Why Lord Ganesha Rides a Mooshaka (Mouse) ?

 

 

Every Hindu deity has a Vahana (vehicle). These Vahanas are majorly animals, birds or plants.

First thing to ponder over is why Gods need Vahanas!!

They are celestial beings who can travel anywhere as per their wish, they reach wherever they imagine. Then why the Vahanas!!

Before the human beings came into existence only animals, birds and plants inhabited this earth. When the creation of humans was beings planned, each God had a role to play in giving some part of their divinity to the pool.

But the only obstacle was that all Gods were created without the earth element. 

They are divine or semi divine beings who are made up of space, fire, water or air element or some combination of them. 

But in earthly beings an additional earth element is also present know as Prithvi.

This Prithvi element along with other 4 elements namely Jal, Vayu, Agni and Aakash make up Panch-maha-bhutas. 

We humans beings are made up of Panch Maha Bhutas. Therefore for the Gods to work on creation of human beings they needed some earthly carriers for their energy who could compensate for their absence of earth element.

 

These Vahanas, hence, were not needed by Devta’s to travel within their own space but to travel on earth or similar physical worlds.

In simpler way it could be said that Devta’s are pure energy beings who need a physical being as a medium to travel and work on earth.

Similar to an electric current which needs a copper wire to travel. Like fire needs fuel to express itself.

Therefore each God needs a corresponding medium to make his work possible on earth.

The kind of vehicle they choose depends on their own characteristics, temperament and the energy they carry. Other way round if we know the qualities of the Vahana we can know the qualities of God riding the Vahana.

If we know what the Bull (Nandi) represents we would also know what Shiva energy is like. Similarly, the characteristics of Tiger would tell us how the energy of Devi Durga gets manifested in this world.

 

Now coming to the subject,

Why Lord Ganesha has Mooshaka (mouse) as his Vahana!

Ganesha is the guardian of Mooladhara Chakra. 

Mooladhara Chakra is the lower rung of the cosmic ladder which connects humans to heavens.

Imagine a ladder which connects our being to lord Shiva residing in heaven. The part of our body from where this ladder starts is Mooladhara chakra and the part of ladder which touches the Shiva is Sahasrara Chakra.

In human body this ladder is the spinal cord and at the base resides Ganesha guarding the Mooladhara Chakra and the Shiva resides in our head in Sahasrara Chakra.

Image of MOOLADHARA CHAKRA

 

Image of SAHASRARA CHAKRA

Deep inside the Mooladhara Chakra resides the Devi Parvati in the form of Kundalini Shakti.

 

In a way we can say that Ganesha is guarding the privacy of Devi Parvati.

Let’s say there is a huge tree. On top of that tree resides lord Shiva and deep inside the roots resides Devi Parvati.

Ganesha is someone whose head is outside the soil but body buried within. His job is to see when the Lord Shiva is calling or looking for Devi Parvati he digs deep into that soil, removes all obstacles and clears the path for Devi Parvati to move up without any obstruction and meet her consort Shiva.

Therefore to dig deep and cut open any knots or strong web of roots he needs someone who has sharp teeth to cut through any material and can create a burrow.

The best animal who matches these qualities is the mouse (apart from other qualities which I am not mentioning here for keeping it simple). The mouse therefore carries the energy of Ganesha on its back.

The tree in the above case is an analogy of our body.

Tree is our spinal cord which holds our body. On top resides Shiva and deep down lives Devi Parvati. Roots are our karmic Knots. When our urge to know truth arises, Shiva within us starts awakening. We start searching for answers, our true purpose of life, we start looking for our missing half. Similar to Shiva calling or searching for Parvati.

That moment the Ganesha within us starts his work to make sure the Milan (union) of Parvati and Shiva happens.

For that to happen the Ganesha's mouse needs to cut open all the pending earthly karmic knots. Our pending karma's are like our heavy backlogs which keep us attached to the roots. karma's keep our consciousness buried deep into the darkness of ignorance and makes us suffer. 

 

Therefore Ganesha orders its mouse to cut open the knots of our karma so that the Kundalini is freed from its grips and starts rising up our spine unobstructed and unites with her supreme consciousness, Shiva and Moksha is achieved.

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