The Significance of Lighting Oil Lamps

Oil lamps were a part of various traditions and cultures around the world, until electric lights became popular. The earliest known oil lamp can be dated back to the Chalcolithic Age, about 5320 years ago. Today, their use is limited to only a few homes, more often only for visual appeal. But there is a lot more to the humble oil lamp, as Sadhguru tells us, than its obvious use of providing light and aesthetics. Find out more about how you can create an ambience of energy and positivity in your home.

Sadhguru: Light is significant because of the way our instruments of vision are made. If our instruments of vision were made like, let’s say that of an owl, light wouldn’t be very valuable to us.

Today you have electric lights so you may wonder why a lamp. But imagine just a few hundred years ago, there was no possibility of doing anything indoors without a lamp. Historically, the lamp was an essential part of our homes because of two reasons. One, there were no electric lights. Two, homes were built from organic materials so people couldn’t afford to open up huge windows. Generally, the houses in ancient times were dark inside. Even today, have you seen that old homes in villages and slums are generally dark? So a lamp was kept even during the day, and a place of worship was created around it.

It is a part of tradition that to create the right kind of atmosphere, the first thing that you do is light a lamp. Of course, because of all our problems today, because our nails are long and polished, we can't do this, so we use electric lights. But those of you who light a lamp, if you simply be there around it, you will notice it makes a difference. You don’t need to believe in any God. It need not even be dark, the lamp need not be a visual aid, but do you notice it makes some kind of a difference? This is because the moment you light a lamp, not the flame itself but around the flame a certain etheric sphere will naturally happen.

Where there is an etheric sphere, communication will be better. Did you ever sit around a campfire in your life? If you did, you would have seen that stories told around the campfire always have the maximum impact on people. Have you noticed this? The storytellers of yore understood this - stories told around the campfire are always the most effective stories. Receptivity will be at its best.

So if you want to start anything, or you want to create a certain atmosphere, a lamp is lit. This comes from the understanding that when you light a lamp, apart from the visual aspect, it fills the whole place with a different kind of energy. Lighting an oil lamp has certain implications. The use of certain vegetable oils, especially if you use sesame oil, castor oil or ghee (clarified butter) to light a lamp, it exudes positivity. It has its own field of energy.

Fire itself is a source of light and a source of life in many ways. Symbolically, we have always seen fire as the very source of life. In fact, your life itself is referred to as fire in many languages. ‘The fires of life’ within you keep you going. The Sun, the very source of life on this planet, is just a fireball, isn’t it? Whether you light an electric lamp or you cook at home with whatever kind of stove, or the internal combustion engine in your car, it’s all still fire, isn’t it? Everything that is driving life in this world is fire. So fire is seen as the very source of life. It also creates a field of energy around itself, and above all it creates the necessary atmosphere. So when you light a lamp before you start your day, it is because you want to bring the same quality into yourself. It is symbolism; it’s a way of invoking your own inner nature.