MY FIRST GANESHA DEITY

I got this Ganesha as a gift for My birthday. I had such a strong feeling-connection with him that I felt that Ganesha was actually there…that the deity was not just a stone; it was Ganesha Himself!

During My childhood, I used to attend many Satsaṅgs (discourses). One day, the speaker was narrating an incident from the life of Nambiyandar Nambi (a Shaivite scholar) when he was a young boy. I still remember that speaker’s name – Selva Ganapathy! He was a famous religious speaker in Tamil Nadu. When Nambiyandar Nambi was a child, his father used to offer worship at a Ganesha temple every day. He was a temple priest. One day, the father was sick, so he told his little son, “You please go and offer worship at the temple today.”

So Nambiyandar Nambi went to the temple with the food offering and all the worship articles. He performed all the rituals. He placed the food in front of Ganesha. He thought that Ganesha actually eats the food every day. He did not know that his father brought the food back home every day. 

Half an hour, one hour, two hours went by…and the food was still there! The boy started worrying and asked Ganesha, “What happened? Did I do anything wrong? You are not eating! Come and eat! I have to go back soon…my father is sick.” 

The Kāṭhopaniṣad beautifully says, “śraddhā viveśa (authenticity) happens when you are possessed by a certain truth.” Sometimes, when you face a difficult time in life, you suddenly decide, “I will be very straight, honest and dharmic. I will not bend.” In those few moments, you are possessed by śraddhā – authenticity, the Truth. 

So, śraddhā vivesha happened to Nambiyandar Nambi. Suddenly, he felt, “Ganesha has to eat!” He started weeping. He said, “I will bang my head on these temple steps and die if you don’t eat!” And he really started banging his head on the steps!

At that time, he just knew that Ganesha was going to eat; even a slight doubt did not exist in him. He started banging his head on the steps – and the story says, suddenly Ganesha appeared and ate the food and blessed him! 

When the boy went back to his father, his father asked, “What happened? Where is the food offering?”

Nambiyandar Nambi said, “Ganesha ate it.”

He took his father to the temple, and there the father saw for himself! The story says that the father prostrated before his son and said, “All these years, I was only doing it as a ritual. Today, you made it into reality; you made it the Truth.”

I decide to make My Ganesha eat!

When I heard this story, I was shocked. The whole story became part of My inner space, part of My bio-energy. I thought, ‘Then why is My Ganesha not eating?’ Because I never experienced the space of lack of integrity in My life, I simply trusted the speaker’s integrity. I suddenly decided: I will also make My Ganesha eat! This is tarka, simple logic: When he made Ganesha eat, why not Me? It is simple tarka.

So I ran and told Ganesha, “Don’t worry, from today I will give you food. You should eat it properly.” But Ganesha was not eating. Maybe he heard Me, but he did not respond. For two or three days, I was sitting and convincing him about why he should eat. Maybe that was the time that matter was melting into Consciousness – meaning, the word was moving the world. By again and again saying, “Eat! You should eat!” to Ganesha; it became a declaration. Understand: When your declarations are very strong, even if there is a stone in front of you, it will listen! 

Śraddhā Vivesha – Authenticity – possesses Me

Āpta Pramāṇa (Scriptural Reference) for Authenticity possessing a person
and its consequent powerful manifestation, taken from the experience of young Nachiketa in the Kāṭhopaniṣad.

तँह कुमारँसन्तं दक्षिणासु 

नीयमानासुश्रद्धाविवेश सोऽमन्यत ॥ २

taṁ ha kumāraṁ santaṁ dakṣiṇāsu
nīyamānāsu śraddhāviveśa so’manyata || 1.1.2 ||

• Kāṭhopaniṣad, Verse 1.1.2

TRANSLATION: As the gifts were being carried and distributed for the sacred offerings (to the priests and assembled Brāhmaṇas)
by his father, śraddhā – authenticity – entered into him, Naciketā, that young boy, and filled his inner-space and took
possession of him [śraddhā-āviveśa]. From the space of authenticity, he thought deeply.

Anyway, the śraddhā vivesha happened! I became possessed by śraddhā. I decided to take the next jump, from integrity towards authenticity. Understand: whenever you move from integrity to authenticity, it will not always be completely authentic. Your efforts may be inauthentic to start with, but later you will move to authenticity. 

See, in My house, it was a joint family. One of My grandmothers…she was a distant relative. If the kids didn’t eat, this old lady would threaten them. In the center of the garden, there was a huge well, a village-type well. She would shout, “If you don’t eat, I will put you inside the well!” I decided that I would also do the same thing with Ganesha! 

