Prayer to Lord Ganesha

Guruji's teaching, word for word

oṃ gaṇānāṃ tvā gaṇapatiṃ havāmahe kaviṃ kavīnām
upamaśravastamam
jyeṣṭharājaṃ brahmaṇāṃ brahmaṇaspata
ā naḥ śṛṇvan ūtibhiḥ
sīda sādanam

śrī mahāgaṇapataye namaḥ

Gaṇa means a group. We offer our homage in the form of ghee oblations to you. You are the leader of the groups, all the groups that form this world. There are different sets of objects and knowledge about them. All these groups are controlled by Gaṇapati. Among these groups are those which form our limitations. They are related to our security center, the Mūlādhāra chakra. To all those groups of entities which tend to limit us, we offer our oblations to you: our fears, anxieties, neuroses, lust, greed, all these things. Oblations means the pouring of the ghee into the fire. When you offer your homage to the lord of these groups, all negativities which control your day-to-day interactions and behavior patterns and programming, then what you get is to be a kavi, a poet. You become a poet. Poetry is more of the heart than intellect. It transcends rationality. That is its beauty and goodness. It can transcend the limitations of rational thought and thus express the transcendent, which cannot be confined to rational explanations.

There is a saying in Telugu: “If the poet cannot see, can the sun see then?” It means the poet's penetration into the truth is far superior to the penetration of the earth by the sun's light. You become a poet by understanding your true nature. The nice thing about this is that the poet is able to look at the good and the bad, and find the humor in the situation in a dispassionate way. He does not decry or praise one thing or the other. He sees the things as they are in their true perspective. Gaṇeśa is the jyeṣṭharāja, the first one to be worshipped, because he is the one who creates the obstacles for you and your growth, in the form of fear, sensations, etc. That is the starting point. You have got to first offer your oblations and be with him and understand his nature and become humorous about it. When you find you cannot change the world because it is corrupt, you have to laugh it off and that is it. Otherwise you will be weighed down by the worries and the anxieties of the world with your good intentions. The humor is the last resort of compassion.

Suppose you go to a far-off place. Bus after bus has come and everything is full and you have not been able to get a place on any bus and the last bus has come and you have struggled to get in and you did not get in. Your last hope is extinguished. And then what happens? You start singing and then walking the 20 miles back home! You are able to get the second breath of life which comes to you from the depths of your deepest frustrations and anxieties. The compassionate humor comes to you from accepting the inevitability of things as they are.

You are invoking Lord Gaṇapati. ā naḥ śṛṇvan – please come and listen to us. And please give us your grace – sīda sādanam.

From the teachings of Sri Amritananda Natha Saraswati (Guruji). Original post: "USCP (1998): Prayer to Lord Gaṇeśa", 19 April 2016, https://amritananda-natha-saraswati.blogspot.com/2016/04/uscp-prayer-to-lord-ganesha.html. From Guruji's book, shared on his blog.