Ganesh Chaturthi – The festival of elephant headed God It is the time of the year when we enjoy yummy modaks, ladoos and other sweets, scrumptious meals and visit pandals to see different idols of Ganpatis, Yes, Bappa is here again!!!
Ganesh Chaturthi is a Hindu Festival celebrated to the honor of the elephant headed God- Lord Ganesha’s Birthday. He is the second son of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati. Lord Ganesh is known by 108 different names and is also considered as the Lord of arts and sciences and the deva of wisdom.
He is worshipped and honored as the God of beginnings before any ritual, good venture or ceremony as he is considered as a vighnaharta (one who removes obstacles). A small story of Ganesha and the fruit” Sage Narada, known for being mischievous, visited lord Shiva and paravati with a fruit in his hand. Narada wanted to see who among Ganesha and Kartikeya (Ganesha’s elder brother) was wiser. He gave the fruit to Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati citing that the fruit is very special. It is sweeter than the nectar of the Gods and whoever eats would become wise and learned. Shiva was about to cut the fruit and give the half of it to Parvati, Narada stopped as he said that the fruit has to be eaten by one person only. If its cut or shared, it would lose its value. Lord Shiva and Goddess Paravati did not want to eat something without sharing with each other.When the two children, Karthikeya and Ganesha arrived, both wanted to eat the fruit. To pacify the situation, they decided to hold a competition between both the brothers, the winner of which would receive the fruit. Sage Narada suggested that “Whoever goes around the world three times and returns first would be the winner”. One seeing this , Kartikeya knew there was no way that Ganesha could win this , so without saying anything he ran to his peacock and started his flight around the world. Ganesha was perturbed, he knew he could not run faster than his brother and neither could his mouse match the speed of the Kartikeya’s peacock. He was wondering what to do whilst and idea struck him. Meanwhile Kartikeya after circling the world three times came home to claim the fruit, he saw the fruit in his brother’s hands. Bewildered Kartikeya turned to his mother “How did Ganesha complete the race first? It was sage Narada who replied “Ganesha said that Shiva and Parvati were his parents and were his whole world. He requested them to stand together and circled around them three times”
In this case “Lord Ganesha used his wisdom to emerge as a winner”
"Many a times, we fall in the trap of excessive hard work. Without giving things any further thought, we immediately take the task into our hands and set forth to completing it. We fail to realize that there can be multiple ways of accomplishing something and surprisingly, some of them can be very simple and fast. Hard work to smart work only means a shift from more physical efforts to more creative efforts, more presence of mind, having wider knowledge and leveraging all resources effectively."
We hope you remember this hidden message from Lord Ganesha’s small deed.
A very Happy Ganesh Chaturthi – From Team Vikay!!