Celebrating Ganesha Chaturhi with a little story!

In honour of Ganesha Chaturhi, the time when we celebrate the Elephant headed God; Lord Ganesha, here is a little story of when he as a small boy learnt lessons on kindness and ahimsa; non-violence. 

“One day the elephant-headed little boy-god named Ganesha went off to play in the woods of Mount Kailasa where he lived.  He was a mischievous little boy and he especially loved to run and play and sometimes pretend he was a warrior.

One day he took out his play bow and arrows, ‘what can I hunt?’ he thought.  He spotted his little white cat and immediately pursued it.  He shot his play arrows at the cat, and the cat run off terrified.  But Ganesha thought that the cat was having fun.  So Ganesha searched for it and found the little cat shaking in fear behind a tree.

‘Aha! I found you,’ he cried, and again shot arrows at the cat.  But the little cat ran off.  Once again Ganesha found the cat under a log and this time he pounced on the cat, rolled with it in the mud and tossed her up into the air.  But the cat ran away and Ganesha couldn’t find her again and so went back home.  When he got there he saw his mother, the Goddess Parvati.  He stopped in his tracks when he saw that she had mud stains on her face and hands and scratches on her arms.  ‘Mother what happened to you?’ he asked.  Parvati looked at herself and said: ‘I don’t know, did you do this to me?’ 

‘ME? Why NO!’ Ganesha exclaimed, but then looked down at his feet and thought ‘but I was a bit rough playing with our cat today.’

‘Oh,’ said his mother as she gathered him up into her arms.  ‘Now I understand.  You know Ganesha I am this whole world.  My body is this whole earth.  Anytime you do anything to it you also do it to me.  You see I am that little cat too, so anything you did to it, you also did to me.’

‘I understand now mother, my actions really do matter.’

‘Yes,’ answered Parvati, ‘it is impossible not to do any harm to everything, but we can be very aware of out actions, so that we do as little harm as possible.’

Ganesha thanked his mother for his lesson and went off again to make peace with the cat and play gently this time!

It’s nice to hear stories no matter how old we are, to remind us and to make us smile. They are a way to link ourself with the story and through the story with the wider world, I hope it brought a smile for you too and it’s a story you will share with your family. 

JAI GANESHA JAI  to the one full of wisdom and strength, to the one we honour before all to help us to remove all the obstacles that we face.

Have wonderful days let us increase our compassion, strength, wisdom and focus.

Om Shantih

Mangala / Nicky.