Being the incarnation of God, why are You worshipping God Ganapati?

[Smt. Chhanda asked:- Swami, why are You worshipping God Ganapati for the past 9 days, You being the incarnation of the same God?]

Swami replied:- The human incarnation can take the role of a devotee also. Generally, every human incarnation also acts as a devotee because the role of an ideal devotee is very much useful to grow the devotion in any human devotee. God Hanuman is the incarnation of God Shiva, but, He acted in the role of a devotee only throughout His life. God Rama is the incarnation of God Vishnu and He also acted in a role of devotee only throughout His life. Every incarnation of God was hiding His divinity and was always trying to act in the role of an ordinary human being so that it will become very easy for any ordinary human being to learn devotion from the incarnation. The role of God cannot preach the devotion practically because such role is always receiving the devotion from devotees. A devotee can easily and conveniently learn devotion from the role of a devotee only. This is the reason why every incarnation tries to act in the role of a devotee only as far as possible. But, coming to the incarnation of God Krishna, He was almost in all the times acting in the role of God only because the main aim of His role is to express the status of God. Due to this main aim, He was called as ‘Līlā mānuṣāvatāra’, which means the human incarnation that exhibits God through the exhibited miraculous powers. God Rama never exhibited any miraculous power and hence, He was called as ‘Ādarśa mānuṣāvatāra’, which means the incarnation that always exhibits the nature of an ideal human being. Regarding God Hanuman, He was always acting in the role of the servant, similar to the role of God Rama, giving the main message to humanity that a human being shall always worship his/her contemporary human incarnation. Even though God Hanuman did miracles, such miracles were also done in the service of God only.

(Smt. Chhanda is a strong devotee of God Krishna. Swami joked on Smt. Chhanda in the following way – “Your Krishna is always breaking the rules and manners of the human role by saying that He is God. For every 5 minutes, He was expressing Himself as the actor forgetting the rules and manners of His human role. This is high indiscipline. Hence, the devotees of Krishna are always undisciplined! If you take the incarnation of God Rama, He never broke the rules and manners of His human role. Hence, the devotees of God Rama are always highly disciplined!”. After few minutes, again Swami spoke to Smt. Chhanda in the following way – “I only joked about God Krishna due to My friendship devotion called Sakhya Bhakti – Friendship is the last but one step in the path of devotion – ‘Sakhyamātma nivedanam’. Actually, Krishna came down to preach about God’s nature, whereas Rama came to preach about an ideal human being’s nature. Hence, as per the aim of these two incarnations, Rama and Krishna behaved practically in their lives. Due to this reason, Rama never showed any miracle in His life and Krishna was showing miracles for every five minutes throughout His life.”)

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