Swami Sivananda is most definitely one of the great spiritual saints of India. His books on yoga and the multifaceted scriptures of India are some of the best books I have ever read on the subject. He writes with an electrifying nature that is filled with devotion and very useful, practical, spiritual information.
Swami Sivananda was born on September 8, 1887, in South India. He was born into a family of devotees, saints and philosophers, who worshipped Shiva. As a boy he showed signs of a desire for a life of renunciation and love for his fellowman. In high school he was scholastically at the top of his class and won prizes every year in this regard.
The professional path he chose to follow in life was that of becoming a medical doctor. In his first year in medical school he could answer papers that even students in their final year of medical school could not answer. Again he topped his class in all subjects. Needless to say, Swami Sivananda had an absolutely brilliant mind and his entire life had more energy and enthusiasm for living than any saint I have ever studied. He is literally a Master of all spiritual paths and spiritual texts of Eastern religions. He not only understood them, but was clearly able to teach them in his lectures and writings. While in medical school he started a medical journal called "Ambrosia", which gained great popularity. He was not only absolutely brilliant, but this brilliance was blended with an ingrained spirituality and desire for selfless service.
After graduating medical school he traveled to Malaya and served the poor as medical doctor there for ten years. God came to Swami Sivananda as an all consuming aspiration to realize Him as the Self of all. God came to Swami Sivananda in the form of the sick and suffering in Malaya.
While there he was put in charge of an entire estate hospital. His integrity, positive disposition and hard work won him praise and promotion at every turn. It was while in Malaya that a wandering sadhu gave him a book by Swami Satchidananda on the soul’s path to God. This ignited the last vestiges of his dormant spirituality. He began to intensively study the teachings of Sankara, Theosophical movement, the Bible, and the vast Indian scriptures, such as the Vedas, Bhagavad Gita, and the Ramayana.
He left Malaya in search of a life of renunciation as a sanyasin. He traveled to many different religious centers and studied with many great yogis, mahatmas, and spiritual teachers. He finally found his guru Paramahansa Viswananda Saraswathi, who gave him initiation on the banks of the Ganges River of June 1st, 1924. His guru named him Swami Sivananda Saraswathi.
Swami Sivananda had a brilliant mind, and an unbelievably intense devotion to God. He practiced all the various yogic paths and studied the scriptures, unceasingly until he finally achieved nirvakalpa samadhi. Besides his continuing and ongoing spiritual practices, he decided to open a medical dispensary to help the poor, the sick, the devotees and mahatmas.
People began to come to him in large numbers for his spiritual teachings as well as for medical help. He began teaching classes and holding meetings for the singing of bhagvans (devotional songs). One time he did this in the ashram of Sri Ramana Marharshi and His devotees.
It was in 1936 that Swami Sivananda started the Divine Life Society on the right bank of the Ganges River. This small organization was to eventually grow into a world wide organization with branches all over the world. The steady flow of free spiritual literature that was given out attracted a steady stream of devotees to Swami Sivananda. Swami Sivananda has actually written over 300 books. His teachings are totally universalistic, with the highest regards for all religions and all spiritual paths that lead to God. He calls his type of yoga the "Yoga of Synthesis".
As time went on after the initial opening of the Divine Life Society, Swami Sivananda traveled extensively throughout India and Ceylon for two months disseminating spiritual knowledge. He went to schools, colleges, universities, public meetings, cities, towns and villages teaching his universalistic, eclectic, spiritual knowledge. He was a fiery and dynamic speaker and was well received wherever he went. He never accepted any money from the organizers but instead asked them to print large numbers of pamphlets in different languages for wide circulation.
Swami Sivananda was a spiritual teacher par excellence. He never attempted to be anyone’s guru and never accepted titles of sadguru or avatar. He never attempted to be famous, but his profound devotion to God, humility and service of humanity through his teachings, center, ashram and books has made him so. There are over 300 branches of the Divine Life Society throughout the world.
He initiated thousands of students into the order of Sanyasins (renunciates). He began there also, a Yoga-Vedanta Forest University. He also began the Sivananda General Hospital. He opened a temple of all faiths. His ashram eventually grew into what might be called a spiritual colony.
His message was to carry the message of the sages and saints of all religions, to help humanity achieve peace, bliss, and liberation. He taught how all people could realize God regardless of their station in life, and whether they were single or a householder. The central core of his was the path of yoga and vedanta. He acknowledged one of his main teachers to be the great Avatar Sri Sankara, who revolutionized the teachings of Hinduism (See chapter on him in this book.) Also established in the ashram was a university press for the printing of all his books and pamphlets.
The basis of this movement was the adherence to the ideals of truth, non violence and purity. It is a path of the essence of all yogas and the essence of all religions and spiritual paths. I, personally, relate a lot to Swami Sivananda for this is exactly what I have attempted to do in my five volume set of books called "The Easy-to-Read Encyclopedia of the Spiritual Path".
The ashram also publishes a monthly journal called the "Divine Life", which began in 1938. During World War II Swami Sivananda started a non-stop chanting for world peace, and a three time a day regular worship service. He also opened a Sivananda Ayurvedic pharmacy with Ayurvedic herbal preparations from the Himalayas. In 1957 the Sivananda Eye Hospital was formerly opened. Even after the Swami Sivananda achieved Mahasamadhi in 1963, the entire ashram with all its services has continued to serve to this very day. Senior monks now run the facility under the directorship of the president, Sri Swami Chidananda.
The Divine Life gospel can be summed in six words of Swami Sivananda: "Serve, love, give, purify, meditate, and realize."
The essence of the teachings are to help seekers to realize their true self and to transcend ego. That each soul is potentially divine and that everyone’s goal is to manifest this divinity by controlling the internal and external nature by being good and doing good. Anyone who is compatible with these goals is welcome to be a member. In Swami Sivananda’s autobiography his message to individual aspirants and branches of the Divine Life Society reads as follows: "You have come to this earth to attain spiritual perfection. You have come here to attain supreme and unalloyed bliss. The purpose of this human birth is the achievement of divine consciousness. The goal of life is self realization."
"Man is not a sensual animal. Man, in his essential nature, is an ever free, ever pure, even perfect, immortal, spiritual being. Feel this. Feel that you are the immortal self, that you are satchidananda. Remember the words; "Ajo nityah saswatogam puranah - You are the unborn, the eternal, the imperishable and ancient." To live in this exalted consciousness is to experience indescribable joy every moment of your life, to experience a limitless freedom in the spirit. This is your birthright. This is the aim of your life. This is the goal. To realize this through a life of truth, purity, service and devotion is the chief purpose of the Divine Life Society.
"Fear dominates in this era of nuclear weapons for mass destruction. Hatred rules the policies of vast sections of the so-called enlightened and civilized mankind. This age of advancement has been exposed to be, in reality, an age of degeneracy in the views and values, the ideals and morals, of the greater masses of mankind. At this juncture in time, cultured men and women all over the world look to the sacred land, India, for light and knowledge. It is your noble task to spread this light of spiritual knowledge and spiritual idealism to all corners of the globe."
The message of divine life, according to Swami Sivananda, is; "See God in all faces. Serve all. Love all. Be kind to all. Be compassionate. Feel everyone to be your own. Serve your fellow beings in the spirit of worship offered to the divine which indwells them. Service of man is truly the worship of God."
He goes on to say: "Know well that the heart of the Vedas, the heart of the Bible, the holy Koran, the sacred Gathas, and all the world’s scriptures are, in truth, one, and sing in unison the sweet message of love and concord, goodness and kindness, service and worship."
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