Ganesh by Rev. Eva Hochgraf March 12, 2000 Meditation: Pressing two hands together and holding them near the heart, with a gentle bow of the head, say "Namaste." These two hands represent the duality of both positive and negative forces. Bringing them together represents and affirms the singleness of the world. The whole act communicates 'you and I are one, I salute, honor and worship the god within you." It also means, "I prostrate myself before you who is the mirror-image of me, with body, mind and soul." In Sanskrit, the word Namas means 'to bow in reverential salutation.' Te means 'to you.' So Namaste means 'I bow to you." And it serves as a reminder that god is everywhere and in every human being we meet, anywhere, at any time. Please now turn and face one of your neighbors, and bow Namaste to them. Find another neighbor and do this simple act again. Namaste. Story: Shiva and Parvati's Son Shiva is the third god of the trimurti, or triad of primary Hindu gods. The other two being Brahma the creator, and Vishnu the preserver. Shiva is known as the destroyer, although he is known as both a mountain mystic, residing in the Himalayas, and Lord of the Dance, (whom you may have seen little brass statues of). His wife, Parvati won his affection after much effort, and they are mostly very happy together. One problem was they didn't have any children. The stories of how they came to have children are quite fantastic! I've got to skip the story of their first son, due to time, but Shiva and Parvati's second son was the elephant-headed god Ganesha, a very popular object of worship. There are many different stories describing his birth and explaining how he came by his unusual appearance. One of the most popular tells how Parvati grew tired of Shiva's habit of walking in on her when she was bathing and fashioned a child from soapsuds to stand guard at the door and stop the god from entering. When Shiva arrived he did not know who the child was; he flew into a fury when the boy tried to block his entrance and, seizing a sword, cut off the child's head. Parvati heard the noise and leapt from the bath. She came running out and when she saw her son's headless body she wept and wailed at Shiva. The god took pity on his consort and promised her that he would cut off the head of the first animal he saw and use it to repair her son's body. At that moment an elephant passed by and Shiva kept his word, decapitating the animal and placing its giant head on the boy's neck. Parvati was entranced by her son's odd but charming appearance. Another version tells how, when Parvati begged Shiva for a son, he told her that as an ascetic he had no desire for children. She continued to pester him, however, and he made her a son from the red cloth of her gown. He was making fun of her, she thought, but her desire for a child was so great that she remolded the cloth baby and brought it to life. She hugged the baby boy and suckled him. Overcome with love, she wept tears of joy. But when Shiva took the child in his arms the baby's head fell off. Parvati was distraught and she would not let Shiva rest until he promised to bring her boy back to life. Shiva sent his bull Nandi to find a new head, and on his travels through the earth and heavens, Nandi encountered Indra's great elephant Airavata. He tried to cut off its head, but Indra and his fellow gods came forward to defend the beast. Nandi, however, was too strong for them and took the head back to Shiva. In their heroic struggle one of Airavata's tusks was broken off. When Shiva placed the elephant head on the boy's shoulders, a beautiful four-armed god with three eyes and a splendid potbelly came into being. Indra came to Shiva to beg forgiveness for having been unwilling to give up his elephant to make Shiva happy. Shiva accepted his repentance and told Indra to cast Airavata's headless corpse into the ocean, predicting that one day Airavata would rise again from waters with a new head. And that is another story! Sermon: Although I know that I was aware of the wide variety of Hindu gods and goddesses as a child, I don't think I really met Ganesh until after I graduated from seminary and was working to organize the 1992 Parliament of World's religions. One of the things we tried to do, was to allow people exposure to some of the differing religions that were present there in Chicago. One of the most successful programs we did was to ask the Hindu temple to host an open house in conjunction with an Interfaith program that we held there. Because of the program, we had many Hindus in attendance, and because of the open house people came from all over Chicago to look around at the beautiful temple in the southwestern suburbs of Chicago. On the tour, we met Ganesh, the god, human bodied, but with an elephant head. It was explained that in visiting the gods and goddesses there in the temple, Ganesh was always visited first. At the time, I wondered why, but was to busy soaking up everything there was to experience and see, to ask that question. Now years later, I find that I have had the time to explore Ganesh, and have learned why he is visited first. I hope you'll enjoy this little journey to a religion understood by few of us, and rich with such complexity of story, color and imagery. Meeting Ganesh, may be like making your first friend at Coffee Hour here - you are happy to meet them, but yet when you look around there are still so many