Questioner: About rituals, Sadhguru. On Shivaratri we offer honey, milk on Shivalinga. Is there a scientific reason behind why we do that?
Sadhguru: Milk and honey is offered because most of the lingas that you’re offering to are stone lingas. Alright? A stone linga, which is kept for worship, or whatever else it may be – if you don’t feed it with some kind of fat or oily material, either ghee or milk or something like this, it will crack. It will become brittle and crack over a period of time. So, periodically, you have to apply either oil, or ghee, or milk, or whatever you like. Something through which the stone can absorb fatty material so that there is integrity to the stone. So once you’re worshipping something, you don’t want it to crack up.
Questioner: It’s more like the maintenance.
Sadhguru: It is a certain maintenance. And also, it makes the linga – if it is properly consecrated, it’ll reverberate better if it remains wet. See, if you apply oil or ghee, or even milk, the fat of the milk, the linga remains wet all the time. As I said earlier, you have to keep your body wet to receive. And similarly linga has to be wet for it to exude this. So one simple way of keeping it wet is, soak it in oil, or ghee, or honey, or milk. All these things which will keep it wet for a long period of time. If I pour water, that also is being done, it will remain for ten minutes and then it’ll dry up. But if I pour milk, it stays wet for months on end. Because the fat has entered the pores in the rock.
Questioner: Is this the reason why even rudraksh in soaked in ghee?
Sadhguru: Of course. Otherwise, rudraksh will become brittle and crack up. You just put rudraksh on your body, because they share body heat and other things, in six to eight months it’ll crack up. But if you periodically put it in ghee and milk, it will last for a lifetime and more.
