om shri gaNeshaaya namaH

Bow to Ganesha who removes all the obstacles in our progress. Bow to Shankara who could write such beautiful poems about the clearest form of absolute.

The essence of Ganesha story is the son of paarvathi and parameshvara stopping their meeting. Shiva removes the head and reattaches it on the request of paarvathi. Ganesha becomes a symbol of brahman.

The symbolism is very easy to see. The jIva, which thinks that Ishvara is different from prakRiti and makes an effort to stop them (and falsely siding with prakRiti), has to be removed of his ego. This is the meaning of the beheading. The jIva without ego is not interesting to prakRiti. She wants an ego, not necessarily the small i, which seemingly sides with her. But some I. But when Ishvara as guru gives an ego, it has to be the universal ego, the I, and never ever the i. That is symbolic of the size of the new head. Also, Ishvara only has to give jIva the parA-vidya. This alone makes the i turn into I. This makes the jIva as brahman. Ganesha becomes Ishvara.

Notes

1: prakRiti did not instruct the jIva to stop the Ishvara. She only instructed the jIva to be at the door (meaning at the boundary of jagat). The prakRiti obviously knows that she a part of Ishvara, symbolic of the artha-naarIshvara form.

2. It is the jIva that erroneously created a barrier between both of prakRiti and Ishvara. (dvaitins come under this category!!!). It is the jIva that falsely thought that prakRiti and Ishvara are different and tried to separate them. From when did this superimposition start? Refer Shankara's exclamation at the beginning of His BSB commentary when he rhetorically asks the reason why jIva had to think so, and concludes that the cause is the beginningless avidya.


Very simple right!