Lessons from Lord Ganesha

Date: 2007-09-15 Author: Lakshmipriya devi dasi

Hare Krishna Devotees, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva.

Today is the auspicious day of Ganesh Caturthi and its celebrated by all with pomp. But unfortunately most of them do not know the significance of Lord Ganesh and celebrate this day either with material motivation or for some fun. It is painful to see people playing cinema songs in every nook and corner of the cities all day in the name of celebrating Ganesh Caturthi. But Krishna conscious devotees worship Lord Ganesha as an exalted devotee of Lord Vishnu, who removes obstacles on the path of devotional service.

As stated in Brahma Samhita (50)

yat-pāda-pallava-yugaṁ vinidhāya kumbha- dvandve praṇāma-samaye sa gaṇādhirājaḥ vighnān vihantum alam asya jagat-trayasya govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi

I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, whose lotus feet are always held by Ganesa upon the pair of tumuli protruding from his elephant head in order to obtain power for his function of destroying all the obstacles on the path of progress of the three worlds.

Sri Ganeshji is the one of the main persons who gave us the record of the great epic Mahabharata in which Bhagavad Gita is the main part meant for the welfare of people in the age of Kali. While composing Mahabharata, Vysasadeva needed a right person to pen it. Brahmaji selected Lord Ganesha for documentation. Acharya Madhva explains that Ganeshji was selected because he is the "tattva abhimānī" of ākāṣa (controlling deity of Space on which sound waves depend). Sri Ganeshji took up the service of noting down the dictation on the condition that Vyasadeva would not stop dictation for a moment. Vyasadeva in return laid down a condition. He said that Ganeshji had to understand every sloka before he penned it. He deliberately composed certain slokas which has to be analyzed to understand. This made Ganeshji to stop for a while to think. Srila Prabhupada explains in Commentary to Bhagavatam " Mahabharata is a combined effort of both Vyasadeva and Ganeshji". From this pastime, we understand two things.

1. From Ganeshji's condition we can understand that we should not remain idle even for a second as idle mind is devil's workshop. Without doing work for Krishna, evil forces will pollute our mind.

2. From Vyasadeva's condition, we can understand that we should know the reason for performing any action and we have to be aware of the significance of whatever we're doing. Mere recitation of scriptures without knowing the meaning is not as effective as reciting them knowing their meanings.

By constant reading and understanding of Bhagavad Gita, we can follow the above two instructions. Thus reading and understanding of Bhagavad Gita is the best way of worshiping Sri Ganeshji on this auspicious day.

I pray at the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada and Gurudeva so that I will get a taste for reading Bhagavad Gita and understand its meaning.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva, Lakshmipriya devi dasi Chennai.