Even the elephant rests though. Even, in a sense, circles the wagons metaphorically speaking. So even retreat is necessary, and that’s where the inner part of applied theurgy comes in regarding Ganesha. Ganesha can serve as a yidam.
Are you familiar with the yidam? Know how the yidam is discovered? Ever notice when you meditate, you often have personal figures pop up in your imagination? These are not unique to you, but nor are they entirely universal.
Care to share the general nature or character of the persons that emerge during your meditation? Have you noticed your meditation characters tend to share a mood in common?
Sometimes rock like beings. Sometimes they are erotic. Never anything other than a benevolent character?
Once in a while there will be a demon. Smiling? Aggressive?
Yes, I think so, smiling. I suspect not aggressive.
There are three general domains of yidam; benevolent, wrathful, and neutral. Your yidam would be among the benevolent. Meditation characters for me tend to be frowning, scowling, angry even bearing teeth, very aggressive. I even have erotic imagery which is also itself aggressive. They say that you experience characters that are necessary for your personal awakening. So in your case, is it fair to say you tend to see many people as being cold and selfish?
Yes. Thus benevolent beings show up while you meditate. They insinuate realization that you have experienced but don’t yet understand. You are likely very suspicious of any behaviour you see as strongly persuasive or seductive. Is this not so?
Yes. For myself, I tend to see many people as being dull, dead emotionally, apathetic, so my meditational figures act out the big dramas of human desire for me.
Now the initial figures you experience in meditation are Maya, illusion, but they point to a greater spirit. This greater spirit is your yidam, or can be if you take up this path of yoga, also known as theurgy. What they have done is notice the behaviour of a universal character, even shades or facets of that universal character, so your personal yidam may be one of the six different degrees of Kevin Bacon.
I will take a stab at it. Do you find a nagging voice often tells you to be nice!
Well, not a voice, but I do know that that is one source of personal power. Yes, and I didn’t mean literal voice, that tends to be a brain dysfunction, usually very hard for the person so gifted to deal with, and in their cases usually a collection of cacodaemons. Do you find a strange urging to savour peoples sorrow?
Sometimes. I am describing the facets of the goddess of compassion.
It can get draining though. Ah yes, she’s a succubus. Lilith in an angry face, but Lilith doesn’t seek you. Nepthys maybe, from Egyptian lore. You likely avoid greaving or yearning as much as you can. Is this true?
Yes. Yes, it’s her.
So Ganesha as yidam… Ganesha attracts those who need to see the world in something other than a materialistic or mechanistic light. Genesha draws those who need to move beyond seeing everything as a hierarchy or means to an end. These people of course are also very enamoured of their perceived social standing and are looking for new means to their very much desired ends. The wildly successful often discover that it fatigues them, even dispirits them. They loose their passion for it. This is the awakening that Ganesha promises.
For all the placing and overcoming of obstacles, you come to understand that you aren’t really getting anywhere. That as Bill Hicks said it’s just a ride, and you either decide to join Ganesha’s dance and have fun with it, or you try to butt heads with Ganesha more aggressively, more bitterly, and well… What do you think would happen if you butt heads with an elephant?
In extreme cases with mortal elephants, they wind up giving the person the ultimate head butt. Literally standing on their foreheads on top of the offending human. Now I call that head butt extreme bad karma and really unnecessary. The elephant doesn’t understand or care that the zoo keeper saw their interactions as just being their job. If anything, that’s a really insulting attitude to take.
What is the symbolism behind the two headed version of Ganesha? Ah, heads represent aspects, visages. Two heads reminds the devotee, or disciple if you prefer, that Ganesha both blocks and removes blockages, and both are to be valued and learned from. Many heads would represent many fields of effort. Some cultures give Ganesha even more than two heads. They are just attempting to express the spirit of Ganesha as they know him.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~