Friday, January 01, 2010

Year of Ganesha




















The happy start of 2010 finds me in Ubud still, writing my journal and scribbling intentions with the help of my nifty new sidekick called Attractor Genie, who joined me since yesterday to help me in my transition to achieving bigger things in the new year.

During this visit to the cultural hub of Bali, several new things got attracted into my life. My project to develop a home here took several paces forward. My circle of Ubud friends became significantly larger. And my understanding of how things work here got a bit deeper, as it has done during each visit.

I might have gained a world record too, for collecting the largest number of Ganesha images in two weeks. This friendly Hindu god was attracted big time into my life during this visit. Unlike the others god in the Hindu pantheon, he appears in all sorts of different forms. Dancing, reclining, standing and sitting in different positions, made from limestone and bronze in different finishes, and coming in various sizes, each image of the Lord of Thresholds and Remover of Obstacles is attractive to me in its own way.

It struck me that Ganesha's demeanor is quite similar to Osho's notion of Zorba the Buddha, which I had become familiar with in earlier years and have applied in my own life. Osho liked to match the life enjoying and street-smart Zorba the Greek with the spiritual qualities of the Buddha, implying that people need a combination of both of these outlooks to live a good life.

I found that Ganesha's popularity over the centuries may well have something to do with his powers to project similarly complementing qualities into people's lives, from big-picture spirituality for life to the enjoyment of living wisely in the moment, and seeing new doors open every day. Of course Ganesha, like other gods, is really a dimension of my own spiritual reality created in my mind, to help to guide and nurture my soul on its path.

In dynamic Bali, where Ganesha images can be found anywhere and anytime, I observed during this visit that the people I met all seemed to be adept at sharing something, whether it was news, information, services, and products, and more often all of these. People seem to enjoy engaging in different activities simultaneously, and many are happily multi-tasking their way through life.

One person I met is a part-time curator for exhibitions, writer for a newspaper, and translator in literary gatherings and in court cases. Another is a master photographer and head of the rental department of a real estate agency. A third person I observed owns a famous restaurant and enjoys standing in a market stall during weekends to cook well-known delicacies by hand for regulars and tourists alike.

While such multi-tasking may for some be explained by practical needs to make ends meet, for others it's not primarily a matter of income, and friends shared with me that Bali's society can offer people more flexibility to pursue different interests, passions and hobbies in parallel, which might be more difficult for people with full-time jobs in other places in the world.

So Bali can be seen as a conducive place for people to explore their dreams and attract the necessary changes into their lives to realize them. And the great thing is that there are so many other people around who are doing the same thing, thereby providing more inspiration. No wonder there are so many Ganeshas in Bali observing how good intentions are attracted and manifested in people's lives.

Photograph: Ganesha and Attractor Genie.