Soi Batti
Every question on the site tagged Soi Batti, each answered from a timestamped source rather than a summary written from memory.
A long, lying lamp wick — the default for daily worship, lit in pairs, for wealth, longevity, health, prosperity, and general or ancestor (Pitru) deities. Never used for ancestors' worship in its standing (Khadi Batti) form.
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Which lamp wick should be used for regular daily worship?
For daily worship, the long, lying wick (Soi Batti) should be used — lit in pairs — for constant attainment of wealth, longevity, health, prosperity, one's deity's grace, and the fulfillment of desires.
When should the standing wick (Khadi Batti) be used?
The standing wick is for two situations: worship of a fierce (Ugra) deity form, and a vow-bound ritual using an already-perfected (Siddha) mantra or hymn for a specific result. It is doubled by wrapping Kalawa around it.
Why should ancestors (Pitrus) never be worshipped with a standing wick?
For ancestors, a standing/round wick should never be used — always use a long/lying wick for their worship, since the standing wick is reserved for aggressive powers or specific mantra rituals, not for Pitrus.
A lying soi wick is used, not the standing khadi batti that every ready-made lamp now carries.
Let there be a small flower garland and a lamp, whether of brass or of clay. Apply a lying wick, he says — soi batti — and avoid applying a standing wick. He remarks that any standard lamp one gets nowadays, and whatever the guruji people on YouTube and Instagram are telling one, uses the khadi batti in everything.
When is a standing wick correct and when is a lying one?
Whenever a lamp is kindled for the kula pitrs, for saumya devatas, for the pleasing of the devatas, or for one's own welfare, the lamp should be a lying one. The standing wick is for use in ugrata — where there is shatru nash, abhichar nash, rog nash, where the deity is to be made present with prachandata, which in the Shabar and similar traditions they call chalan vidya. In everything else, use the lying wick.
The second lamp also takes mustard oil, with the charged material applied to the wick itself, and burns that way.
The second lamp, whether kindled in clay or in brass, will also take mustard oil, and into it will go the material you have prepared and charged. That is, the whole of this material is applied to the vartika, to the wick, and it burns.
One use is the lamp, the material applied to the wick and lit with no further mantra; the other is the dhuni over apamarg and khair kindled with camphor.
After charging it, one use was the lamp one: in the lamp you have only to apply it to the vartika, the wick, and light it — no mantra and no further prayoga is required. The second use has the samidha of apamarg and khair wood: kindle it with camphor, and when it begins to burn, make the dhuni of this material over it.
Can the small akhand jyoti lamp be used for deepdaan?
A listener asks whether deepdaan can be done in the small lamp used for akhand jyoti, taking 108 at one go, since the long wick does not burn fully in it. No, brother, the speaker says — take the lamp with a soi batti; that will be better.
What kind of bowl and wick should be used for the deepdaan lamp?
Asked whether a plastic bowl will do if a clay bowl is not found, he says yes, it will do. Asked whether the lamp being small matters and whether someone else may take it down from the head, he says yes — it should be another person who takes it down from the head; and that the lamp being small does not matter. Keep the wick of the lamp thick, he says, so that its oil is finished quickly and the lamp is completed quickly.
What was the controversy about a flower forming in the lamp wick?
The speaker says the biggest negative reaction he ever drew was his subject of the deepak and the baati — that when a flower forms in the wick, devatas come. Several regular viewers who accept his other subjects said openly that they would not accept this one. His answer is that it is not his job to make anyone accept it.
May the lamp be refilled with the left hand during japa, and which wick is used?
Keep a large lamp in the first place, brother, the speaker says: if you have to do japa for two or three hours, keep the lamp on that reckoning so that oil does not have to be added again and again. Buy one big lamp. If you want to pour the oil with the reverse hand, since the mala is in one hand, you may pour it — there is no matter in it. The wick of the karma sakshi will be a soi batti. The khadi batti is used in prayoga: when we are doing the prayoga of a mantra, then the khadi batti will be used.
Is a jodaa baati used in the Ashtavinayak sadhana?
The Ashtavinayak sadhana has been completed and shown, made as simple as it could be. One question in it was that he had not used a jodaa baati but a single wick. He answers that it is a jodaa baati — the cotton has been kneaded in such a way that it will look single to you, it is twisted so finely. How would it look double? Only if we kept the wick that thick. He had to recite for a long time, so he kept a very thin wick. The eight lamps of the eight Vinayaks are always to be kept with jodaa baati, and done exactly as told there.
How should a lamp be lit?
Asked how to light a diya, the speaker refers to at least five to seven videos made at the very beginning of the channel, in which it is told which way the mouth of the deepak is to be kept, what the wick should be like — a standing wick or a sleeping wick — what kind of lamp is lit for the pitrs, when a standing-wick lamp should be lit if you light one at all, and on which side of the deity the lamps will stand.
Can a khadi batti lamp be lit in Batuk Bhairav's puja?
You may light it, the speaker says, there is no difficulty — but use the soi batti as much as possible.
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