Article from Swaha International: "Lord Ganesh and the Mouse"

Hari Om Namaste,

Since today is Ganesh Jayanti (Jan 19th 2010), This is a great article found on Swaha International's site regarding symbolism of Lord Ganesh.

In Hinduism there are many things we see but do not know why they are there. We might see a picture with a small artifact or animal and not know the meaning behind it. Everything in a picture, moorti (religious idol) or sign has great meaning. These meanings hold symbolic references that we can simply relate to in our own lives.

I always come back to the old saying, "Everything happens for a reason", and with symbolism, everything is there for a reason.


Remember, Knowledge is Power.
Please read the below article that is beautifully explained thanks to Swaha International.

Article from Swaha International: "Lord Ganesh and the Mouse":

"When read­ing about Ganesh Baba, one of the terms we come across is ‘mooshak vaa­han’. He is that Lord whose vehi­cle is the mouse. But, how could that Lord who is Vigh­na­har­taa (Remover of Obsta­cles) and Gyaan­daataa (Giver of Knowl­edge) ride upon a mouse? Surely there must be some other crea­ture that will bet­ter reflect His great­ness? Those who sim­ply look at the phys­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Lord, and fail to search deeper into the hid­den sig­nif­i­cances of such a rep­re­sen­ta­tion will never fully under­stand the mes­sage of Ganesh ji. In a sense, they will for­ever remain searching.

The Greedy Mouse

A mouse or rat is per­haps one of the greed­i­est of all ani­mals. It has a small mouth, but with many sharp teeth. Its greed and cov­etous nature is such that it steals much more than it can pos­si­bly con­sume – hoard­ing what it can­not eat – and often times, for­get­ting all about the hoarded food. It is said that this mouse of Shree Ganesh rep­re­sents desire. Just like the mouse, with its relent­less acquis­i­tive­ness, so too in the mind of man, there are a mul­ti­tude of desires. Much more desires that can, or in fact should, real­is­ti­cally be ful­filled. Devo­tees engage in reg­u­lar wor­ship to the Divine Lord; and, the bless­ings that we derive from such wor­ship are what keep us grow­ing in spir­i­tu­al­ity. But, once we let our crav­ings over­come us, when we become slaves to our desires, then, we are doing our­selves a great disservice.

Baba’s Mouse

The mouse of Ganesh Baba, how­ever, is quite dif­fer­ent. The mouse is sit­ting in front a bowl of lad­doos, yet it does not touch it. Instead it either appears to be offer­ing it to the Lord, or seek­ing the per­mis­sion of the lord before con­sum­ing it. This sig­ni­fies that the desires in an enlight­ened man must be totally under con­trol. Ganesh ji blesses us with vivek, that power of dis­crim­i­na­tion, which allows us to make the right choices in life. The Lord dis­plays com­plete dom­i­nance over these desires that cause regres­sion in life. When we have the grace of Shree Ganesh Bhag­vaan, then we will be capa­ble of dis­tin­guish­ing between our wants and our needs. In this way we will not be moti­vated by emo­tional crav­ing, but rather by sound judge­ment. The only desires that we will enter­tain are the desire to do good and the desire to move closer towards God.

Greater Rewards

If we go a lit­tle deeper, we will under­stand that Ganesh Baba is the Lord of the mulad­haara chakra, while the lad­doo that rep­re­sents the reward that may be bestowed upon us, can be real­ized only at the sahasra chakra. Think of the action of a mouse, slowly gnaw­ing away until it bites through even the tough­est of fibres. The sym­bol­ism here is that the mouse with the Lord seated upon it will slowly gnaw through the tan­gled con­scious­ness of man until the Kun­dalini Shakti reaches the sahasra chakra, where the reward awaits the true devotee. " - Source: http://www.swahainternational.org/religious-articles/lord-ganesh-and-the-mouse/

Hari Om,
Jai Shri Ganesha,