strange and new people here. Some of you are new and so remember this very well, but I think even those of you have been around for a while know remember back to that very first time you were here and know what I'm talking about. Well, with thousands of deities in Hinduism, it must be a rare person who actually knows everybody--even I, personally, don't know everybody at a Coffee Hour! And the little secret I have learned to getting to know so many of you, is to meet you one by one, learn a little bit of your story, spend a bit of time with you. And so that's what I've chosen to do here today with Ganesh, is to introduce you to him, so maybe you'll know one person, one god in Hinduism. And maybe in time you'll get to know another one, just like maybe you do in Coffee Hour. (Much of this description is from The Hindu Mind, by Bansi Pandit p. 157-160. ) This is a picture of Ganesh. He is also called Ganapati, Vinayaka and several other names, as you know there are lots of languages spoken in India. He is a Hindu deity (god) that in popular images and pictures is presented in the form of a human body with the head of an elephant. This blend of human and animal parts is a symbolic representation of a perfect human being, as conceived by Hindu sages. In his images and pictures, Ganesha is depicted holding various objects in his hands, as you can see in the picture. Several other objects are also displayed in front of or around him. These objects, including the elephant-headed image of Ganesh, all together symbolize some of the highest ideals of the Hindu scriptures. I'm going to tell you some of the major symbols of Lord Ganesha, and give a brief explanation of what they represent: * Elephant head, wide mouth, and large ears: the large head of the elephant symbolizes wisdom, understanding, and a discriminating intellect that one must possess to attain perfection in life. The wide mouth represents the normal human desire to enjoy life in the world. The large ears signify that a perfect human being is one who possesses a great capacity to listen to others and assimilate ideas. * The trunk and two tusks with the left tusk broken: now there is no known human instrument that has an operating range as wide as that of an elephant's trunk. Think about it, it can uproot a tree and yet lift a needle off the ground. Similarly, the human mind must be strong enough to face the ups and downs of the external world and yet delicate enough to explore the subtle realms of the inner world. This quality of the perfect mind is symbolized by Ganesh's trunk. The two tusks denote two aspects of the human personality, wisdom and emotion. The right tusk represents wisdom and the left trunk represents emotion. The broken left tusk signifies that in order to attain perfection, emotion must be conquered with wisdom. With the broken left tusk, Ganesha is believed to have written the Mahabharata, as dictated by Sage Vyasa after his pen ran out of ink. There is a fun story about this Mahabharata. It is said when the sage Vyasa was dictating it, Ganesh insisted that the sage use only language that common people would understand, and so the mahabharata is said to be one of the most easily understood of the epics, because of Ganesha's plea. That's an interesting little side note about Ganesh. * Elephant eyes: elephant eyes are often said to possess a kind of natural 'deceptiveness' perhaps, that allows them to perceive objects to be bigger than they really are. So the elephant eyes symbolize the idea that even if an individual gets bigger and bigger in wealth and in their wisdom, they should perceive others to be bigger than themself; that is they should surrender pride and attain humility. * The four arms and various objects in the four hands: the four arms indicate that the Lord is omnipresent and omnipotent. Ganesha carries a small ax in his upper right hand and a rope in his upper left hand. The Lord, when approached by a devotee, cuts his or her worldly attachments (symbolized by the ax), pulls the devotee away (symbolized by the rope) from worldly temptations, and sets him or her on the path of Truth. In his lower left hand there is a plate with little balls, sweet balls that are Laddu, a popular food item. This indicates that he bestows peace and prosperity on his devotees. The lower right hand is shown in a blessing pose. You see it, raised up. This illustrates that Ganesha always blesses his devotes. * A human body with a big belly: the human body possesses a human heart, which is a symbol of kindness and compassion toward all. Ganesha's body is usually portrayed wearing red and yellow clothes. Yellow symbolizes purity, peace and truthfulness. Red symbolizes the activity in the world. These are the qualities of a perfect human being that is performing all the duties in the world, but with purity, peace, and truthfulness. The big belly conveys the idea that a perfect individual must have a large capacity to face all the pleasant and unpleasant experiences of the world. Have you noticed there is a a mouse sitting near the feet of Ganesha and it is right next to plate of fresh food: the mouse symbolizes the human ego that can nibble everything good and noble in humankind. Now the mouse sitting near the feet of Ganesha symbolizes that a perfect person is one who has conquered their ego. A mouse sitting near fresh food, but not eating it, conveys the idea that purified or controlled ego can live