with Sri Ganesh

In this knowledge There is true detachment And true Appreciation And the capacity To truly care –

Perhaps, Sri Ganesh, If one is advised to turn to you Before the start of any venture, It is so that this true knowledge May both inform and bless The series of acts and motions With spiritual presence Dissolving the power of illusion…

Sri Ganesh, you stand On the edge of the forest, A welcoming friend, A most refined

And knowing Companion…

- 05-02-09:

… While I am preparing the puja, Manikandan goes out for some purchases and I find that, when he is not here, I want to sing louder to Sri Ganesh and my voice is surer and the offering is more confident… It is of course due to my hesitation, naturally, at somehow offending born Indians while I merely remain an “adjunct”… Later, while meditating – this daily “ritual” is really for me a dynamic meditation -, I hit upon this very simple and funny image and definition of what “religion” actually is: it is like using a rope pulley and a bucket to draw water from the well…! It simply enables one to reach the water in the well and perhaps to taste it and, eventually, to be cleansed and awakened by it; its first step and primary virtue is to imprint upon the physical consciousness that there is such a thing as water, and a well to access it, and that one can indeed learn to partake of it and grow by it… But, on the other hand, the way of religion takes us through intermediaries, through a sequence of planes and determinisms and

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