4. Ganesha Abhishekam/Puja Sadhana
Attend a Ganesha puja or abhishekam in Kadavul Temple. Afterwards, strive to experience each in turn of the five shaktis of Lord Ganesha. First feel, tune into, the vibration of the shakti in the Ganesha murti. Next feel the vibration of that shakti within you. §
A summary of the five shaktis: (one) creating harmony in the home, (two) concord among relatives, neighbors and friends, (three) good business and public relations, (four) cultural upliftment and (five) love of God and heartfelt charity.§
Quote from Gurudeva§
To bring religion into one’s life requires the worship of Lord Ganesha and the daily tuning into these five great shaktis. This worship brings harmony to our home, to our relatives and friends and to business associates. It brings culture, creativity and religion into our life. All this is crowned by such a heartfelt love of God that we can then give forth. We are allowed to perform charities and, in overflowing abundance, prepare the religious edifices for the next generation. This is what our daily pujas and meditation, our pilgrimages and other religious practices serve to manifest in our lives.§
Supplementary Reading§
Loving Ganesha, Chapter Three: Ganesha’s Five Powers§
Come, now let us turn our hearts and minds to the five powers of Lord Ganesha. Devotees have asked for elucidation of the five profound ways this Great God functions in helping us from the inner worlds. For many Hindus in both the East and the West it is this understanding of the five powerful positive powers, or shaktis, of Lord Ganesha and their five powerful asuric counterforces that makes religion a working part of the devotee’s life and a stabilizing force within the extended family—which embraces kindred, friends, community elders and close business associates. This knowledge and practical experience has helped them understand just how intimately Lord Ganesha works with each of us every day in even our mundane life.§
There are five great shaktis of Lord Ganesha, as He Himself explained. Their positive vibratory rates can be felt through your astral and physical body and should always be with you. “What is this shakti?” you may be wondering. It is being in the presence of Divinity. All holy men and women emanate all of these shaktis, and you can, too, some stronger than others. Shakti is divine radiation from the Third World through the Second World into the First. The astral body is in the Second World and lives inside the physical body. It is through the astral body that shakti is felt. The shakti comes from the Third World and permeates the astral body in the Second World. This is why the physical body sometimes seems to feel “filled up” with shakti from deep within, permeating out to the inside of our skin. Deeply awakened souls become so filled with the shakti of the Divine that it permeates as cosmic rays out through the skin to the perimeter of the aura, the colorful film of light that surrounds the body. It is felt by other people and attributed as a personal darshana.§
Thus it can be said that Lord Ganesha has five aspects to His presence. Feeling the presence of the benevolent and beneficent Deity Ganesha everywhere is the exemplary example of what each soul wishes to attain. His five powers could well be called “the feet of the Lord,” for it is at these feet that we sit and worship, bringing harmony to our home, among our relatives and friends and business associates, bringing culture, creativity and religion into our life. Crowned by a heartfelt love of God that we then give forth, we are then allowed to perform charities and, in overflowing abundance, prepare the religious edifices for the next generation. Experiencing this personally will take daily meditation.§
THE FIRST SHAKTI: The first shakti emanates the feeling of love and compassion that the good person naturally has for his or her immediate family. Love and harmony within the nuclear or joint family is most important to all Hindus, and the beautiful feeling when it exists is the first shakti of the Lord. If love abounds in the home and virtue prevails, the home is perfect and its end fulfilled.§
THE SECOND SHAKTI: The second shakti is the same feeling but extended to relatives, neighbors and friends, all who are part of the extended family. This is more difficult to hold, as inharmonious conditions often arise. These are called asuric forces, which come between people, causing misunderstanding and upsets. Through prayers and through worship, the first shakti can be extended beyond the circumference of the immediate family to include acquaintances, relatives and friends. When this vibration of harmony is felt, all the power of the Lord is with you, as the first shakti and the second shakti merge, bringing in abundance the onrush of the third shakti.§
THE THIRD SHAKTI: The third shakti of Lord Ganesha is this same love extended to all persons one has dealings with in the external world: business associates, a casual merchant and the public at large. It is honest and harmonious relationships in conducting the business of trade and dealings in goods, finance and the distribution of the wealth of the world. This is a most important vibration to be felt, and constantly felt. This shakti of the Lord is tenuous to hold onto, for worldly and materialistic forces, as you well know, militate against this kind of harmony. But once these lower powers are conquered, worries cease, concerns are alleviated and heartfelt joy comes. Such is the grace of loving Ganesha. As the Tirukural (120) declares, “Those businessmen will prosper whose business protects as their own the interests of others.”§
THE FOURTH SHAKTI: The fourth shakti is an outpouring from having held fast to the first three. It is a combination of the first two shaktis, stabilized by the third. The fourth shakti of Lord Ganesha brings through the creative-intuitive mind—the love of culture and all that it brings, religious formalities and the respect and appreciation of discipline. Here we find the vibration of religion, which brings as a boon creativity in music, art, drama and the dance. It is through these refining rays that religious life is adhered to and congested forces are braided together in a harmonious pattern for a glorious future. It is through the fourth shakti that religious practices are performed consistently and the refinements of the past are carried into the future. It also extends to devotion toward one’s ancestors and all forms of positive community participation.§
THE FIFTH SHAKTI: The fifth shakti of Lord Ganesha is the combination of the first and the third in vibration, and it extends into the wonderful feelings obtained by the outpouring of love of this God. Loving Lord Ganesha with all your heart and soul is the combined merging of these five shaktis. This gives the added boon of being able to be charitable; for those who love God perform charity, build shrines and temples and participate in the overflowing generosity from their resources, earning abundant punya, fine merit, accrued for this life and passed on to the next. We can see that harmony within the immediate family and harmony extended to all business associates creates the spiritual dynamic within the individual and the group to burst forth into loving this benign God and receiving His material, emotional, intellectual and spiritual abundance.§
Additional Resources §
Loving Ganesha, Chapter Three: Ganesha’s Five Powers§