I put Ganesha in the bucket and started lowering him into the well with a small rope, and threatening him, “See? I will really drown you!” When the bucket was about to touch the water, I suddenly realized that he might have changed his mind and might want to eat, but I had not put any food in the bucket! So I brought him out, placed some food also in the vessel, and started lowering him again. The bucket was almost touching the water surface, but nothing was happening. I did not have the heart to put Ganesha into the water either. It was too much. He really meant a lot to Me! Finally, I took him out.

Then I thought, ‘Maybe he did not like the cooking; he did not like the food.’ In the temple, they offer food to the deities every day. I thought that the food was actually eaten by the deities every day, so I went straight to the temple cook. I asked the cook, “Will you give Me a little food for My Ganesha?” He said, “Why only a little food? Take a lot!”

He gave Me a lot of it. I brought it home and said, “See! I have brought you the same diet which you eat in the temple every day! Now there is no reason, no excuse…come on, eat!” 

The ‘click’ happens!

One nice thing with śraddhā is, even if you start with kutarka (negative logic), the power of trust is such, the power of śraddhā is such, that it will turn the whole thing to vitarka – right logic, because ‘trust’ is not just energy or logic, it is intelligence!

Even with inauthenticity, if you take responsibility and enrich, I tell you, the cosmos will appear as the Guru and give you the shift towards authenticity. 

The Cosmos finally gave Me that click. At that moment, the inner awakening happened in Me, “Maybe something is wrong inside Me.”

I realized that Nambiyandar Nambi, the boy-saint who made Ganesha eat, had tortured himself, not Ganesha. He sacrificed himself! Here, I was torturing Ganesha, not Myself! That was the inauthenticity. I had to take the responsibility. I could not be constantly putting the blame on others! With this strong click, the kutarka became vitarka. The wrong reasoning became right reasoning. Suddenly, I realized, “Yes!” And I turned and looked in, understanding that the problem must be within Me. Let Me work on it.

Then I decided, “I am not going to eat till Ganesha eats.” It was a strong will, authenticity. I brought the food again and arranged everything. One day passed – and the food was still there! I was very strong about no question of Myself eating. Again, the second day also passed. I was very strong. See, usually, for a small boy, without food, naturally the logic will become imbalanced; the willpower will come down. But I said, “Nothing doing. I am going to do it. I am not going to eat till he eats.” 

We both sat. I did not have the doubt or the desire or the temptation of: “It’s OK, I will eat.” No! It was ‘sitting with authenticity’.

The third day… the explosion happens!

Maybe on the third day, I touched the zone where trust and vitarka – right reasoning – both became part of My very bio-memory, My very system. That is when the explosion happened! I could see very clearly that My mind had risen to the level of Bhāva Samādhi – the zone where solid is not solid, liquid is not liquid. It is like when ice and water meet and melt…that zone, neither formless, nor the physical form…Suddenly, I can say, I fell into some state, surely not unconsciousness, and I saw very clearly – Ganesha sitting in front of Me and eating! I have to tell you the truth: when I opened My eyes and saw, I promise, there was no food. The food had disappeared!

In whatever way you want to understand it, you can understand it, but the food was not there. And I know Ganesha ate it. People with kutarka might say, “Who knows, when you were closing your eyes, some rat could have come and eaten it!” Whether Ganesha ate it, or his rat ate it, let the kutarkis (people with negative logic) think about it! I know for sure: Ganesha ate it!

Āpta Pramāṇa (Scriptural Reference) for Authenticity possessing a person
and its consequent powerful manifestation, taken from the experience of young Nachiketa in the Kāṭhopaniṣad.

तँह कुमारँसन्तं दक्षिणासु 

नीयमानासुश्रद्धाविवेश सोऽमन्यत ॥ २

taṁ ha kumāraṁ santaṁ dakṣiṇāsu
nīyamānāsu śraddhāviveśa so’manyata || 1.1.2 ||

• Katha Upanishad, Verse 1.1.2

TRANSLATION: As the gifts were being carried and distributed for the sacred offerings (to the priests and assembled Brāhmaṇas) by his father, śraddhā – authenticity – entered into him, Naciketā, that young boy, and filled his inner-space and took possession of him [śraddhā-āviveśa]. From the space of authenticity, he thought deeply.

I experience the prāsāda he gave Me! 

When Ganesha eats what you offer, he gives you some prāsāda (sacred gift); he gives you some benefits, some boons. Strong trust and extraordinary ecstasy are the prāsāda, the gifts or boons that I received. If I have received the prāsāda, it means he has eaten! The whole being was in ecstasy! As a three-year-old boy, this experience gave Me such strong confidence and courage in the inner world. When I looked in, I got it: even God comes down to fulfill our request!

What I had was Samprajñāta Samādhi (being one with a Divine form) with Ganesha. He came out and started eating – that is called Samprajñāta Samādhi, one level of Samādhi. It is like a spiritual experience with the form of a deity, with a form of Existence.