Sri Ganapati Vinayaka-Part III

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Continued From Part II

In the representation of Sri Vinayaka we always find a mouse sitting in the midst of the beautiful, fragrant ready-made food, but if you observe closely, you will find that the poor mouse is sitting looking up at the Lord, shivering with anticipation, but not daring to touch anything without His command. And now and then He allows the mouse to eat.

A mouse is a small animal with tiny teeth and, yet, in a barn of grain a solitary mouse can bring disastrous losses by continuously gnawing and nibbling at the grain. Similarly, there is a "mouse" within each personality, which can eat away even a mountain of merit in it, and this mouse is the power of desire. The man of perfection is one who has so perfectly mastered this urge to acquire, possess and enjoy this self-annihilating power of desire, that it is completely held in obedience to the will of the Master. And yet, when the Master wants to play His part in blessing the world, He rides upon the mouse - meaning the desire to serve the world becomes His vehicle to move about and act.

The Puranas tell us how once Sri Vighneswara, while riding His mouse, was thrown down and the Moon laughed at the comic sight. It is said in the Puranas that the great-bellied Lord Vinayaka looked at the Moon and cursed that nobody would ever look at it on that day - Vinayaka Chathurthi. When a man of perfection (Vinayaka) moves about in the world, riding on his insignificant -looking vehicle, the "desire" to serve (mouse), the gross intellect of the world (Moon- the Presiding Deity of the Intellect) would be tempted to laugh at such prophets and seers.

Sri Vighneswara, has four arms representing the four inner equipments (antahkarana). In one hand He has a rope, in another an axe. With the axe, He cuts off the attachments of His devotees to the world of plurality and thus ends all the consequent sorrows, and with the rope, pulls them nearer and nearer to the Truth, and ultimately ties them down to the Highest Goal. In his third hand He holds a rice ball (modaka) representing the reward of the joys of sadhana which He gives His devotees. With the other hand He blesses all His devotees and protects them from all obstacles in their spiritual path of seeking the supreme.

On the spiritual pilgrimage, all the obstacles are created by the very subjective and objective worlds in the seeker himself; his attachment to the world of objects, emotions and thoughts, are alone his obstacles.

Sri Vighneswara chops them off with the axe and holds the attention of the seeker constantly towards the higher goal with the rope that He has in His left hand. En route He feeds the seeker with the modaka (the joy of satisfaction experienced by the evolving seeker of Reality) and blesses him continuously with greater and greater progress, until at last the man of perfection becomes Himself the Sri Vighneswara!

The above three or four examples should clearly bring to your mind the art employed by Vyasa in his mystical word paintings. It must be evidently clear to all sensitive thinkers that the representations given in the various symbolisms are not as many different Deities, but they are vivid pen portraits of the subjective Truth described in the Upanishadic lore.

The student must have the subtle sensitivity of a poet, the ruthless intellect of a scientist, and the soft heart of the beloved, in order to enter the enchanted realm of mysticism created by the poet-seer, Vyasa. To the crude intellect and its gross understanding, these may look ridiculous; but art can be fully appreciated only by hearts that have art in them. When we review the Puranas with at least a cursory knowledge of Vedanta, they cannot but strike us as extremely resonant with the clamouring echoes of the Upanishadic melody.