Ganesh

Today is Ganesh’s birthday.  Ganesh is the most celebrated Gods in Hindu Culture.  Every street in India  probably has a little shrine for him  and other streets have big temples.  :) As I understand he represents a very friendly energy.  He is an obstacle remover.   Volunteers prepared 1008 dishes to celebrate his birthday.  
Ganesh's darshan also was the first strong experience of Paramahamsa Nithyananda.  When he was little he served the food for Ganesh and Ganesh ate it.

So here is my story:  There is a statue of Ganesh in the hall where we have our sessions.  I  actually love this elephant God.   To tell you the  truth, I always loved elephants.  One of my favorite story from my childhood was about elephant toy that I got for no reason as a gift from my dear aunt and uncle.

 Anyway, I never really felt strong connection with God through deities. The whole worshiping a deity concept was not that clear to me.  One day I was sitting in the hall getting ready for the next session when I felt an energy going into my body from somewhere across the hall.  I looked there and I saw a statue of Ganesh:, not a big one, but very cute.  I took a paper and a pen and decided to sketch him.  While I was sketching I felt that he was alive and he did not like all the jewelry and clothes that he had on.  (It is so weird even to write this. ) I mentioned to a friend of mine who cleans the deities that it feels like Ganesh needs to be cleaned and maybe some of jewelry need to be removed.  At the same time the volunteer from the temple showed up and we asked the permission to do that.  The permission  was given right away and a friend of mine removed some of the stuff.  I swear, the statue was smiling. 

For several days when I came into the room I felt the same energy flow from him,  When I was writing down this story a person came by and gave me a piece of paper with Ganesh’s mantra.  Hindus believe that they can put god into anything and create a deity to worship.  They use deities as connections to God.  So Diety is not that important but the feeling that it generates is very important.  They often play with their Gods from early age, they dress them, make them out of mud, praise them, wash them as we do with dolls.  As a result they do not grow up with the fear of God as some distant thing that is going to judge them one day and will punish if they misbehaved.  They celebrate Gods (actually different forms of energy) as their helpers on the way to Enlightenment.  And it does not seem like a bad idea to have help with that.