in the world without being affected by the temptations of the world. But the mouse is also the vehicle of Ganesha. Isn't that a funny thought? Can you see this lovely, big, fat chubby-bellied, elephant-headed Ganesh riding on a mouse? But it means that you must be able to control your ego for wisdom to shine forth. But this mousy steed is also seen to symbolize the ability to enter the smallest crevice and gnaw away at any obstruction. And so Ganesh is known as the Remover of Obstacles. By worshipping Ganesha, a Hindu seeks God's blessings for achieving success in one's endeavors in the physical world and for attaining perfection thereafter. Since perfect success in all human acts as well as in worldly affairs is the goal of all human beings, Hindus who worship Ganesha seek God's blessings before beginning such activities. Hey, there's the answer to my question, huh?!? For this reason, Ganesha is worshipped first in all religious functions and ceremonies. He is worshipped at the beginning of a journey or new undertakings, especially weddings, but even school exams. He is seen as the patron of writers, who often invoke his support at the beginning of their books with the formula, "Sri Ganeshaya Namah." The history of Ganesh, really how he came into India is a little unclear - some books I read said that he was a relatively new god, not being mentioned until around the time of Christ in Indian literature. Others speculate that both Ganesh and Hanuman the monkey-god, are actually very old gods of a preexisting religion, which was more deeply connected to the earth and had this very deep relationship with animals, so you see this juxtaposition of human and animals in these god images. It is clear though, that the stories about Ganesh are certainly newer than the image, and these Ganesh stories are written to create layers of meaning over an image that was within the culture. These stories of Shiva, Parvati, Nandi (Shiva's bull) Karttikeya the other son, and Ganesh, are this kind of strange Hindu, divine family that exist in their culture, and they have all these wonderful little parables of family life that come out of this strange mother, father and two sons, as well as a bull. So that's one kind of interesting thing about this figure, Ganesh, is he exists, not just by himself, but within a divine family structure. Ganesh is celebrated especially in a Festival in his honor called Ganesha Chaturi. This is a relatively new festival begun by Bal Gangahar Tilak . He lived under colonial rule, from 1857 to 1920. He wanted the Indians to be strong again - to be proud and united. He published many books and articles to promote this idea of exalting the greatness as well as the antiquity of Hinduism. He also preached activism, and inaugurated new festivals to Ganesha and Shiva. The festival of Ganesh is a time for the scholars and business people to bring gifts to Ganesha, and his statues are paraded about the streets and bathed in the river or sea. After hearing all this, you may be wondering why you should be interested in Ganesh? And what possessed me to preach a whole sermon on him? Well, of course there is the value of increasing your intellectual knowledge of another county, another religion. If you weren't familiar with Ganesha and visited a Hindu temple, either here or in India - you might really wonder or think this image of a god with an elephant head, its very strange. But beyond increasing your intellectual understanding I also want to encourage you to deepen your own spirituality. The interesting thing about having a multiplicity of god and goddess images to represent the divine force or underlying whole of the universe - is that this creation and attention to the representation allows certain aspects of the divine, creative power in the universe to be more clearly delineated and understood. Where one giant, undifferentiated whole of divine may seem overwhelmingly incomprehensible, a single god or goddess - one of many - begins to take on certain forms, attributes, occasions when it makes sense to think on the divine. That is what I find most compelling about Ganesh. Ganesh is a deity whose being is most called upon in areas of life that many Western people don't think about, in their relationship with the divine. These areas are beginnings, obstacles, being a scholar, and business. Nope, its not Ken preaching . . . that was four, not three. When something new is begun, I think there is a universal feeling, a mixture of anticipation, anxiety and dread. Now sometimes one of these three may come into play more that the other, but these are fairly normal reactions that we see in most people in the face of doing something new. In the face of doing something that is met with such universal reaction, it makes a certain amount of sense to allow oneself to open up to the universality of this experience and allow the world to join you, to allow the universe to join you, at this time of beginning. Instead of shouldering the reaction (that anticipation, that anxiety, that dread) of newness, as something one must endure alone. Ganesh encourages you to use beginnings as a time of connecting with the divine. Ganesh, as the overcomer of obstacles, is a god that speaks to the universal feelings of being alone and completely stuck at some point in our human lives. It is rare to find a human being who hasn't met a great obstacle at some point in their lives. When it happens