Ganesh Chaturthi
Festival of the ubiquitous elephant headed boy
Who doesn’t want wisdom, prosperity, knowledge, and happiness? If you do, then you may want to celebrate, dance and chant as they do every year in India on Ganesh Chaturthi.
Ganesh Chaturthi is a 10-day festival celebrating the creation of the elephant-headed deity named Ganesh — god of prosperity and wisdom. Bhadrapa is the sixth month in the Hindu calendar and this holiday begins on Chaturthi (Fourth day). Our corresponding time on the Roman calendar is late August going into September. Ganesha was the youngest son of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvathi. In addition to being the God of prosperity and wisdom he is also considered the God of Knowledge and the symbol of happiness and welfare.
Lord Ganesh is treated as “Vighna Harta”. This translates to the one who removes all the obstacles. Statues of Ganesh are in most Hindu temples and many yoga studios. His large elephant head is smiling as he dances, his body is a human body and there is a fascinating back story to the chimera creature he appears to be. He has four arms and in his lower left hand he holds a bowl of sweets (representing the reward for a wisely led life) and his trunk reaches toward the bowl to eat one. Two other hands hold a lotus (symbol of enlightenment) and an axe (when enlightenment occurs old karma or sanskara- your past deeds are cut away) the last hand is in a gesture of blessing because a wise person wishes all other people to be blessed. His large ears symbolize hearing and listening to everyone. The broken tusk represents the wisdom of moving beyond duality and realizing the entire universe is one single whole and we are an integral part of this oneness. Ganesh rides on a rat that represents greed and our senses, a wise person controls their senses and their greed.
Parvati, Ganesh’s mother (who was a form of parashakti or supreme energy) was getting ready for an undisturbed bath when she told her husband Shiva’s guardian bull to stop anyone from disturbing her. Nandi, the bull guarded the door but Shiva wanted in and Nandi let Shiva enter because his first loyalty was to Lord Shiva. Angered by this Parvati took her turmeric bathing paste and breathed life into it creating her own loyal being, Ganesh.
When Parvati wanted her next bath, she put Ganesh outside the door to protect her privacy. Shiva, shocked to find a strange boy outside his wife’s bathing chamber sent his army to destroy this stranger! They failed because Ganesh was born of the Goddess. Shiva decided to fight the boy himself and took his sword and cleanly severed the boy’s head. Parvati enraged reacted with the intention to destroy all of creation.
Lord Brahma, the creator of all creation stepped in to solve the conundrum at Parvati’s direction he brought Ganesh back to life by conveniently chopping off the head of the first living creature he saw, a wandering elephant. This replaced the human looking head and Shiva got on board with this plan and breathed life into the new Ganesh promising that this new Ganesh would be worshipped before all other Gods.
Cutting off the original Ganesh’s head is more than meaningless violence it is symbolic of cutting the head off our ego and replacing it with wisdom. The original human headed Ganesh had such a strong ego even a celestial army could not conquer him. Turmeric paste is yellow which represents the muladhara chakra where the kundalini energy resides. Ganesha is guardian over this chakra and as we access this energy we can connect with the divine.
Sing and chant with below you tube and maybe your obstacles will be removed:
Footnotes:
1. https://www.aplustopper.com/
2. Encyclopedia www.britannica.com
