SWAMI SIVANANDA

 

Dear Friends,    J K  SIVAN  

         SWAMI  SIVANANDA  ANSWERS

I am sure most of you have heard about  HH Swami Sivananda,  of Divine Life Society, Rishikesh.  He was in his earlier part of life, a Doctor and turned a saint later by His Grace.  Swami Sivananda has authoried many books which are interesting and easy to understand and learn spiritual facts and truth.

I  was reading a book  by  HH.Swami Sivananda, in which  he had answered  some  interesting questions put  by devotees and disciples. For example I give below just a couple of questions put to to the Swami and His  answers. These relate to another great Saint from Tamilnadu  HH  Sadhasiva Brahmendra swamigal.

Someone oneday asked Swami Sivananda ' Is  there a God and why should we believe in Him?''

Swami Sivananda answered this in  very simple words for easy understanding. 

''Belief in God is an indispensable requisite - something  absolute essential... Owing to the force of Ignorance (AVIDYA) pain appears as pleasure. The world is full of miseries, troubles, difficulties and tribulations -  a ball of fire. The Antahkarana (mind, intellect, ego and the subconscious mind) charged with Raga (attachment), Dvesha (hatred), anger and jealousy is a blazing furnace. We have to free ourselves from birth, death, old age, disease and grief. This can be done only by faith in God. There is no other way. 

Money and power cannot give us real happiness. Even if we exercise  complete control over the whole world, we cannot be free from care, worry, anxiety, fear, disappointment, etc. It is only faith in God and the consequent God-realization through meditation that can give us real, eternal happiness and free us from all kinds of fear and worries which makes us suffer  at every moment. Faith in God will force us to think of Him constantly and to meditate on Him and will eventually lead us on to God-realization.

''What is the harm in not believing in God's existence ?''

If we have no faith in God, we will be born again and again  in this world  and will undergo considerable  good and bad to experience the reward for our karmas of the past. Faith and belief in God  keeps the mind controlled and fixed not to indulge in thoughts and deeds which add to our bad karmas.  The ignorant, faithless doubting self goes to destruction. He cannot enjoy the least happiness. Neither this world nor that beyond is there for the doubting self. Those who have no faith in God do not know what is right and what is wrong. They have lost the power of discrimination. They are untruthful, proud and egoistic. They are given to excessive greed, wrath and lust. They hoard up money by unlawful means. They become men of demoniacal nature. They commit various sorts of atrocious crimes. They have no ideals for their lives. They are thrown into demoniacal wombs. They sink into the lowest depths, deluded birth after birth.

Nearly two hundred years ago,  there lived a very famous Yogi,  saint,  gnani,  (a self-realized saint) by name Sadasiva Brahmendra Sarasvati in Nerur, near Karur, in the district of Tiruchirapalli in South India. He is the author of Brahma Sutra Vritti and Atma Vidya Vidalasa and various other books. He has done innumerable miracles.

 Once when he was absorbed in Samadhi (superconscious state) on the banks of the Cauvery, he was carried away by the flood and thrown somewhere else. He was deeply buried underneath the sand. Labourers went to plough the fields. They hit against the head of the Yogi and some blood oozed out. They dug out, and to their astonishment, they found a Yogi seated in Samadhi alive in deep meditation.

On another occasion, as an Avadhuta, (without any consciousness of the body) Sadasiva Brahmendra entered the Zenana (tent) of a Mohammedan chief naked. The chief was quite enraged at the sage. He cut off one of the arms of the Mahatma (saint). Sadasiva Brahmam walked away without uttering a word and without showing any sign of pain. The chief was greatly astonished at this strange condition of the sage. He thought that this man must be a Mahatma, a superhuman being. He repented much and followed the sage to apologize. Sadasiva never knew that his arm was cut off. When the chief narrated to the sage what had happened in the camp, Sadasiva excused the chief and simply touched his maimed arm. Sadasiva Brahman had a fresh arm. It is the life of this sage that made a very deep impression in my mind. I came to a very definite conclusion that there is a sublime divine life independent of objects and the play of the mind and the sense. The sage was quite unconscious of the world. He did not feel a bit when his arm was cut off. He ought to have been absorbed in the Divine Consciousness, he ought to have been one with the Divine. Ordinary people yell out when there is even a pin-prick in their bodies. When I heard of the marvellous incident in the life of Sage Sadasiva from Apta (realized) persons and when I read in the book, it gave me a very strong conviction about the Divine Existence and a divine eternal life where all sorrows melt, where all desires are satisfied and one gets supreme bliss, supreme peace and supreme knowledge''