When Lord Ganesha Appeared in My Dream in My Story

Vakratunda Mahakaya Surya Koti Samaprabha |
Nirvighnam Kuru Me Dev Sarv-Kaaryeshu Sarvadaa ||

Translation: “O Lord Ganesha, one with a huge body, a curved elephant trunk and whose brilliance is equal to billions of suns. May you always remove all obstacles from my endeavours.”

I started this blog with a prayer to Lord Ganesha. My bond with him started during my childhood when our family would bring Bappa home during Ganesh Chaturthi. We would love to decorate the small puja area where Lord Ganesha’s idol would be worshipped and sing the aarti “Jai Ganesh Jai Ganesh Jai Ganesh Deva… Mata Jaki Parvati… Pita Mahadeva… ” both during the morning and the evening time.

We had a cassette which had all the devotional songs of Lord Ganesha. We would play it a lot and pray to Lord Ganesha. When the day of Visarjan would come, I and my brother would feel very sad that we will no longer be able to see him again and we had to wait another year to bring Lord Ganesha’s idol home.

Like any other family, along with happy times, there were times of emotional turmoil during my childhood. During those times, fights within the family would happen frequently, which had a traumatic impact on my mind. I would cry uncontrollably, bang my head on our home’s temple room floor multiple times and question God regarding my suffering with no fault of my own.

After that, some time had already passed, and I was in class seven in school. Generally, we do not even remember what we have seen a day before in our dream, but some dreams have such an impact that they remain etched in our memory and we can never forget them. Now, I would like to share one such dream.

I saw myself standing at the top of a mountain hill and I was looking down. As I looked down, a form of Lord Ganesha appeared at the bottom of the mountain. The form of Lord Ganesha kept becoming bigger and bigger in length, breadth and height till it became the size of the mountain hill I was standing in. I was standing awestruck looking at the gigantic form of Lord Ganesha.

Then the scene in the dream changed and I was in a courtroom where I was accused of a crime which I had not committed, and I was fighting in court against the people who had put wrong blame on me and wanted me to get punished. As this was happening, I was not only in this dream scene but also outside it.

As I was outside the dream scene, I could see Lord Ganesha standing next to me in my fights and struggles. I could see him going through all my fights and struggles along with me. But when I was inside the scene, I could not see him. My witness self, outside the dream, could not understand it and questioned “Why I am not able to see God when he is standing just next to me??”

And my dream broke. The first word I uttered was Lord Ganesha and as my head turned right, the first thing I saw was a beautiful silver metal idol of Lord Ganesha which I had never seen before. My Aunt (my father’s sister) was performing puja for Lord Ganesha’s idol. When the Puja got over, I asked her about the idol. She told me that her best friend has gifted her with this idol of Lord Ganesha.

What a beautiful coincidence is this (seeing Lord Ganesha’s dream and then seeing his idol) or is this a blessing from Lord Ganesha?? I felt very happy and blessed at that moment. As a 12-year-old, I contemplated this dream and thought that with my human eyes I am not able to see him but he is always there with me in all my struggles, pain and suffering.

This dream gave me a lot of strength to face any future emotional turmoil and my faith in God deepened even further. Whenever I was in any problematic situation, the memory of the dream would come back to me and it gave me a lot of strength and courage to face any obstacles in my life.

A year back, I came to know about an event known as “Life Review” which happens after the human body dies and the soul goes back to the spiritual realms. In this life review, our whole life in human form is played in form of a movie in front of us. Our soul judges itself through this process. When our life movie is played, we are not only outside the movie but also inside it reliving those moments again but with heightened senses. When we do that, we see and understand our situations and our sufferings from a higher perspective.

Similar to a Life Review, my soul was trying to show me things from a higher perspective with the help of Lord Ganesha in my dream. Though this dream was quite personal to me, I shared it as someone who reads this blog will get the strength to face difficult situations, knowing that God is always with us in our sufferings and difficult times. We should always keep praying to him to always protect us and give us the necessary strength to overcome any difficulty in life.