Showing posts with label Gods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gods. Show all posts

Wednesday 31 August 2022

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.]

Sunday 9 October 2016

I am Durga, goddess of the proud and strong,--- Kali when I kill,

I am Durga, goddess of the proud and strong,--- Kali when I kill,

(Savitri 509/26-510/31)


I am Durga, goddess of the proud and strong,
And Lakshmi, queen of the fair and fortunate;
I wear the face of Kali when I kill,
I trample the corpses of the demon hordes.
I am charged by God to do his mighty work,
Uncaring I serve his will who sent me forth,
Reckless of peril and earthly consequence.
I reason not of virtue and of sin
But do the deed he has put into my heart.
I fear not for the angry frown of Heaven,
I flinch not from the red assault of Hell;
I crush the opposition of the gods,
Tread down a million goblin obstacles.
I guide man to the path of the Divine
And guard him from the red Wolf and the Snake.
I set in his mortal hand my heavenly sword
And put on him the breastplate of the gods.
I break the ignorant pride of human mind
And lead the thought to the wideness of the Truth;

I rend man's narrow and successful life
And force his sorrowful eyes to gaze at the sun
That he may die to earth and live in his soul.
I know the goal, I know the secret route;
I have studied the map of the invisible worlds;
I am the battle's head, the journey's star.
But the great obstinate world resists my Word,
And the crookedness and evil in man's heart
Is stronger than Reason, profounder than the Pit,
And the malignancy of hostile Powers
Puts craftily back the clock of destiny
And mightier seems than the eternal Will.
The cosmic evil is too deep to unroot,
The cosmic suffering is too vast to heal.
A few I guide who pass me towards the Light;
A few I save, the mass falls back unsaved;
A few I help, the many strive and fail.
But my heart I have hardened and I do my work:
Slowly the light grows greater in the East,
Slowly the world progresses on God's road.
His seal is on my task, it cannot fail:
I shall hear the silver swing of heaven's gates
When God comes out to meet the soul of the world.”
(Savitri 509/26-510/31)