By Sadhguru – Founder, Isha Foundation

Sadhguru: For thousands of years, Ganesh Chaturthi has lived on, and Ganapati has become one of the most popular gods in India. He is the one who assimilated all the knowledge that was in the nation. He grasped and wrote down everything. He was supposed to be a brilliant scholar whose scholarship and intellect were beyond normal human capabilities. Ganapati is always shown with a book and a pen, to show his scholarly capabilities. Even today, if you want to start education for a child, the first thing is to call Ganapati.

The significance of Ganesh Chaturthi is that we create a God and then dissolve him. We make an idol of Ganesha and worship him. For the next few weeks, there is nothing else but Ganesha. We create a frenzy around him and make him our entire life. We eat what he eats, we only like what he likes, everything is about him.

But then, one day, we immerse the idol in a lake or ocean, so that God dissolves. Once he is dissolved, he is done. Nowhere else would this be possible except in the Indian culture, because we understand that we create God, imbibe certain qualities in that period and then we dissolve the God. Anywhere else, dissolving a God would be blasphemous, a sacrilege. But it is allowed in this culture. So, this must be done in a responsible manner.

If you want to retain this great privilege of being able to create and dissolve a God, it is very important right now that you turn Ganapati into an eco-friendly force, before environmental laws come and restrict you from doing fundamental cultural aspects. Ganesha is the very symbol of an exalted level of intellectual activity. There is no sense in doing unintelligent things in the name of Ganesha, because being against the ecological well-being of this planet is the most unintelligent thing that we can do.

Ganapati idols must be made from natural, organic material like soil, rice flour, millet flour or turmeric, and they will look very beautiful. You are not supposed to make him with plastic, or burn the idol and make it like a pot, or use plastic-coated paints on it because it will not dissolve. Instead, it will pollute the water and cause harm to you and everyone else around you. If you think you must have some little colour, please use vegetable dyes, which will make your Ganapati very aesthetically attractive and also environmentally friendly.

Let us make this happen, because this is important for the preservation of this culture and the glorification of the great God that we call as Ganesha.

[Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and a prominent spiritual leader. An author, poet and internationally-renowned speaker, Sadhguru’s wit and piercing logic provoke and widen our perception of life. www.ishafoundation.org]