Spiritual Questions - Part 6 (Birth of Vinaayaka)

Q. In the Vinaayakotpatti - Birth of Vinaayaka: I feel that there is completely an esoteric meaning and it goes like this. If we consider Parvati as Prakruti and Shiva as Purusha, then Vinayaka who is made by Parvati/Prakruti will not recognize Shiva/Purusha which could be the ego and Shiva removes that head - ego of Vinayaka and gives him the head of Elephant. What do you say?

A. Your thought process is on the right track. Let us slightly go into it in a more detailed way.

The story goes as follows:
Parvati makes an idol with flour/mud (actually from the dirt of her own body) and puts life into it. After placing life into it, She keeps the idol on guard and tells him to not let any one in and She goes to have a bath to get ready to greet Shiva.

When Shiva comes and tries to enter Kailasa (His abode), He is not allowed inside by Vinaayaka and out of anger He slews the head of Vinaayaka and after persuasion of Parvati, He bestows the head of an Elephant (which is the head of Gajaasura).

Now let us look into the meanings of these names.
vinAyaka (विनायक) = one of the meanings is remover
but when we look at the same word as an adjective the various meanings are = removing, impediment, obstacle
Parvati (पार्वती) = of Parvata or of mountain
Shiva (शिवा) = Final emancipation
kailaasa (कैलास) = particular form of temple

Now let us look into the esoteric meaning behind this story.
Consider Paarvati as prakruti or nature as you said. So the nature creates an image Vinaayaka (by the help of Trigunas) and tells it to guard so that unwanted elements are prevented to enter its abode. Considering Vinaayaka as ego, ego does not realize that Shiva is not an unwanted element but is the Master of Prakruti (husband of Paarvati) and He (Bliss) is the One which Paarvati/Prakruti (in this case the aspiratnt) is always waiting for so that She gets emancipated.

So, when a human being is born - it is the ego that rules the human being and thinking that he is the one who can stop everyone entering into its mind, he stops the thought of emancipation also because of the ignorance and gives high importance to the external nature there by he makes merry only with the nature. To get emancipated the ego has to be removed and by getting the elephant face one's perception of the nature completely changes. Let us look into this incident also. The elephant face is not the real face of Vinaayaka. When we reverse the word gaja (गज), we get jaga (जग) which means world. So, the elephant face tells us about the temporariness of this world.

So, in the vinaaykotpatti (विनायकोत्पत्ति) we have to understand that the world is temporary and should not listen to the external nature completely. We have to overcome all kinds of external nature's influence on our mind which have become as impediments from attaining liberation and let in the zeal for emancipation or mumukshtvam (मुमुक्षत्वं)- the yearning zeal for liberation so that we attain final emancipation.

An aspirant understands the transitoriness of the external world goes within and after performing intense saadhana awakens Kundalini in a highly regulated manner and goes beyond the avasthatraya (the trifold nature of the world) and finally gets emancipated. This is the esoteric meaning of birth of Vinaayaka.

After getting the elephant face Vinaayaka He is called as Gajaanana (गजानन) and after obtaining ganaadhipatyam (गणाधिपत्यं) He becomes Ganapati (गणपति). We can learn more about Ganapati in Ganapati Upanishat which clearly says, Ganapati is the one who abodes the coccygeal center or the moolaadhaara chakra and when an aspirant follows the yogic method how Ganapati becomes everything, in turn how a human being can attain liberation.

Some day we will look into Ganapati Upanishat also.