Is Lord Ganesha Really on the Side of Devas?

Matsarasura faced Lord Vakratunda on the battlefield.

He first warned the lord, 'You have no business here. I have a boon to be the emperor of the universe. That is exactly what I am doing here. These people are just instigating you. You don’t know my power. If you surrender to me now, I will let you roam around in my forests.'

Bhagawan Vakratunda responded peacefully, with no anger on his face.

'Your boon is that you cannot be killed by someone with the Ashtavaranas.'

Ashtavaranas are the eight limitations that Paramatma imposes on himself to create individual beings, allowing them to interact with one another.

What is the world? It is just continuous interactions between beings—a constant exchange, a give-and-take.

• You take in oxygen from the air and give out carbon dioxide.
• Plants take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen.
• Trees absorb nutrients from the soil and give out fruits.
• You give your physical energy to someone as work and receive a salary in return.
• You take kind words from someone and give back good words.

This is how the world functions—through endless exchanges and interactions.

Consider the ocean.

Take water from the ocean and fill two bottles. Now, you can pour water from one bottle into the other, mix them, and do various things with them.

But when the water is still in the ocean, these interactions are not possible.

Only after you limit a part of it within the bottle do such interactions occur.

Even this is just an illusion—that they are interacting separately. This separation happens only because of the limitations you have imposed.

These limitations are the Avaranas.

Like space and time:

• When you take a little bit of water from the ocean and put it in a bottle, you restrict its space to inside the bottle.
• When you keep it in the bottle for an hour, you restrict its time—you say its lifetime is one hour.

But these are only assumptions.

Even if you pour that water onto the ground, it will evaporate, rise into the sky, become a cloud, precipitate, and return to the sea as rain—maybe today, maybe ten years from now.

You are not actually doing anything to the original material.

You are just temporarily restricting its freedom by keeping it in a bottle—but even that is just your perception.

Shastras say there are eight such restrictions imposed on the original material called Parabrahma so that we can experience the physical world.

The lord said, 'I am not bound by Ashtavaranas. I have no such restriction. I am Parabrahma in its entirety. You have a boon that you cannot be destroyed by someone who has Ashtavaranas. But I am not one of them.'

Moreover, Lord Shiva gave you that boon thinking that you would do good for the world. Since you performed intense tapas, he assumed you had attained internal purity—burning away all evil thoughts and intentions.

But you had not reformed.

You continued with your asuri nature and committed countless atrocities. You disturbed the order and peace of the world.

That is why I have come myself.

To restore the world and place it back in the safe hands of Devas and Rishis, who have only its welfare in mind.

'I will not kill you. I will let you go only if you renounce your enmity with the Devas and become virtuous.'

Matsarasura was not a fool.

Becoming the emperor of the universe required great intelligence. Ousting Shiva from Kailasa was no small feat.

Slowly, sense started dawning on him.

But he asked the lord, 'I have some doubts.'

'You say that you are Parabrahma, but I can see you in a body. That means you have restricted yourself into a body, no matter how big it is. You are still not everything—you have limited yourself. Then how can you say that you don’t have Avaranas?'

'Another thing—if you are Parabrahma, then both Devas and Asuras belong to you. They are both part of you. Then how can you be on the side of the Devas? How can you show partiality in their favor?'

Lord Vakratunda explained to him:

'I will tell you what it is. I am Parabrahma, Paramatma. I have created everything you see—including you. You Daityas are also my own creation. I am the one controlling you from within yourself, just as I control the Devas, humans, animals, and Gandharvas. You are all created and controlled by me.'

'This is my play. I don’t take it very seriously. When I get bored, I create beings like you and amuse myself for some time. I put something called mind into all of you. Even though mind is also my own creation and fully under my control, I allow your minds to run free for some time—to see what you will do if I don’t control you.'

'It is like how parents leave their children alone at home and watch them through CCTV to see what mischief they do. In the same way, I let your minds loose sometimes. I know the minds of Devas and Asuras are both naughty and mischievous.'

'I have assigned duties to all of you. I have set boundaries on what you should and should not do. But when I let you free, sometimes you create trouble. And it is not just the Asuras—even Devas do this. That is the nature of the mind.'

'When Devas forget their duties and breach the mandate I have given them—when they are about to destroy themselves—I encourage you Asuras to perform tapas, gain power, and teach them a lesson. This forces them to come to me, making them understand who the real master is.'

'Similarly, when you Asuras become powerful but refuse to stop at the task I give you—when you exceed your limits and start troubling everyone—then I empower the Devas again to defeat you.'

'I do not take sides.

'Sometimes, things go out of hand. That is when I come myself, taking a form, to set everything right—just like I have come now. Because you have gone too far. You are no longer able to balance things yourselves. What I want is balance. I am not on anyone’s side.'

Then the lord went on to explain how he remains Parabrahma even when he has a body.

This, we will see later.

Ramaswamy Sastry and Vighnesh Ghanapaathi