| Om Shri Ganeshaya Namah |
| In Hinduism, Shri Ganesha is the Deity who is worshipped First, at the Beginning of Every Day and at the Start of any Religious or Spiritual Endeavor. Ganesha is Auspiciousness Personified. Ganesha is Sweet and Vibrant. Ganesha is the most Beloved Deity in India~ being the inspiration of temples, music, art and festivals. Ganesha's Form is full of Spiritual Symbolism. Ganesha's elephant head symbolizes Intelligence, Strength and Purity. His trunk is symbolic of Om~ the sacred seed mantra. His pot-belly symbolizes wealth, luck and prosperity. The weapons Ganesha holds, symbolize His Power to overcome All obstacles, no matter how difficult or complex. Also, the direction in which Ganesha's trunk turns, also has significance! If His trunk is turned to the right, this indicates worldly prosperity, health and blessings. If Ganesha's trunk is turned to the left, it indicates spiritual blessings, bliss and tranquility. Sometimes, Ganesha's trunk bends in both directions~ swerving to the right before turning to the left, and vice versa. This Indicates both worldly prosperity and spiritual blessings. Ganesha is worshipped all around the world in temples and households. Ganesha is Prathama Vandana~ the One who is Invoked and Worshipped first~ and, following in this ancient custom, I have first dedicated a simple web page to Ganesha to fill this site with His Blessings, Goodness, Vibrancy, Auspiciousness and Fun! Namaste~ |
| ~Pages/Pictures not loading? Comments? Suggestions?~ |
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| Once there was neither Being nor Nonbeing. There was neither Form nor Formlessness. Then, That which was hidden within Itself, That One, stirring, emerging, coming to be. From Itself to the Formless to the Form. Immutable, changeless, everywhere, pervading all, yet not physically such is the mystery. Suddenly an ancient note piercing the darkness. A song whose birth stirred the slumbering, summoning an eternal mystery to awaken. Emerging from deep within the hidden cave, the human heart, Ganesha's truth flows from the icecave of the infinite. Housed within our gated dwelling, Ganesha the guest loved and longed for. That which has no form, can take a form. That which has no name, can take a name. From the formless to form, and back again and again and again. The wheel of time gathers speed, and somewhere between fact and legend, vision and myth, we ask, "Who is Ganesha? There are those who lovingly sing his praises. There are those who worship and adore him. There are those who represent him in art and literature. There are those who tell stories about him. There are those who chant his glory. There are those who seek his darshana. There are those who invoke and invite his blessings. The thinkers think, the scholars scholasticise, the devotees worship. But what is Ganesha's hidden meaning? There is a long and hoary lineage of seekers, scholars, sycophants, who have attempted to plumb the mysteries of the elephant-headed one. Anthropologists, Artists, religious Aspirants, Historians, Indologists, Linguists, Philosophers, Religionists, Sociologists, and contemporary devotees of Ganesha are but some of the most recent representatives of this enquiry. Each group has attempted, and continues to attempt, to make sense of this enormously popular deity. Seemingly incongruous facts simultaneously coincide. Ganesha embodies: An enormous popularity that transcends sectarian and territorial limits; a seemingly rather late, yet dramatic, full-blown appearance into a religious pantheon; a confusing, conflicting, yet interesting and intriguing mythology; and an elephant's head atop a plump human body! To further complicate the picture is the fact that the physical representation of Ganesha offers more iconographic variations than does that of any other Indian deity. Couple this with the fact that Ganesha literature is rife with a seemingly endless number of stories on an unexpectedly limited number of themes. O Ganesha, who are you really? Tell the others what you want, tell them anything, but between you and me, who are you really? |
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| (I Invoke and Surrender to Shri Ganesha, the Auspicious Remover of Obstacles) |
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