|| Aum Sri Ramakrishna Sharanam||
| Lord Vinayaga Pic - Googles |
||Aum Namo Narayanaya||
A humbling sight awaited me on a visit to India a few years back. It was a late night of travelling that privileged a little extension of my resting hours. But that was soon disrupted by the melodious singing of "Moeshika Vaghana Modaka Hasta" accompanied by the rhythmic ringing of the bell. The sudden interjection of a thud encouraged me to alight from the snug comforts of my bed to catch a little glimpse of the morning life of the Temple- City of Madurai. As soon as I drew the curtain, the enchanting mellifluous stream of delight swelled once more from the tongue of an extremely gifted Priest adorned with big white streaks (the symbol of Shiva) all over his body. He was facilitating an offering of coconut to Lord Pillayar by a middle-aged devotee making his way to the office. Taking a little prasad from the Priest and smearing it upon his forehead, his expression took on a more confident outlook for the day. It seemed that he was not alone in his endeavour as the queue rapidly grew with more people exiting the street vendors with handful lots of flowers, sweets and the most significant coconut to appease the Lord of obstacles -Vinayagar- to remove the obstacles in their path for the day.
It is not uncommon for any prayer or venture to begin with the name of Ganesha... as the goal of any undertaking must end with success. I recall when I was a co-ordinator of prayer festivals at our Temple, I could rest assured that I need not lose sleep over marketing as this particular prayer snatched people out of their comfort zones and they even overlooked the weather to come get the grace of Lord Ganesha.
In order for our understanding of why Lord Ganapathi was awarded this special place in spirituality... I am reminded of an inspiring statement made by Sri Ramakrishna whilst in conversation about Keshab. Master said when he first met Keshab at Jaygopal's house, he said he is the only one who has dropped his tail. At this, the people laughed. Keshab said to them don’t laugh, there must be reasoning to his words. Thereupon Master said, the tadpole, so long as it has not dropped its tail lives only in the water. It cannot move about on dry land. But as soon as it drops its tail, it hops out onto the bank then it can live both in water and on land. Likewise... as long as man holds onto his tail of ignorance, he can live only in the water of the world. But when he drops his tail, that is to say when he attains the knowledge of God, then he can roam about as a free soul or householder in the world.
The mythology states that Mother Parvathi was about to take a bath in the absence of Lord Shiva. In order to secure Her chamber so that none may enter, She created a son out of tumeric powder from Her body. She breathed life into him and was full of adoration for him. Her strict instruction was that none should enter whilst she had her bath. The little child dutifully carried out his task. Although a little boy, he was endowed with super strength and power by the Mother Herself. Lord Shiva came unannounced and had to face the wrath of the little boy. After a protracted battle, Lord Shiva became livid and so enraged that He used His trishul and removed the head of Ganesha. On hearing the commotion the divine Mother hurriedly finished Her bath and was welcomed by the gruesome scene of Her Lord standing over the dead body of their son. She was teeming with anger with intention to destroy all of creation but collected herself after Lord Shiva agreed to restore life to Ganesha.The head of the first creature facing north was brought and thus Lord Ganesha was restored to life with the head of an elephant and thus was blessed with the boon of Mudalvanne - that is one who is worshipped first.
The truth of life as proclaimed by Swami Vivekananda is that "we are all potentially divine beings". However, we create obstacles for ourselves when we polarise this divine identity by our own egos. Living in the world of sense fixation, we choose not to unveil the cloud of ignorance and create one obstacle after another in our lives. This creates a lot of unhappiness and misery. Lord Ganesha being given the task of guarding the doorway was so consumed by the status of the task that He failed to recognise Lord Shiva. Thus the Lord using His trishul removed the head which is the seat of ignorance and ego. The weapon to remove this ego and ignorance is the trident of inner strength, intelligence and knowledge.
The removal of the head is beautifully captured by Sri Ramakrishna's analogy of dropping the tail... both resembling ignorance and ego. The replacement of the head is symbolic of the change... the metamorphosis from the self-centred and consumed being to the all-embracing universal self that identifies itself with the cosmic self.
Lord Vinayaga’s acceptance of millions of coconuts on an annual basis is a reminder to us all that within each and every one of us is the pure spirit of God with the power to quench the parched mundane lives that we live... but in order to get a taste of this Ilaneer (coconut water in Tamil) one must first remove the tough fibre that surrounds the coconut. This is symbolic of the tough ego, pride and ignorance in the mind that covers the buddhi or intelligence. Man- making decisions based on intelligence has greater success in life than man basing decisions on emotion and sense gratification.
May that great Lord of the intellect help us all remove our ego and ignorance and expose our divinity and intelligence, is my sincere prayer.
With
absolute sincerity
Yogan Naidoo
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