Ganapati Bappa Moraya

Puranas are authentic sources of rituals. Rituals are the actions that help us earn punya, essential for leading happy and contented life.

One of such ritual is worshiping Lord Ganapati on the day of Chaturthi. In fact there are numerous people who with devotion observe sankashti chaturthi vrat every month with a belief that all their desires are fulfilled by observing this vrat.

In all chaturthis two chaturthis are more widely celebrated all over world. One is chaturthi (fourth day) that falls in shukla paksha (waxing phase) of month Bhadrapada and second is chaturthi that falls in shukla paksha of month Magha (popularly known as Maghi Ganapati or Ganesh Jayanti).

The ritual includes making of idol of Lord Ganapati from clay and then performing shodashopchar puja (sixteen steps of hospitality) including abhishek (offering sacred bath to Lord while chanting of veda suktas). And then on second day perform farewell to Lord by immersing his idol in the river.

Lord Ganapati is considered presiding deity of intellect. It is the intellect that really helps us in life to achieve all success. And that is why children are encouraged from early age to chant Ganapati Atharvashirsha. Many people follow a practice of performing avartana (repeated chanting) of Ganapati Atharvashirsha on the day of chaturthi to firmly establish in devotion to Lord Ganapati.

One can imagine why worshiping Lord Ganapati is so popular and important. Ganapati has many forms. His main form is omkar, the primordial sound, which is the origin of this universe. From omkar all gods emanated. Om letter is in itself combination of three letters – AUM. A represents Lord Brahma, U represents Lord Vishnu and M represents Lord Shivam. So worship of Ganapati is really worship of all three gods.

Wishing you all happy Ganesh Chaturthi!!! May Lord Ganapati bring you and your beloved ones most auspicious gains.

The everlasting friendship

Out of nine steps or nine forms of devotion (navavidha bhakti) eighth step is sakhya i.e. friendship – establishing friendship with God.

Friendship is the most important state of any relationship. If a relationship does not culminate into friendship then there is no fun in that relationship. Same is true with relationship with god.

How to establish friendship with God?

Establishing and maintaining friendship is a difficult task. To be able to become a friend one has to keep away one’s own likes and dislikes. The outcome of friendship is joy, which is a collective experience. Friendship cannot exist without joy and joy cannot exist without friendship. It’s a give and take relationship. One has to give up something to achieve something. That’s the usual nature of even worldly friendships. And friendship with God is not different. To be able to establish friendship with God it is important to find what god likes and dislikes and then do what God likes and avoid what He dislikes.

There is a difference between worldly friendship and friendship with God. In general there is a fine line between friendship with same age people versus friendship with elders. As a general guideline in Indian culture they say that one should bow down in front of the person who is more than 10 years elder than us. And so when establishing friendship with elder people it is important to maintain the line of respect. God is eldest of eldest and so obviously it is important to pay respect to his wishes.

All worldly friendships come to an end at one point. However friendship with God never ends. Though eldest of eldest God stays forever. Everything will come to an end but not God.

Friendship is the eighth step in the devotion to God. To reach that step one has to first go through seven steps and those are – shravan (listening to glory of God e.g. listening to Vishnusahasranama), kirtan (singing the glory of God e.g. chanting Vishnusahasranama), vishnusmaran (remembering god all the time, results from repeatedly listening and chanting Vishnusahasranama), archan (making offering to God e.g. performing puja), vandan (saluting god and godly people e.g. saluting Guru and elders), padasevan (worshiping lotus feet of God), dasya (serving God e.g. performing service in temple)

Eighth step is sakhya (friendship with God, results from serving God without any expectation) and final step is atmanivedan (complete surrender to God i.e. uniting with God).

Through these steps one becomes eligible to receive blessings of God that help to achieve never ending happiness.

A little haste is needed

They say there are 84 lakhs of species in the universe. In the sequence of creation of these species human being is at the last number. Creation stopped after human being was created. There remained nothing to be created. Human is the only specie that has all the characteristics of the creator. And that is why it is only in the human birth that one gets an opportunity to become one with the creator of the universe.

They also say that a soul goes through a cycle of births and deaths of 84 lakhs species before achieving human body. And finally in human birth one gets an opportunity to liberate from this cycle.

That’s why saints urge us to take advantage of this human birth. It is a golden opportunity. If this opportunity is lost one may or may not get this opportunity soon. And that is why a little haste is needed to prepare to utilize this opportunity. The earlier one starts in life to prepare for this opportunity the easier it is. It’s never too early and it’s never too late to start preparation.

To utilize this golden opportunity one needs to do abhaysa – study of knowledge of self i.e. atmadnyana. The easiest way to achieve this knowledge is to surrender to Guru and then follow his teachings without any lapse. In fact they say that it is not even possible to achieve liberation without surrendering to Guru. Guru seamlessly takes his devoted disciples through all steps through liberation.