The Eternal Order

People have always looked up to someone in their life to follow in their footsteps. It can be their own parents, one of the relatives who are close to them, or friends. It can be anyone. But very few people look up to God as their source of inspiration and role-model! Because according to us, God is very high up there, with whom we cannot compare ourselves with. He/She is someone whom we run to only when we face troubles in our life. So we rarely remember God all the time.

Hindus have millions of Gods, or so we claim. It is always confusing to the youths when they see people putting in so much faith in so many Hindu Gods, and that too at the same time. Each and everyone of us have different "favourite" God (Ishta Devata). Where did all these God characters like Shiva, Vishnu, Ganesha, Muruga, Durga, Kali all come from? From our scriptures of course.
Rig, Yajur, Sama, Atharva Vedas - Mention of 44 Vedic Gods such as Agni, Vayu, Varuna, etc.
Agamas - Mention of Mahadevas and Mahadevis under three main sects: Shaiva, Vaishnava, Shakta
Puranas - Mention of Devas and Devis such as Ganesha, Muruga, etc... Devas are also Gods with specific functions/duties, but Mahadeva/devi is the supreme to them.
So it is in the Puranas and the Agamas which have the mention of these Gods we know about. Their stories are extensively described in our Puranas. So, why were they created? I mean, they don't really exist, as they are only representations of God, but in various different forms. But think about it, why would our Rishis waste their time sitting around and creating these images, if not to teach us some important values through them?
As the saying goes, Hindus don't pray to idols, they pray to the ideals that the idols represent. Similarly each idol in the Temple we worship has an ideal to it, and many people are ignorant about it. Once they become aware of why one prays to Kali, for example, their prayer becomes meaningful.

Ganesha - Remover of obstacles, giver of knowledge.


Rope and axe in both hands - He is the one who binds us to sense-objects and He is also the one who detaches us from the sense-objects. He gives us this experience to remind us that attachment to sense-objects (something that binds you emotionally to a thing) gives us only misery.

Lots of sweets (modaka) - The sweets represent knowledge. Knowledge is sweet and gives you happiness, as it removes your ignorance. When the darkness in your mind is removed, you will not fear anything, and so you will be in peace. Peace = happiness.

Mouse eating sweet - The mouse represents the human mind, something which doesn't remain in one place. Just like our thoughts, which keep moving and never stopping in one place. But the mouse, in the presence of the God, remains in one place, still. Not only that, we also see it here as eating the sweet, meaning consuming knowledge given by God.

A very interesting passage for your reading pleasure:

What is to be done and what is not to be done, what is proper and not proper - these things you already know, of course, because you have a certain innate sense about them. No one can plead ignorance of what is right and wrong. This knowledge is universal.

What do you mean by universal knowledge? All monkeys, for example, born to live on treetops, need to know something about the law of gravity - and they do. Ifyou were to observe the mother monkey, yo would see that she has no concern about whether there is a baby holding onto her or not as she jumps from tree to tree. The baby monkey, however, holds onto its mother's bosom for its dear life. It is definitely afraid of falling, whereas the mother is not. She just keeps leaping from one branch to another, while her baby holds on tight.

Suppose, however the baby monkey had to undergo some education to know that there is a law of gravity operating, that it must hold on tightly in order not to fall, and that it if did fall, it would be injured or it would die. If all of these hings had to be taught to monkeys, many of them would die for want of education and the species itself would sooner or later become extinct.

Fortunately, every baby monkey, without being educated, seems to know what is done and what is not to be done. Without going to Harvard or Cornell, without joining the Moral Majority, it knows very well that 'I will fall if I let go of my mother.' That 'I will fall; is one piece of truth and 'if I fall, I may hurt myself' is the second piece of truth the monkey seems to know. The third piece of truth is, 'To fall and get hurt or be killed is not good forme or for my species.'

Instinctively, then, the monkey knows all this. Since monkeys are made to live on treetops, the minimum knowledge every monkey must have in order to survive is to know, 'I will fall; objects come down; I will be the victim if I don't hold on to the other branch when I leap.' This knowledge must be given to monkeys along with the creation. Only then is there any hope of a monkey living its life on the treetops.

Such knowledge is instinctive and is what we call the creation. If that knowledge is not given to a monkey and it has to be educated in order to know how to survive, then I would say that there is a defect in the creation.

Similarly, as a human being, I am born with a faculty of choice. Unlike a monkey, however, I can choose to live on treetops, on the 20th floor of a building in Manhattan, or in a cottage on some riverbank. I can choose to go to Alaska and keep only my nose out or I can live in the tropics. Because I have the faculty of choice, I can choose my course of action. I can choose various ends and various means to achieve those ends.

That human beings seek securities and pleasures is a common fact that we have already analysed. And in seeking these ends, they have to follow certain means to achieve them. More often than not, upon analysis you will find that the problems lie only in the means and not in the ends.

(For example, stealing in order to provide for the family. The end is 'providing for the family', which is not wrong. But the means, 'stealing', is wrong.)

This passage is interesting because it shows that we have a naturally in-built consensus of what is right and what is wrong.

Yaa shraddha dhaaranaa medhaa vaagdevi vidhivallabha