Do diseases continue from one lifetime to another?- Understanding through the story of Lord Ganesha

Do diseases continue from one lifetime to another? This is a logical question that comes to the mind of all seekers. This blog will answer this using the Puranic /mythological story of the birth of Lord Ganesha.

To begin with, it all depends upon the sanskars/habits (conscience of the soul). If the soul wants to continue with those habits that were causing diseases to her (mental and/or physical), due to the greed (and other vices/desires) of the soul which is not letting her know the root cause of her imbalances, then yes, the soul will get those diseases again (intensity will depend upon the extent of greed/vices carried by the soul in the next life). However, if the soul has understood the reasons (fully or partially), then it will obviously begin shunning those bad habits (fully or partially) in this lifetime itself and wouldn’t carry those diseases/aberrations including behavioural ones (or partially carry them to the next lifetime). In the language of computer, it is like downloading the desires as it is or after vetting them due to evolution/experiences of the soul which is not happening in different lifetimes but in the same lifetime too with every passing moment.

The Puranic story of birth of lord Ganesha represents this evolution only. It goes like this that once God Sun out of inflated ego declared a war against an evolved and a good Asura (called Gajasur) and his army which consisted of two Asuras Mali and Sumali who got a one time boon from Lord Shiva to protect them from the wrath of any person who would try to kill/harm them. Thus when Sun tried to kill Mali and Sumali, Lord Shiva came forward and warned Sun however Sun refused to listen to Lord Shiva due to inflated ego and thus Lord Shiva killed him. This created chaos in the world (as this means lack of energy) upon which Saturn requested Shiva to resurrect him and thus Sun got another life this way. The process also mellowed down Sun’s ego and he realised his mistake. However, by now Sun’s father, Rishi Kashyap had lost his cool and he cursed Shiva to face a similar fate in future.

Thus, when Lord Ganesha was born from Parvati (during meditative state of Shiva), he had vices due to absence of Shiva (thoughtfulness/inner intelligence) which is why he had displayed ego when he was requested by Shiva and other Gods to allow Lord Shiva to enter the cave of Devi Parvati. Finally, he gets the head of Gajasur who as mentioned above was an evolved Asura. As a prelude, Gajasur had got a boon from Lord Shiva to keep latter in formers stomach (basically reside with him forever) which had made Gajasur and his army of Asuras very sattvik. However, this denied the rest of the world to get blessings of Shiva and therefore Lord Vishnu, Brahma and Saturn found ways to tactfully convince Gajasur to release Shiva. While Gajasur realised his mistake, Sun did not pardon him due to his inflated ego which is why he waged a war against Gajasur’s army as mentioned above though the latter showed no interest in it. (its long story but this is the gist).

Now since Shiva represents condensed/compact knowledge inside one, Gajasur represents that Asura who due to this knowledge attained through his Tapa (austerity) goes in a state of bliss alongwith his people. This state represents those who attain knowledge to become blissful but donot share it with others. However, one of the knowledge that Shiva stores is also the fact that the entire world is one family and hence knowledge must be shared with everyone for collective evolution else sufferings of the other are bound to affect self too sooner or later, which is why as Gajasur evolves after keeping Shiva to self, he realizes that he needs to share Shiva with others too. Thus, his death and resurrection of Lord Ganesha by putting Gajasur’s head on the decapitated body of Ganesha signifies evolution of the soul both a individual and collective level with every passing moment including death of the physical body and reincarnation in a different avatar.

Death of Sun and its resurrection represents death of ego and resurrection in a mellowed down/more evolved and more learned avatar which could be in the same lifetime as well as different lifetimes (don’t many of us see our ego accepting that which we were not in a different state of mind and time.

This reinforces the fact that death of the physical body is simply a transition of the soul from one set of circumstances to another with a different physical body and bodies around and also that death of the physical body is essential for moving to different set of circumstances else it will create stagnation in life and stagnate the evolution of the soul. However, this is also true that we are dying and becoming new with every passing moment (not  just physically but mentally and spiritually too) which is the reason our behaviour keeps changing from time to time and therefore people too change with time (for good or for bad depends upon one’s desire but in the end everyone evolves through ups and downs sooner or later).