it is often a horrible feeling of alienation that enters us -refusing to leave. Ganesha with his elephant-headed wisdom, carried along by a little mouse or rat will just encourage us to gnaw away at whatever has us in this stuck place. Now I have never believed in that value of praying to god to come and fix all my problems - like god would have the power to manipulate us all and the universe like puppets on a string. But somewhere along the line I've learned that it is in just such moments of feeling so stuck, so out of control and unable to overcome something in our path - that people usually do want to pray (even people who don't often pray!) And certainly all they can do to keep trying to overcome those obstacles will help. Like, did you hear this joke about the dog? A local business was looking for office help. They put a sign in the window saying "HELP WANTED. Must be able to type, must be good with computer and must be bilingual. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer." A short time afterwards, a dog trotted up to the window, saw the sign and went inside. He looked at the receptionist and wagged his tail, then walked over to the sign, looked at it and whined. Getting the idea, the receptionist got the office manager. The office manager looked at the dog and was surprised to say the least. However, the dog looked determined, so he led him into the office. Inside, the dog jumped up on the chair and stared at the manager. The manager said, "I can't hire you. The sign says you have to be able to type." The dog jumped down, went to the typewriter and proceeded to type out a perfect letter. He took out the page and trotted over to the manager and gave it to him, then jumped back on the chair. The manager was stunned, but then told the dog, "The sign says you have to be good with a computer." The dog jumped down again and went to the computer. The dog proceeded to demonstrate his expertise with various programs and produced a sample spreadsheet and database and presented them to the manager. By this time the manager was totally dumbfounded! He looked at the dog and said, "I realize that you are a very intelligent dog and have some interesting abilities. However, I still can't give you the job." The dog jumped down and went to a copy of the sign and put his paw on the part about being an Equal Opportunity Employer. The manager said, "Yes, but the sign also says that you must be bilingual." The dog looked at the manager straight in the face and said, "Meow. Well, we'll never know if that dog turned to Ganesha for help! But he certainly did have a lot of persistence it the face of some steep obstacles! By having a god whose function it is to aid in overcoming obstacles, the universal feelings we have and we share in the moments are acknowledged. Suddenly we aren't so alone. We remember to keep squeezing into the impossibly small spaces that lead us in the direction we want to go, to gnaw away at obstructions, to keep trying with the persistence of the mouse hungrily trying to get at something delicious to eat. Ganesh is also the patron deity of learning and scholars. I love this! Our love of learning, as human beings has a universal element to it too. Now I know that not every one is a scholar, but there are scholars, and lovers of knowledge the whole world over and back through time in every culture. People, who in retaining the experiences of others in writing and mathematics allow themselves to continually experience the new, to overcome obstacles that they are encountering or their people are encountering. As I write this, I can't help but conjure up images of ancient scholars: Mesopotamians and their clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform, the ancient Egyptians and their papyrus scrolls, the ancient Chinese using symbolic language to bridge the diverse languages of their kingdom. It sounds very old, instead of new - but if you really think of it as access to a whole new realm for those who study those texts today - then you can image the newness, the interconnected. Ganesh, with his big ears open to listening, with his smart elephant brain, invites us to view this experience as a sacred experience. Oddly enough, Ganesh is also the patron of business people. I like this idea too. Now perhaps because as a scholar, I haven't had much to do with business people! What does it mean to have the divine present in business interactions? Perhaps a more just, compassionate, and ethical approach to business. I think that we have lost that in this country. Capitalism, and its lust for the market-driven economy has put the sacred relationship of human beings behind the need for profit. Have you heard that joke about 'if restaurants were operated like Microsoft?' Patron: Waiter! Waiter: Hi, my name is Bill, and I'll be your Support Waiter. What seems to be the problem? Patron: There's a fly in my soup! Waiter: Try again, maybe the fly won't be there this time. Patron: No, it's still there. Waiter: Maybe it's the way you're using the soup; try eating it with a fork instead. Patron: Even when I use the fork, the fly is still there. Waiter: Maybe the soup is incompatible with the bowl; what kind of bowl are you using? Patron: A SOUP bowl! Waiter: Hmmm, that should work. Maybe it's a configuration problem; how was the bowl set up? Patron: You brought it to me on a saucer; what has that to do with the fly in my soup?! Waiter: Can you remember