GUARDIAN OF MULTITUDES- LORD GANESHA

One of the purest form of love is Devotion. Often devotion to virtue arises from sated desires. Like the great Jaggi Vasudev quoted, "Devotion is not about a God. Devotion is about you making your emotions so sweet that your life experience becomes beautiful ", people in India, especially Hindus, connects this by the warm yellow celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi. Also known as Vinayaka Chaturthi is a ten days Hindu festival in the month of August or September, welcomes most beloved Lord Ganesha (elephant-headed deity) with the installation of lovely and graceful Ganesha clay idols privately into homes or publicly on pandals. Celebration includes group chanting of aartis (Hindu texts) or Vedic hymns or even music and then making as well as distribution of sweet dishes in form of prasad, mostly Modakas. Last day proceeds with immersion of the lord in nearby water body, with symbolizes the believe that lord Ganesha has returned to Mount Kailash, to his parents, Parvati and Shiva. Celebrated all over Maharashtra and few parts of Goa, Gujarat, Telengana and Chhattisgarh. Also observed in America and Europe by the Indians living there. This auspicious Vinayaka Chaturthi, had a very hard history. It was publicly celebrated and started during the era of Shivaji Maharaj (1630-1680) in Pune, but lost favoritism after his rule. Its revival was then done by Indian freedom fighter and social reformer, Lokmanya Tilak in 1892 in Mumbai (then Bombay) as a protest against the ban on Hindu gatherings by the Britishers. He very well organised massive Sarvajanik Utsav (common celebration), appealing to Ganesha idols. Through means of Ganesha he also eliminated the crack between Brahmins and non-Brahmins. Tilak praised the celebration in his newspaper, Kesari, and committed himself passionately towards god Ganesha after the Hindu-Muslim communal violence in Mumbai as he felt that the British India government under Lord Harris had repeatedly taken sides and not treated Hindus fairly because Hindus reasoning they being unorganized. Through Tilak's devotion, it became popular in rural and urban areas of Pune, Gwalior and Baroda. Tilak expanded this festival with poetry recitals, plays, concerts, folks and dances, each hiding a deep meaning of political activism. Lord Ganesha is blessed by higher deities that whenever he will be praised by humans, all their problems will be His problems and thus eliminating pain from their lives and showering of happiness there after. No doubt due to his sweet round physic and being the "God of success" or the "guardian of multitudes", love and emotions eventually binds with Him in those ten days of each year, increasing to the maximum on His departure (immersion day).

" DON'T TELL GANESHA HOW BIG YOUR PROBLEMS ARE, TELL YOUR PROBLEMS HOW BIG YOUR GANESHA IS."