Loving Ganesha: Chapter 3 (Section 1) - Ganesha's Five Powers--Shri Ganeshasya Panchashatayah

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Namaste all,

 

This chapter, chapter three, will be spread over two postings. This page can be

found at: http://www.himalayanacademy.com/books/lg/lg_ch-03.html

 

Om Shanti,

 

Neil

 

 

 

Shri GaneshasyaPanchashatayah

Ganesha'sFive Powers

OME, NOW LET US TURN OUR HEARTS AND MINDS to the five powers of Lord Ganesha.

Devotees have asked for elucidation of the five profound ways this Great God

functions in helping us from the inner worlds. For many Hindus in both the East

and the West it is this understanding of the five powerful positive powers, or

shaktis, of Lord Ganesha and their five powerful asuric counterforces that

makes religion a working part of the devotee's life and a stabilizing force

within the extended family -- which embraces kindred, friends, community elders

and close business associates. This knowledge and practical experience has

helped them understand just how intimately Lord Ganesha works with each of us

every day in even our mundane life. There are five great shaktis of Lord

Ganesha, as He Himself explained. Their positive vibratory rates can be felt

through your astral and physical body and should always be with you. "What is

this shakti?" you may be wondering. It is being in the presence of Divinity.

All holy men and women emanate all of these shaktis, and you can, too, some

stronger than others. Shakti is divine radiation from the Third World through

the Second World into the First. The astral body is in the Second World and

lives inside the physical body. It is through the astral body that shakti is

felt. The shakti comes from the Third World and permeates the astral body in

the Second World. This is why the physical body sometimes seems to feel "filled

up" with shakti from deep within, permeating out to the inside of our skin.

Deeply awakened souls become so filled with the shakti of the Divine that it

permeates as cosmic rays out through the skin to the perimeter of the aura, the

colorful film of light that surrounds the body. It is felt by other people and

attributed as a personal darshana.

Thus it can be said that Lord Ganesha has five aspects to His presence. Feeling

the presence of the benevolent and beneficent Deity Ganesha everywhere is the

exemplary example of what each soul wishes to attain. His five powers could

well be called "the feet of the Lord," for it is at these feet that we sit and

worship, bringing harmony to our home, among our relatives and friends and

business associates, bringing culture, creativity and religion into our life.

Crowned by a heartfelt love of God that we then give forth, we are then allowed

to perform charities and, in overflowing abundance, prepare the religious

edifices for the next generation. Experiencing this personally will take daily

meditation.

THE FIRST SHAKTI

The first shakti emanates the feeling of love and compassion that the good

person naturally has for his or her immediate family. Love and harmony within

the nuclear or joint family is most important to all Hindus, and the beautiful

feeling when it exists is the first shakti of the Lord. If love abounds in the

home and virtue prevails, the home is perfect and its end fulfilled.

THE SECOND SHAKTI

The second shakti is the same feeling but extended to relatives, neighbors and

friends, all who are part of the extended family. This is more difficult to

hold, as inharmonious conditions often arise. These are called asuric forces,

which come between people, causing misunderstanding and upsets. Through prayers

and through worship, the first shakti can be extended beyond the circumference

of the immediate family to include acquaintances, relatives and friends. When

this vibration of harmony is felt, all the power of the Lord is with you, as

the first shakti and the second shakti merge, bringing in abundance the onrush

of the third shakti.

THE THIRD SHAKTIThe third shakti of Lord Ganesha is this same love extended to

all persons one has dealings with in the external world: business associates, a

casual merchant and the public at large. It is honest and harmonious

relationships in conducting the business of trade and dealings in goods,

finance and the distribution of the wealth of the world. This is a most

important vibration to be felt, and constantly felt. This shakti of the Lord is

tenuous to hold onto, for worldly and materialistic forces, as you well know,

militate against this kind of harmony. But once these lower powers are

conquered, worries cease, concerns are alleviated and heartfelt joy comes. Such

is the grace of loving Ganesha. As the Tirukural (120) declares, "Those

businessmen will prosper whose business protects as their own the interests of

others." THE FOURTH SHAKTI

The fourth shakti is an outpouring from having held fast to the first three. It

is a combination of the first two shaktis, stabilized by the third. The fourth

shakti of Lord Ganesha brings through the creative-intuitive mind -- the love

of culture and all that it brings, religious formalities and the respect and

appreciation of discipline. Here we find the vibration of religion, which

brings as a boon creativity in music, art, drama and the dance. It is through

these refining rays that religious life is adhered to and congested forces are

braided together in a harmonious pattern for a glorious future. It is through

the fourth shakti that religious practices are performed consistently and the

refinements of the past are carried into the future. It also extends to

devotion toward one's ancestors and all forms of positive community

participation.

THE FIFTH SHAKTI

The fifth shakti of Lord Ganesha is the combination of the first and the third

in vibration, and it extends into the wonderful feelings obtained by the

outpouring of love of this God. Loving Lord Ganesha with all your heart and

soul is the combined merging of these five shaktis. This gives the added boon

of being able to be charitable; for those who love God perform charity, build

shrines and temples and participate in the overflowing generosity from their

resources, earning abundant punya, fine merit, accrued for this life and passed

on to the next. We can see that harmony within the immediate family and harmony

extended to all business associates creates the spiritual dynamic within the

individual and the group to burst forth into loving this benign God and

receiving His material, emotional, intellectual and spiritual abundance.

The Hindu soul who is immersed in the love of the Lord of Obstacles knows he is

not the giver, but only the channel for the giving. He is intuitively aware of

the maya of his existence, yet acutely aware of the necessity of sharing his

natural, blissful state of having become one with this Lord through the first

five shaktis. Such a devotee is the pillar of the temple, the protector of the

sadhaka, the respecter of the priesthood and the obedient slave to the holy

scriptures, and is seen by all as the compassionate one. Being free in mind,

emotion and body, the family that lives basking in the five shaktis of Ganesha

performs daily puja and yearly pilgrimage while upholding the five obligations,

the pancha nitya karmas, of the Hindu with joyous ease.

 

 

 

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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