Lord Ganesh – Secret of a joyful, happy life

Last evening it was so difficult to cross Yamuna as all the bridges were packed with devotees of Ganesha. These devotees were celebrating Ganeshotsav and last day being the end of this celebration they brought Ganesha idols from their home or societies to merge them into waters of Yamuna River. 

These last day celebrations with colors, music and dance were spreading happiness all over, however there were few miscreants, who had a belief that they have to put special amplifiers with thousands of watts to let the God listen to their music. They were on a different plane. Trucks loaded with massive music systems followed with trucks full of devotees. The music was so loud that even the vehicles around on the road were shaking with beats. The decibel levels especially Bass was in dangerous zone. It was like a noise that was trying to kill. Hopefully, there was no oldage person or heart patient in nearby cars. Fortunately, no ambulance passed but during that time, else God would have only saved them.

Long back, I worked on a science project on noise pollution and its harmful effects on humans. This project demonstrated that how life spans gets reduced with such high noise levels. 

This loud noise doesn’t go with the spirit of celebrations and neither with the theme propagated by lord Ganesha.

Ganesh as the name suggests is the Lord of Ganas, Esh of Ganas. He is form of Shubta – auspiciousness. He propagates joy, happiness and clarity of mind. He is the lord of intelligence.

Tantra worked on the form and impact of Shri Ganesha on our consciousness and the findings were really amazing. It was found that Ganesh sparks transformation. Ganesh transforms. 

Now, the question is how does Ganesh transform?

Ganesh transforms the confusions in the mind into clarity. The situation beyond control comes back as boons. He is the lord of intelligence, so he transforms.

Ganesh transforms in many ways by spiraling like a Swastik or by heating to transform the state or by converting negative emotions into virtues, etc. He does it in millions of ways but subject gets transformed. 

Tantra found that in our chakras, Ganesh is the god at Mooladhar or the root chakra. He heats up and solid ice transforms into liquid state water and then evaporates to form vapors, which on further heating gets charged into ionized state.

Similarly, Ganesh transforms all the power of self into emotions, hence is called Shakti putra – son of Shakti. Shakti is the Devi or feminine form of God. The power of our Aatmaan(soul) is expressed in bhav surrounding it. This is the key reason for emotions being our most powerful state. This emotional power is followed with our thoughts and then by the power at the physical level. 

Ganesh is in the lap of Goddess and hence nurtures and directs the emotional power into positivity that supports life. The Goddess could be in all the negative and positive forms. She is the feminine factor of the existence. 

This is the reason behind the picture that shows Ganesh in the lap of her mother Goddess Shakti. It’s difficult to reach the Goddess hence she has Ganesh in her form and in other form she has Kartikeya in her lap. These both forms are the two flows in the body and she along with Shiv forms the Madhyamarg.

When we worship her with Ganesh, he transforms all these emotional energies with his joy and happiness into different Kalaas (virtues). This sparks a cycle of creating more and more positive energy in the body. This happiness, then starts radiating out of us and influences others also, making them happy. 

He is the God of Shubhta – Happiness, joy and celebrations. He is the one who holds key to all the positivity. He is the heart of our body, which is in the lap of the body having vital organs and hence pumps life throughout the body to make us happy that we are alive. 

Goddess holds Kartikeya also in her lap and in that form she is called Skandmata. Both these forms are divine and connect us with the Goddess. The third one form that connects us with Goddess is Shiv – the counter part of feminine energy of god. This is the male part of the God. These three are the ways to reach her. She is formless yet identified in the form with Ganesh, Kartikeya and Shiv. 

So, we could understand that Ganesh is very important for our existence.

Taking this dialogue further, when we keep focus on Ganesh the spiral that starts is creative and is shown in vedic texts as Swastik.

He is Onkar – the self-produced sound, reverberating in the shunya in universe. This is the state of Anahat Chakra and hence he is like our heart. The energy circle starts and forms atleast two and a half spirals. These 2 and ½ spirals are like 2 and ½ drops of Nectar (Amrit) that nourishes and brings back life.

This way he transforms all negative emotions into Kalaas (virtues, characteristics), making entire life a celebration - a life full of plays for pleasure.

This connection with Ganesh is followed with the heat of Goddess. We have to be still and awaiting this heat to transform into the light as it rises across the chakras to take form. These forms are visible with our inner eyes and this auspicious period is referred to as Navratri. Therefore, it is critical to get Ganesh energy waken up in ourselves to be able to connect with Devi during Navratris. 

Now, the questions are how do we do it?

Ganesh sadhna is simple but there are various formats of Ganesh Sadhna. He has forms in different colours and is pleased in many ways, so there are many sadhnas like Ganesh Ranjansadhna or Ganpati Tarpanam, etc. 

Ganesh Ranjan sadhna is practical and is performed in the physical body creating a positive self. In this technique different colourful forms of Ganesh are placed in the different organs and are then connected with the central form at heart. These are then connected with the unconditional love of mother Goddess - Devi. This way all organs starts performing at their best and gets cleaned of any negativity stored over in these for many lives. 

Ganpati Tarpanam is another technique that dissolves Haridra as it takes washes of our negativity away and transforms into a liquid solution. It’s easy to do and find right alignment with intelligence to handle life as celebration. 

These are very powerful techniques that are very helpful in addressing our daily life concerns and to keep us light, happy and charged. The limitation is that these are to be learnt and it takes some time to practice.

The other simple form of worshipping Ganesh is smiling or laughing. So, simply smile and see the difference you could make to your life.

We all smile or laugh; the difference here in this smile is that you will have to smile from the heart. So, next time when you smile… smile from the heart. 

See and feel as if heart is smiling and it’s getting manifested on the face…

Om Ganpataye Namah!      

(Rights of the images are of there owner , here it is Gitapress)