Loban vs Raal: What Should You Actually Burn for Home Dhoop?

First, the speaker says, what loban is and where it comes from. Loban is the solid form of the milk that comes out of a tree. The tree — its leaves, flowers and build — is not found in India; trees of that kind grow in Sumatra, Java and Indonesia. When the bark is cut through the middle a stream of milk flows out, turns solid on coming out, and that solid substance is what is used as loban, for attar and for medicines. A second point, he says: this is not a dhoop found in India. In earlier times, as we all know, the region where it grows was where the communities that opposed the devas — asuras, daityas, rakshasas and the like — lived, and it would have been they who used it most. What is used in India is what we call raal, made from the gum that comes out of the Sal tree. When the Sal tree's bark is cut and slit through the middle, an oily substance comes out which turns solid at once and takes the form of raal. Raal dhuni is done everywhere in our Sanatan culture.

Where on one side loban dhuni cures many skin diseases and the like, the speaker says, on the other side it also brings on many new diseases. Used as a medicine it cures joint pain; and used as a medicine it also causes many diseases — in the joints, in the lungs, and illnesses of the asthma kind. Both things are true. For that reason, he says, its use should be undertaken with thought and under proper direction.

Since people cite the tantra granthas — our rishis and munis used loban — the speaker says first learn where they used it and how; then you will understand better why you are told not to, and how much those who tell you to use it actually know. When you study the Mundamalini Tantra, the Kapalika Tantra and the like, where shava sadhana, shyama sadhana, shmashan sadhana and the vidhi of shmashan jagaran are described, you will find in all those places a vidhi for giving dhoop. Where such dhoop vidhis are set out in Sanskrit, it is called shyama dhoop; loban has been called shyama dhoop. And shyama dhoop is used in two places, in two ways. First, and most of all, it is used to attract negative energies and airy energies of any kind — not to drive them away. What we call bhoot, pret, pishach are attracted by it. That is why, at the time of shmashan sadhana and the like, the tantriks and the rishis who did tantra sadhana used it: in the high-order sadhanas of the Mahavidyas people make a preta siddh, because there is a preta asana. Several forms of Bhagavati sit on one; Hanuman ji, as we know, sits in his markati form; Tripur Bhairavi sits upon a preta, so those who do Bhairavi siddhi make the pretasana siddh, make the preta itself siddh — it is needed. In such tantra kriyas, where even high-order tantriks make pret and pishach siddh, they do shyama dhoop — loban dhuni — to attract them. In the tantra granthas you will find this mentioned here and there in symbolic form; it is directed, so in such places it is used. Second, where it is used in the temples of Shani ji, Bhairav ji or Hanuman ji, that too is for two things. Such places have many other kinds of shaktis installed and worshipped — they are tantra-yukta temples. In an ordinary temple it is not used, nor should it be; people do it unknowingly, but its dhoop is not for an ordinary temple. It is used in tantrik temples where darbars sit, where pret and pishach are called, where something is removed from someone's head.

Loban dhuni, the speaker explains, is used both to call a negative energy onto someone's body and to remove it. Suppose some pretik or pishachik energy on your head is calling itself a devi or devata and demanding puja. A tantrik who has attained that siddhi will call it by giving loban dhuni alone; with the dhuni and his mantra, whatever negative energy there is becomes aveshit on the head. And if an energy that you or the tantrik already know to be a pret or pishach is on your head, it will be very pleased by the loban dhuni — it will feel peace. But if it is a dev shakti it will grow irritated; if it is a positive energy — your dev-pitr, a dev-putra, a house deity in a divine, shubh, satvik form — they will become very irritated, try to move away, and flee; the person they were on will also go into an angry state. Know this, he says: when such an avesh comes on someone's head, or when one is called to be seen and heard, that is where tantriks use this dhuni. So loban should never be burned at home. His own view, he says, is that a Sanatani, a follower of Sanatan culture, should never do shyama dhoop at home, because if there is any negative energy in your house it will be nourished and satisfied by it; it will be gratified, it will grow. The shubh shaktis will flee. First of all your kula's pitrs will flee — when loban dhuni begins the pitrs are the first to run; whatever shubh, satvik pitrs of the kula there are will go. Whether or not you like its fragrance, or the attar of loban, is a separate matter. Also know why Islam uses it, he says: see where those who use it most are using it — on the mazars, where the dead lie. Whose pleasure is it for? Sayyids are pleased by it, Pirs like it, khabis like it, jinn and jinnat are pleased on smelling such things. That is why loban dhuni is never to be given at home. To the great scholars who say nothing of the sort happens and you may burn it at home, he says: they have no knowledge and are giving wrong information — tell them to study first. Giving people wrong information like this makes them bring the axe down on their own foot. So do not give its dhoop at home.

Loban is also used to drive away, the speaker says, and one should know how. When a house is to be bound — when there are many negative energies in it, when energies of both the satvik and the tamasik kind are present, or only the tamasik — then gandhak, together with loban, together with hing, these three mixed, and some other herbs as well, all combined, are burned as dhuni over apamarg wood. That place empties out completely. No dev shakti will remain there, no pretik or pishachik shakti. Take it as a nirvat — a vacuum — in which only Parabrahma Parameshwar, Jagadamba herself, who calls herself the Parabrahma Parameshwar, remains; prakriti is left wholly empty, with no energy there. Only after first giving dhuni of this kind and emptying the place are the shubh satvik energies invoked — doing shankh dhvani and the like, lighting kapoor there — and the shubh shaktis are given their place. That is how it is done.

Raal, the speaker says — made from the gum that comes out of the Sal tree — is crushed so that it is like stone, and when dhuni is done with it, it is by that very thing that the devi-devatas are nourished and the devatas satisfied. For dhuni other things are used with it: laung, kala til, kali mirch, all mixed together, with kapoor and the like added, elaichi added, jatamansi — medicinal things of this kind all combined — and along with them raal; when we do dhuni with this, it is from this that the shubh satvik energy grows. That is the dhuni to do. Its fragrance too is very divine and sharp. The shubh satvik shaktis are nourished and made strong by it; the negative shaktis run from it. And if you make it mantrit and then do its dhuni, it simply cannot be that a negative shakti stays there — it will weaken, it will flee.

Tantra uses raal as well, the speaker says. In tantra it has been called Ashvakarna, Kasya, Dhoop Vriksha, Surya Dhoop, Sarja Dhoop — names of this kind are what you will find. It is described in a great many kavachas and the like. For instance, when you study the Renuka Tantram you will find it described there too: for the pleasure of the form of Bhagavati Chhinnamastika there are certain mantra vidhans, and the dhuni for those mantras is done with Kasya dhoop, with Ashvakarna dhoop. This dhoop is what has been called raal. If dhuni is done with it while the mantra is recited, sthana bandhan takes place. The shubh shaktis are then able to come there easily, and the ashubh shaktis flee.