Gurudev Swami Sivananda
Divine Life
Society Publication: Gurudev Swami
Sivananda by Swami Krishnananda
 |
| Gurudev Swami Sivananda Maharaj |
We bring to our memories today
the advent of a great soul which incarnated upon this Earth many, many years
back. We remember the birth into this Earth-plane of the great Master Swami
Sivanandaji Maharaj.
Usually such indefinable
individuals are called supermen, or super-individuals. The mind or the consciousness that animates
the body is what determines the meaning of a super-individual. What the
person thinks is itself the person; otherwise, everybody looks alike. Even Sri Rama and Sri Krishna looked like any
other human being, but they were intensely super-individual; they extended
beyond themselves.
Swami Sivananda never
travelled abroad, but there is no country in the world that does not know his
name. How did he spread himself around
the globe of the Earth without seeing anybody outside India? Living in a little cave-like room on the bank
of the Ganga, with no ventilation even, dark inside – what is the principle
working through him that made him so famous even today? As time passes, his name captures more and
more people. The books that he has
written are a magazine of magnetism. The writing of Sri Swami Sivanandaji is
the manifestation of a soul force. He
was entirely present in every word that he wrote.
Whenever you think, you must
be there wholly in your thought. This is
the principle not only of spiritual growth but also of even the maintenance of
good health in the body. When you think
something and at the same time think twenty other things; then that thought
will not have any power. The dissipated action of the mind distracted
in various directions does not permit its concentration on anything.
The modern malady is in the
haste with which things are being done. But
you are not in anything that you are doing; you are outside it. This kind of action, where you are not
present, is called binding action.
Action in which you are wholly present is liberating action. But any one of us can close our eyes for a
few minutes and think deeply whether we are wholly present in anything in this
world. We will find, to our dismay, that
we are not present wholly in anything. Therefore, there is failure in whatever
one touches.
“Na karma lipyate nare”. Karma does not bind, says the Isavasya
Upanishad, provided that you condition your action with the proviso in the
first line of the Upanishad, “Ishavasyam idam sarvam”. If God does a work, it cannot bind, and if
you do a work by uniting yourself with God, your action cannot bind you,
because you are not the doer.
Swami Sivananda is generally
called a Godman and Mangods. A Godman is
a person who has planted God in his heart, and a Mangods is a person in whom
every god is residing.
Whatever word he uttered was a
scripture. Whenever residents in this
Ashram went and requested him to give a message, he would say, “What message do
you want? See how I am living, see how I
work. That is my message. If you can follow my footsteps and think as I
am thinking, and do as I do, what other message do you want? The life of a person is the message of that
person.
To every spiritual seeker
Swami Sivananda was an ideal, an exemplary Guru, wanting nothing but giving
everything. If anybody offered a basket
of fruits, he would immediately distribute it to everybody. He would not say, “Let me eat it; keep it
there”. “Tena tyaktena bhunjiytha” is
another passage from the Isavasya Upanishad: Enjoy the world, but under the
condition that it is pervaded by God. It
is like saying enjoy God Himself. Every
leaf of the tree, every breeze that blows, and every ray of the Sun and the
Moon is the dazzling illumination of the fingers of God Himself.
So charitable was his heart that many local people, Sannyasins, sadhus in Swargashram and in other places, and in Rishikesh, used to say he is not Sivananda, he is ‘Givananda’. The demonstration of his divinity is in the manner in which he gave.
Says the Mandukya Upanishad, “Go
and worship these great souls if you want prosperity” – prosperity not merely
in the material sense or spiritual sense, by in every sense.
When we remember him today, on
his birthday as we call it, we must know what we are remembering. We are
remembering the Mangods, or the Godman. You have to be present in the act that
you perform. Half of you should go away when you give; otherwise, it is not a
sacrifice. It is sharing of your own being
in some measure that is called charity. You must lose the greedy, grabbing
habit of the mind which is what is called the lower self. Everyone wants
everything, but nobody wants to lose anything.
If you speak a word with the
whole of your being imbedded in it, it will command respect. The whole of
spiritual life is contained in the principle of your location in your act and
speech and thought. Gurudev’s satisfaction was not in gathering the material of
this world, not the glory of the Earth, not adumbration, not show, but in a satisfaction
which is the satisfaction of All-being.
This Ashram has become so big;
its reputation has reached the end of the world. What would be the reason behind its
recognition by everybody? It is the immanent action taking place even now right
from the high heavens of the presence of this great Master.
A person who is confident that
he will never starve as long as God is in Heaven will never starve. His thoughts will pull towards himself
everything that he needs. The utter unselfishness of a spiritual seeker is in
the conviction that he needs nothing because he will receive everything.
For years we used to see him
every day, and every day he would say some new word; that was a gospel. To sit with him was a joy. His presence was a solution to every problem.
We used to go and present the
various difficulties in the Ashram, all kinds of problems to Gurudev, “Swamiji,
this problem has come.” He would say, “It will go.” He did not tell how he
would solve the problem; he would just say it would go, that is all. And it really went. All the tormenting problems vanished
gradually. When God is with you, all the people are also with you. What is your problem? That was his
philosophy.
We begin our meditation with a
prayer to Guru. Prayer to Guru does not
mean prayer to the form of the physical body of the Guru which passes away, but
the energy of the Guru, the expanded form of the consciousness of the Guru, and
its immanent presence which is enveloping us.
It rains grace and blessings upon you.
Meditation is the art of
concentrating the mind on that which is above you and it will shower Grace. The
great sage Patanjali calls it dharma mega Samadhi. An identity with this kind of principle can
collect clouds of virtue and rain blessings upon you.
Such was the great Swami
Sivananda. If you remember Sri Swami
Sivanandaji Maharaj and the miracles that he performed, and the kindness and
the compassion and the charity of his heart, all your sins will be destroyed.
Just think of him as he was really, as something which was transcendent to you;
you will be purified. May we receive his
Grace.
Excerpts from:
Gurudev Swami
Sivananda by Swami Krishnananda
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