Happy Birthday Ganesha!
Wednesday, September 7th, 2005All over the world today, people are honoring the birthday of Lord Ganesha. Many offerings are being made. Beautiful stotras are being sung. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of ladoos are being eaten. (Ladoos are Ganesha’s favorite food, and he is often pictured with a plate of the little sweet balls ready to hand.)
By the way, I have no idea how the birthday of a Mahadeva is determined. If anyone knows, please enlighten us!
Ganesha wasn’t always a Mahadeva. What??? Shock! Unlike Judeo-Christian gods, Hindu gods get born, change, and die. If you remember, Krishna dies at the end of the Mahabharata.
Ganesha’s origins are as crooked as his trunk. In some ancient legends and texts, he is simply equated with Siva or Rudra. In others, Ganapati, the older name for Ganesha, leads a host of outrageous spirit attendants on Lord Siva. These spirits, the Ganas, are a mixed bag, some beneficent, some malevolent, but they are altogether devoted to their Lord Siva. Over time, legends reduced the number of these tricksterish Ganas until there was One: Lord Ganapati.
Commonly, people say that Lord Ganapati is the remover of obstacles, but he also places obstacles in our path. No wonder, given his checkered past. So when obstacles appear in your life, say hello to one of Ganesha’s merry pranksters. And remember that without obstacles, we would all be spiritual coach potatoes. Luckily, as a Mahadeva, Ganesha is always helping us, even when it hurts.
Tantrik deities are real expressions of different capacities of the world. They are not metaphors or symbols.
As are humans, deities are nothing but patterned consciousness and energy. In this sense, we are identical. But insofar as we can experience things dualistically, deities are a different class of patterning. In the tradition, they are thought of as more expansive, subtler beings with longer life spans, and so on. Here, I am only speaking of the Mahadevas. Minor deities are, well, more minor.
The capacities that the Mahadevas encompass and express are inherent capacities of the world such as compassion, non-differentiation, vastness of mind, ease, and transformation. Since these capacities are inherent in the world, they are also inherent in us. Deity practice allows us to recognize and realize these inherent capacities. Deities can also teach us specific things such as mantras and other practices.
One of the most profound and useful aspects of View that I have been taught is that the purpose of human life is to be fully human: to complete the human relationship to the cosmos. In many Indian traditions, including Tantrik traditions, you will hear it said that so and so is an incarnation of a deity. This is meant as high praise. In contrast, I have been taught to learn from deities and to use what I learn to live a more expanded human life.
I find this View to be generally applicable to all aspects of spiritual experience. For instance, the other day I wrote that “samadhi” is one state of the world available to us, but that it is not the be-all and end-all of spiritual life.
The Tantras describe dozens of kinds of samadhis. Believe me, if you enter into one of these states, you are not going to rush to a book afterward and try to figure out which one of 64 kinds of samadhi you were in. But you might keep trying to reproduce and remain in that state, erroneously believing that unbroken samadhi is enlightenment, and even more erroneously believing that you are producing this state through your seated practice.
My experience with such states is that the best thing you can take with you is that they are always ongoing. You don’t produce them, and you wouldn’t want to live in only one of these states 24/7.
Think of it this way. Of what interest would a rainbow be if, when one appeared in the sky, we all only looked at the green band? Man o man! Look at that green! I love green! Green rocks!
Yeah, green is cool, but what about all of the other colors?
Tantra is about being awake to all of the colors all at once. Not just green. But the all at once is important. My own experience is that when you “taste” some of the colors we call “samadhi’ or “turiya,” you start to notice they are there all the time, just going on without any help from you and your practice. They are the primary colors of the rainbow of the world.
Ganesha and the other Mahadevas are also rainbows of capacities, of expressions or colors. For example, Ganesha is the Lord of Thresholds. As every moment is a threshold, in every moment we are tasting that “threshold Ganesha” aspect of the world. Just by being here.
But in truth, the question of “what is a Mahadeva” cannot be answered satisfactorily other than by meeting up with one or two yourself. And even then, you simply get soaked in the mystery.
Jai Ganesha! Jai Mahadeva!
OM Shanti, Shambhavi
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