, little by little, slowly, imperceptibly, a relationship evolves, a very

personal, loving relationship, between the devotee and the elephant-faced God.

Psychic protection is granted, physical protection, mental and emotional

protection are all granted as boons by Him. He will not allow His devotees to

use their free, instinctive willfulness to make more kukarma by getting into

difficulties. Rather, He will guide them carefully, protecting them every

moment along the way so that their natural birth karmas may be worked through

and sukarma created by right living. This is His main concern. Lord Ganesha

loves and cares for His devotees. Once the devotee is connected to Him through

the awakening of the muladhara chakra, loneliness is never experienced.G anesha

is a truly wonderful, loving God. He has an extraordinary knack for unweaving

complicated situations and making them simple. He can unweave his devotees from

their karma, simplifying and purifying their lives. But this only happens after

they have established a personal relationship with Him. Soon thereafter,

changes begin to happen in their lives; and when they go through difficult

times, they no longer become angry or live in fear or worry. When difficult

times come, they know it is because they are being unwound from accumulated and

congested, difficult karmas or being turned in a new direction altogether. They

know that at such a time they have to consciously surrender their free,

instinctive willfulness and not fight the divine happenings, but allow the

God's divine will to guide their life. Such is the spiritual path of total

surrender, known as prapatti.

 

 

 

Loving Ganesha by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

 

Web sites: http://www.hindu.org/ & http://www.himalayanacademy.com/

email: contact (AT) hindu (DOT) org

Himalayan Academy Kauai's Hindu Monastery107 Kaholalele RoadKapaa, HI 96746-9304

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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