Ganesh Chaturthi

 Ganesh, "Of course, I exist!"

              

वक्रतुण्ड महाकाय सूर्यकोटि समप्रभ।

निर्विघ्नं कुरु मे देव सर्वकार्येषु सर्वदा॥

अर्थ - घुमावदार सूंड वाले, विशाल शरीर काय, करोड़ों सूर्यों के तेज के समान महान प्रतिभाशाली मेरे प्रभु, मेरे सारे कार्य सदा बिना विघ्न के पूरे करें।

 

Sri Aurobindo on Ganesha and Kartikeya:

“Ganesh is the Power that removes obstacles by the force of Knowledge - …”

“Ganesh (among other things) is the devata of spiritual Knowledge -...”

“Kartikeya represents victory over the hostile Powers. Of course the names given are human, but the Gods exist.” [Kartikeya, कार्त्तिकेय, the elder brother of Ganesh, also known as Skanda, Subrahmanya, Shanmukha, and Murugan, is the Hindu god of war. - Wikipedia]

“The peacock is the bird of victory and Kartikeya the leader of the divine forces.”

 

Mother’s first encounter with Lord Ganesha, as narrated by herself sometime during 1958:

“We had a meditation (this was more than thirty years ago) in the room where ‘Prosperity’ is now distributed. There were eight or ten of us, I believe. We used to make sentences with flowers; I arranged the flowers, and each one made a sentence with the different flowers I had put there. And one day when the subject of prosperity or wealth came up, I thought (they always say that Ganesh is the god of money, of fortune, of the world’s wealth), I thought, ‘Isn’t this whole story of the god with an elephant trunk merely a lot of human imagination?’ Thereupon, we meditated. And who should I see walk in and park himself in front of me but a living being, absolutely alive and luminous, with a trunk that long ... and smiling! So then, in my meditation, I said, ‘Ah! So it’s true that you exist!’—‘Of course I exist! And you may ask me for whatever you wish, from a monetary standpoint, of course, and I will give it to you!’

So I asked. And for about ten years, it poured in, like this (gesture of torrents). It was incredible. I would ask, and at the next Darshan, or a month or several days later, depending, there it was.”

Notes: [Colouring and highlighting have been done to add emphasis to the text.]