everything you did before you noticed the fly in your soup? Patron: I sat down and ordered the Soup of the Day! Waiter: Have you considered upgrading to the latest Soup of the Day? Patron: You have more than one Soup of the Day each day?? Waiter: Yes, the Soup of the Day is changed every hour. Patron: Well, what is the Soup of the Day now? Waiter: The current Soup of the Day is tomato. Patron: Fine. Bring me the tomato soup, and the check. I'm running late now. [waiter leaves and returns with another bowl of soup and the check] Waiter: Here you are, Sir. The soup and your check. Patron: This is potato soup. Waiter: Yes, the tomato soup wasn't ready yet. Patron: Well, I'm so hungry now, I'll eat anything. [waiter leaves.] Patron: Waiter! There's a gnat in my soup! The check: Soup of the Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5.00 Upgrade to newer Soup of the Day. .$2.50 Access to support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1.00 We are all laughing so hard because we've been there. A place in all wisdom and sensibility that we should never have to go. Perhaps a little religion might help. Well, at any rate, after that joke, one doubts it could hurt! Ganesh offers the divine to business. And business is part of what runs the world. And it connects those people who do hat work to the greater universe. Now, we humans are complex creatures. If you weren't already convinced of this, try parenting one! The purpose of religion is to reach out to each of us, as different as can be and aid us through our personal struggles - in large part by helping us to get a bigger picture. To help us connect with the universal elements of what it is to be a human being. There are many ways to do this - one is to explore the history and stories of other peoples - as we can do with the Bible. Another thing is to do rituals performed by countless people before us - we see this in Islamic prayers and Hadj, in Hindu puja, in Buddhist chanting, in Sufi dancing, in Christian communion - all these acts, and many like them connect people back in time and forward to generations yet to come. Mythology is yet another way to reach out to people - in these stories and their characters we find universal elements that reach out to us. Idols were created in cultures prior to literacy of the people, prior to television or movies or computers. Kind of an alien world, huh? They enliven a story and remind people of that story in a powerful way. Ganesh is like this. He comes from a time before television, computer or even books to read for most people. Our Unitarian heritage reminds us of the mistake of allowing the idol, the particularly compelling aspect of the divine, and turning it into the divine whole itself. The universal creative, destructive force is more powerful, more complex and more difficult than our human minds can comprehend, certainly bigger than one idol. Monotheistic religions remind us of this and I think Unitarianism, particularly warns us against thinking of a human as more divine than any other (rather than against idols.) The Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, comes out strongly against idols. But if we take this in the context of Judaism as a new religion, emerging in the context of a culture of idol-based worship, as Judaism developed, it becomes more understandable. It was a small minority religion, and so of course it speaks very strongly against something that was the majority around it. But I think we shouldn't let those words, 'Don't pay any attention to idols' that we hear ringing in our Christian or Jewish heads not allow us to open ourselves to learning anything from idols. The universal, open nature of Hinduism has welcomed idols as well as ideas of the universal and holistic concept of god. It has welcomed reformers and people from within its ranks who said that everything it had to say was all wrong - that there really is no god, that god is universal, that god is particular, . . . . The beauty of the religion is its approach, like ours, to be a way of life rather than a set of dogmas and creeds which define it in exclusion of all others. And in that way it is much more like Unitarian Universalism than other religions. It does not define itself in these exclusive kind of terms. Now, raised with this approach to religion, when I look at Ganesh, I immediately see something I want to know more about. I have confidence if millions of people across time and from all walks of life have found some use, some benefit in knowing Ganesh, then there must be some truly universal elements of wisdom contained in the story. Whenever I do a lot of work and learn a new myth, a new god or goddess, a new people who have a relationship - a religious story - I find myself walking away from the experience thinking that I've met a new friend. Like a chance encounter on an airplane or in a bus depot late at night, where you have some of the most compelling and deep conversation you've ever had with somebody. And when you walk away, you know, whether or not you'll ever meet them again, your life is changed. That's my wish for you, for each of you, in introducing you to Ganesha. May you see the world a little bit differently now, at those times of beginning, as you encounter those obstacles and you find yourself so stuck, as a scholar or business person, whether or not you ever met Ganesh again. Copyright 2000, Eva Hochgraf All rights reserved.