Why is Ganesha now coming back, more so in recent
times, then, say two or three decades before.
Three or four decades before Ganesha, when I was living
in India particularly in Tamil Nadu where I was born and raised, Ganesh Chaturthi, the
birthday of Ganesha was celebrated in a very very small
scale but today it has picked up.
I happened to be there during Ganesh Chaturthi in India.
It has become like a big celebration all over India with huge
humongous statues of Ganesha on this day and as a phenomenologist of religion, I know why
this is happening so because it is Ganesha’s time.
Periodically a certain deity comes to prominence and that is also the deity’s decision to
be more available to the people and this is Ganesha’s
time.
So this is on the level of what Ganesha wants to do
for the world, and particularly to India.
On a personal level, why am I so much interested, apart from Ganesha I would not have even dared
to do this one because all day long today I was
out of time and then after I had made this announcement
that Im not going to do any work and then Ganesha says, “You have to do this.”
Particularly because, its not a coincidence I think that I happened
to watch one of the TED Talks by this gentleman, Devdutt
Patnaik and who has been using mythology to interpret business management.
And as a matter of fact, I have a student of mine from Harvard Business
School, a very successful person in San Francisco.
And then it is in her house that I happened to see one of Devdutt Patnaik’s book on
business sutra.
And then it was an interesting thing that I did
not go into the book, just skipped through.
But later on when I was staying in Swamimalai in a resort of one
of my students Steve who happens to be the hotelier and
owns that resort too and he gave me a book of Devdutt Patnaik and I happen to read on
Ganesha and also accidentally today I made the announcement
to the management I have watched the Devdutt Pattnaik talking to a TED talk.
He was talking about the mythology of Ganesha and management.
And he was referring to the story of the competition
between Ganesha and his younger brother Subramania or Muruga as he is called in Tamil.
Its a very interesting way to introduce Gods and Goddesses to contemporary Indian audience
and westerners as well in a non threatening way.
And also in a way to mainline-ize these mythological ideas, mainline-zation is a very important
concept because it will contemporarize traditional understanding and wisdom.
So I had to go back to why I got interested in Ganesha now on a personal basis, that’s
where I started.
Its because Im now running Ketu Bhukti in the Venus Sasha and whenever you are under
Ketu’s influence then you always have a connection
with Ganesha.
So suddenly objects came in my life like this mala I have which is cats eye which is
a stone sacred for Ketu and it just came to me and it was
lying there in the office and I just picked it up.
Then statues of Ganesha started to appear, and actually
this particular statute that was basic of Ganesha’s crystal one that inspired me to
do this video.
I think this particular presentation of mine because of Ganesha’s blessing is helping
me not to be frustrated over the fact that Im being involved
in time and I hate skipping up until now.
Ever since I started talking, I have been feeling no time
at all, which is pretty good.