Gurudev Sivananda

by Sri Swami Venkatesananda

Reading and assimilating biographies of saints and sages is said to be an easier path to liberation.

Here Swami Venkatesananda provides us with a work of the heart which will delight and inspire all who read it.

GURUDEV SIVANANDA is a unique, inspiring and absorbing narrative of a divinely lived life of the foremost Himalayan Sage and Saint of our contemporary era. All spiritual seekers throughout the world will find a great deal of highly instructive and informative matter in this valuable volume.

Here is the most authoritative work on the life and mission of the great saint, Swami Sivananda, hitherto unpublished, coming as it does from one of his great and intimate disciples, Swami Venkatesananda (The author attained Gurudev’s Feet on 2-December-1982.). It provides the reader with the details of Gurudev’s early life, followed by an inspiring and moving account of his medical career in Malaya before he became a monk, the period of his Tapascharya after he took to the path of renunciation, the story of his spiritual-awakening tours and pilgrimages, a complete history of the Divine Life Society up to date, and the landmarks in his illustrious life of divine service to humanity. The book is authenticated by eye-witness accounts and other direct evidences, and is replete with the embellishment of thrilling anecdotes from his sacred life. Here is an inspiring saga of the ideals that seekers of Truth have always striven to emulate, and which no reader should fail to study.

May Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj’s blessings be upon you all. May his grace and the light of his teachings illuminate your heart and your life and actions, and may lead you to the Goal in this very life.

From the Author:

"A day with Gurudev Sivananda is better spent than a year in the study of scriptures or a life-time in a library. A word—always appropriate to the occasion, and to the person addressed—a look, a smile, an action seemingly trivial—all these are (and only they truly are) ‘Living Scriptures’. The inner truth which scriptures often hide from the gaze of the immature: the easy path to God-realisation which the complicated mind of the ‘modern’ man, fails to see: the fountain of wisdom which the educated man’s vision, blinded by the cataract of faithlessness, fails to perceive—are revealed like the apple on one’s palm, by a simple word from the Sacred Lips.

For a period of just over two years, Gurudev had granted me the boon of gathering these pearls of wisdom, as they fell from his lips. Those were the years of hectic divine life activity at the Ashram, too. They were the years during which the Ashram and the Divine Life Society had just emerged from their ‘teething troubles’ and the Mission began to take shape. Gurudev’s pronouncements of this period, therefore, assume the importance of a divine gospel. With open eyes and ears and with the mouth shut,—Oh, it was a joy, a privilege, an unrivalled education to hear him, to hear more, and to hear nothing else. One who heard him, one who saw him, one who had spent an hour with him, would exclaim with Sage Alavandar ….

Tava-Amritasyandini Pada Pankaje

Niveshitaatmaa Katham-Anyadichchati

Sthitheravinde Makarandanirbhare

Madhuvrato Nekshurakam Hi Veekshate

(How shall my mind, which has entered the sweet arbour of thy lotus feet, wish for anything else?)

I offer that undiluted nectar at the feet of my Gurudev, enshrined in the heart of millions of seekers after Truth, all over the world. I have in my own humble capacity endeavoured to give the reader a pen-picture of the setting: in order that he may ‘live at Gurudev’s feet’ while reading these talks. Cold print misses something very vital—the gestures, etc., which often convey a lot. In such instances, I have taken the liberty of explaining a Talk. To those who have had his Darshan, this will call up the indelible picture of Ananda Kutir: if you have not yet had that good fortune, please have it now. Words cannot equal the Presence!

These inspiring talks have been recorded then and there, and published now as they were recorded, chronologically. They are not to be read as a textbook is read: but they are to be resorted to as a fountain—to quench the spiritual thirst. Any page and every page is laden with inspiration: and the usual ‘contents’ have been omitted in this volume, as it was felt that that would be confusing and cumbersome.

May Sri Gurudev live forever and guide us along the path of divine life."

-Venkatesananda