[world-vedic] The milk miracle

[Guest guest]

This is from Hinduism Today-

 

On September 21, 1995, just days after I had completed the final editing of

my book, Loving Ganesha, something quite wonderful happened. Lord Ganesha

began sipping milk, first in India, then in nearly every country where Hindus

reside, as devotees rushed to temples and shrines to offer milk to the

elephant-faced God. It was a great spiritual experience for us in Hawaii to

receive at our editorial offices the many phone calls and fax messages with

positive, uplifting testimony as to His drinking milk in so many places.

 

It all began on September 21 when an otherwise ordinary man in New Delhi

dreamed that Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed God of Wisdom, craved a little

milk. Upon awakening, he rushed in the dark before dawn to the nearest

temple, where a skeptical priest allowed him to offer a spoonful of milk to

the small stone image. Both watched in astonishment as the milk disappeared,

magically consumed by the God. Within hours, news had spread like a brush

fire across India that Ganesha was accepting milk offerings. Tens of millions

of people of all ages flocked to the nation's temples. The other-worldly

happening brought worldly New Delhi to a standstill, and its vast stocks of

milk, more than a million liters, sold out within hours.

 

Just as suddenly as it started in India, it stopped, in just 24 hours. But it

was just beginning elsewhere, as Hindus in India called their relatives in

other parts of the world. Soon our Hinduism Today offices were flooded with

reports from around the world. Everywhere the story was the same. A

teaspoonful of milk offered by touching it to Ganesha's trunk, tusk or mouth

would disappear in a few seconds to a few minutes--not always, but with

unprecedented frequency. Reuters news service quoted Anila Premji, "I held

the spoon out level, and the milk just disappeared. To me it was just a

miracle. It gave me a sense of feeling that there is a God, a sense of Spirit

on this Earth." Not only Ganesha, but Siva, Parvati, Nandi and the Naga,

Siva's snake, took milk.

 

The "milk miracle" may go down in history as the most important event shared

by Hindus this century. It brought about an instantaneous religious revival

among nearly one billion people. It is as if every Hindu who had, say, "ten

pounds of devotion," suddenly now had twenty.

 

Naturally there were skeptics--10% of Hindus, according to our very

unscientific poll, and others who moved swiftly to explain the phenomenon.

"Capillary action," coupled with "mass hysteria" is the correct explanation,

concluded many scientists within a few hours. Aparna Chattopadhyay of New

Delhi responded to scoffers in a letter to the Hindustan Times: "I am a

senior scientist of the Indian Agriculture Research Institute, New Delhi. I

found my offerings of milk in a temple being mysteriously drunk by the

Deities." A leading barrister in Malaysia was dumbfounded when a metal

Ganesha attached to an auto dashboard absorbed six teaspoons of milk. In

Nepal King Birendra made offerings to the God. In Kenya and other countries

Deities in shallow trays without drains took gallons of milk.

 

The "milk miracle" may go down in history as the most important event shared

by Hindus this century. It brought about an instantaneous religious revival

among nearly one billion people. It is as if every Hindu who had, say, "ten

pounds of devotion," suddenly now had twenty.

 

At the Edmonton, Canada, Ganesha temple, Aran Veylan, a barrister, said, "I

simply can't explain what happened to the milk. It would visibly 'wick' up

from the spoon to the surface of the stone of the trunk. Spoonful after

spoonful was absorbed, sometimes as quickly as one could count to three,

usually in 20 seconds. At the conservative rate of two teaspoons per minute

for 51.5 hours (milk was offered continuously), some 7.7 gallons of milk were

taken up."

 

By Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami.