sivananda_dls

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Swami Sivananda &
The Divine Life Society
Sri Swami Sivananda
Founder-President
Sri Swami Chidananda
Present President
SERVE, LOVE, GIVE,
PURIFY, MEDITATE,
REALIZE
So Says
Sri Swami Sivananda
Sri Swami Krishnananda
General Secretary
If you would like to visit the Divine Life Society, please write to:
Swami Krishnananda,
The General Secretary,
The Divine Life Society,
P.O. Shivanandanagar—249 192,
District Tehri-Garhwal,
Uttar Pradesh, Himalayas,
INDIA.
Tel: (91)-135-430040
Fax: (91)-135-433101
World Wide Web: http://www.SivanandaDlshq.org/
CONTENTS
HIS HOLINESS SRI SWAMI SIVANANDA SARASWATI MAHARAJ ...........1
WHAT LIFE HAS TAUGHT ME.................................2
THE NEED OF THE HOUR ...................................5
SWAMI SIVANANDA AND THE SPIRITUAL RENAISSANCE ...............7
The Problem Stated ......................................7
The Mission of the Philosopher-Saint ............................9
Life—A Sadhana .......................................9
The Education of Man ....................................10
Characteristics of His Works ................................11
His Method of Approach ..................................12
The Philosophic Life.....................................14
The Secret of World-peace .................................14
Unity, The Home of Peace..................................16
SWAMI SIVANANDA’S CONCEPT OF DIVINE LIFE....................17
PURPOSE OF LIFE .......................................19
PATH TO PERFECTION ....................................21
ALL ABOUT DIVINE LIFE...................................24
What Is Divine Life? ....................................24
Divine Life Cures All Ills ..................................24
Utilize Well This Life ....................................25
Essence of Divine Life....................................26
Inroads to Divine Life ....................................27
Feel the Divine Presence ..................................27
CARDINAL DOCTRINES OF THE MAIN RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD .........29
THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY—WHAT IT IS AND HOW IT WORKS............29
Basic Presuppositions ....................................29
Location ...........................................31
Visitors To The Ashram ...................................31
Membership .........................................32
Activities...........................................32
Principal Departments Of The Divine Life Society .....................36
20 IMPORTANT SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTIONS........................37
SADHANA TATTVA ......................................40
TWENTY HINTS ON MEDITATION .............................43
GUIDE TO SADHAKS .....................................45
UNIVERSAL PRAYER .....................................46
SONG OF 18 “ITIES” ......................................47
RESOLVES FOR QUICK SPIRITUAL PROGRESS......................47
THE SPIRITUAL DIARY ....................................49
iii
HIS HOLINESS SRI SWAMI SIVANANDA SARASWATI MAHARAJ
Hailed as the Prophet of the new age
For his inestimable services in the cause of raising
The Moral and Spiritual standard of modern mankind,
Was born on 8th September 1887 at Pattamadai, South India.
Took to the medical profession.
Published ‘AMBROSIA’, a medical journal.
Served for over 10 years as doctor in Malaya.
Renounced the world in 1923.
Entered the holy order of Sannyasa in 1924.
After twelve years of intense austerities
Founded the Divine Life Society in 1936.
The All-world Religions ‘Federation’ in 1945.
The Yoga-Vedanta Forest Academy in 1948.
The Divine Life Society has branches and members all over the world, belonging to all
religions and nationalities.
Swami Sivananda has written over 300 books on Yoga and Vedanta, Health and Healing.
He toured all India and Ceylon in 1950 and created a spiritual stir And awakening
throughout the country.
He convened the World Parliament of Religions in 1953,
Attended by delegates from all over the world.
His inspiring, godly, dedicated life has brought about the resurgence of Bharatavarsha’s
dharma and Spiritual Ideals,
And made the vibrant
MESSAGE OF INDIA
To reach all parts of the modern world.
Our devotion and homage to Swami Sivananda, The World Preceptor.
This short sketch is preserved above as a token of reverence, infinite gratitude and eternal
love to the beloved Master Sivananda, the blessed saint of Ananda Kutir.
Disciples of Sivananda
SERVE LOVE MEDITATE REALIZE
1
WHAT LIFE HAS TAUGHT ME
Sri Swami Sivananda
It was, I should say, by a flash that I came to the conclusion early in my life that human life is
not complete with its observable activities and that there is something above human perception
controlling and directing all that is visible. I may boldly say that I began to perceive the realities
behind what we call life on earth. The unrest and feverish anxiety that characterize man’s ordinary
existence here bespeak a higher goal that he has to reach one day or the other.
When man gets entangled in selfishness, greed, lust and hatred, he naturally forgets what is
beneath his own skin. Materialism and scepticism reign supreme. He gets irritated by small things
and begins to fight. In short, man is miserable. The doctor’s profession gave me ample evidence of
the sufferings of this world. I found concrete proofs of the great saying: ‘Sarvam duhkham
vivekinah’ (‘All is suffering to a thoughtful person’). I was blessed with a new vision and
perspective. I was deeply convinced that there must be a place—a sweet home of pristine glory and
purity and divine splendour—where absolute security, perfect peace and happiness can be enjoyed
eternally. In conformity with the dictum of the sruti (the Vedas),I renounced the world, and felt that
I belong to the whole world.
A course of severe self-discipline and penance endowed me with enough strength to move
unscathed amidst the vicissitudes of the world-phenomena. And I began to feel the great good it
would be to humanity if I could share this new vision with one and all. I called my instrument of
work ‘The Divine Life Society’.
Side by side, the stirring events since the advent of the twentieth century had their effect
upon all keen-minded people. The horrors of past and possible wars, and the consequent suffering,
touched the minds of people. It was not difficult to see that the pains of mankind were mostly
brought on by its own deeds. To awaken man to his errors and follies and to make him mend his
ways, so that he may utilize his life for attaining worthier ends, was felt to be the urgent need of the
time. As if in answer to this need, I saw the birth of the Divine Life mission, with its task of rescuing
man from the forces of the lower nature and raising him to the consciousness of his true relation to
the cosmos. This is the work of rousing the religious consciousness, an awareness of the essential
divinity of man.
Not by mere argument or discussion can religion be taught or understood. Not by precepts
or canons of teaching alone can you make one religious. It requires a peculiar atonement with one’s
vast environment, an ability to feel the deepest as well as the vastest, a genuine sympathy with
creation. Religion is living, not speaking or showing. I hold that whatever be one’s religion,
whoever be the prophet adored, whichever be the language or the country, whatever be one’s age or
sex, one can be religious provided the true implication of that hallowed term tapas, which
essentially means any form of self-control, is made capable of being practiced in daily life to the
extent possible for one in the environment and under the circumstances in which one is placed.
I hold that real religion is the religion of the heart. The heart must be purified first. Truth,
love and purity are the basis of real religion. Control over the baser nature, conquest of the mind,
2
WHAT LIFE HAS TAUGHT ME
cultivation of virtues, service of humanity, goodwill, fellowship and amity constitute the
fundamentals of true religion. These ideals are included in the principles of the Divine Life Society.
And I try to teach them mostly by example which I consider to be weightier than all precepts.
The modern thinker has neither the requisite time nor the patience to perform rigorous tapas
and austere religious practices; and many of these are even being relegated to the level of
superstition. In order to give the present generation the benefit of real tapas in the true religious
sense, to reveal to them its real significance and to convince them of its meaning and efficacy, I held
up my torch of Divine Life, which is a system of religious life suited to one and all, which can be
practiced by the recluse and the office-goer alike, which can become intelligible to the scholar and
the rustic in its different stages and phases. This is a religion which is not other than what is essential
to give meaning to the daily duties of the human being. The beauty in ‘Divine Life’ is its simplicity
and applicability to the everyday affairs of the ordinary man. It is immaterial whether one goes to
the church or the mosque or the temple for offering his prayers, for all prayers are heard by the One.
The average seeker after Truth is often deceived by the caprices of his mind. A person who
takes to the spiritual path is bewildered before he reaches the end of his journey, and is naturally
tempted to relax his efforts half-way. Many are the pitfalls, but those who plod on steadily are sure
to reach the goal of life which is universality of being, knowledge and joy. I have laid great
emphasis in all my writings upon the discipline of the turbulent senses, conquest of the mind,
purification of the heart, and attainment of inner peace and strength, suited to the different stages in
evolution.
I have learnt that it is the foremost duty of man to learn to give, give in charity, give in
plenty, give with love, give without any expectation of consequence, because one does not lose
anything by giving,—on the other hand the given is given back a thousandfold. Charity is not
merely an act of offering certain material goods, for charity is incomplete without charity of
disposition, charity of feeling, charity of understanding, knowledge and attitude to others. Charity
is self-sacrifice in different levels of one’s being. Charity in the highest sense I understand to be
equivalent to jnana-yajna (dissemination of spiritual knowledge).
Similarly I consider goodness of being and doing constitutes the rock-bottom of one’s life.
By goodness I mean the capacity to feel with others and live and feel as others do, and be in a
position to act so that no one is hurt by the act. Goodness is the face of Godliness. I think that to be
good in reality, in the innermost recesses of one’s heart, is not easy, though it may appear to be
simple. It is one of the hardest of things on earth, if only one would be honest to oneself.
There is no physical world for me. What I see I see as the glorious manifestation of the
Almighty. I rejoice when I behold the Purusha (Person) with thousands of heads and thousands of
eyes and feet, that sahasrasirsha Purusha (thousand-headed Person).When I serve persons I see
not the persons but Him of whom they are the limbs. I learn to be humble before the Mighty Being
whose breath we breathe and whose joy we enjoy. I do not think there is anything more to teach or to
learn. Here is the cream of religion, the quintessence of philosophy that which anyone really needs.
The philosophy I hold is neither a dreamy, subjective, world-negating doctrine of illusion,
nor a crude world-affirming theory of sense-ridden humanism. It is the fact of the divinity of the
3
SWAMI SIVANANDA & THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY
universe, the immortality of the soul of man, the unity of creation with the Absolute, that I feel as
the only doctrine worth considering. As the one Brahman appears as the diverse universe in all the
planes of its manifestation, the aspirant has to pay his homage to the lower manifestations before he
steps into the higher. Sound health, clear understanding, deep knowledge, a powerful will and
moral integrity are all necessary parts of the process of the realization of the Ideal of humanity as a
whole. To adjust, adapt and accommodate, to see good in everything and bring to effective use all
the principles of Nature in the process of evolution towards Self-realization along the path of an
integrated adjustment of the human powers and faculties are some of the main factors that go to
build up a true philosophy of life. For me philosophy is not merely a love of wisdom but actual
possession of it. In all my writings I have prescribed methods for overcoming and mastering the
physical, vital, mental and intellectual layers of consciousness in order to be able to proceed with
the sadhana for self-perfection. The self-perfected ones are the ‘Sarva-bhuta-hite ratah’ (works for
the welfare of all living entities).
To behold the Atman in every being or form, to feel Brahman everywhere, at all times, and
in all conditions of life, to see, hear, taste and feel everything as the Atman is my creed. To live in
Brahman, to melt in Brahman and to dissolve in Brahman is my creed. By dwelling in such union,
to utilize the hands, mind, senses and the body for the service of humanity, for singing the names of
the Lord, for elevating the devotees, for giving instructions to sincere aspirants and disseminating
knowledge through the world, is my creed, if you call it one. To be a cosmic friend and cosmic
benefactor, a friend of the poor, the forlorn, the helpless and the fallen is my creed. It is my sacred
creed to serve sick persons, to nurse them with care, sympathy and love, to cheer the depressed, to
infuse power and joy in all, to feel oneness with each and everyone, and to treat all with equal
vision. In my highest creed, there are neither peasants nor kings, neither beggars nor emperors,
neither males nor females, neither teachers nor students. I love to live, move and have my being in
this realm indescribable.
The first step is often the most difficult one. But once it is taken the rest becomes easy. There
is a need for more of courage and patience on the part of people. They usually shirk, hesitate and are
frightened. All this is due to ignorance of one’s true duty. A certain amount of education and culture
is necessary to have a sufficiently clear grasp of one’s position in this world. Our educational
system needs an overhauling, for it is now floating on the surface without touching the depths of
man. To achieve this, co-operation should come not only from society but also from the
Government. Success is difficult without mutual help. The head and heart should go hand in hand,
and the ideal and the real should have a close relation. To work with this knowledge is karma yoga.
The Lord has declared this truth in the Bhagavad Gita. I pray that this supreme ideal be actualized in
the daily life of every individual, and there be a veritable heaven on earth. This is not merely a wish,
this is a possibility and a fact that cannot be gainsaid. This is to be realized if life is to mean what it
really ought to mean.
4
WHAT LIFE HAS TAUGHT ME
THE NEED OF THE HOUR
Sri Swami Chidananda
In the religious and social history of this land of ours, one phenomenon has recurred
periodically through the past centuries. Time to time the great vision of the ancient seers, the eternal
verities of religion and spiritual life, (recorded as they are in the sacred tongue, the classical
Sanskrit language) becomes confined within the circle of the upper orthodox class. The scriptures,
being inaccessible to the unlearned and the illiterate, become the exclusive monopoly of the
Sanskrit-knowing higher class, while the majority of people degenerate gradually into indifference
and superstition. A vast section of people who toil day and night for a livelihood have neither the
energy to make a serious study and master Sanskrit, nor the time to sit long hours at the feet of a
pundit to get enlightened. They thus lose touch with sacred literature and the orthodox class comes
to acquire a sort of tyrannical hold over the masses on all questions bearing on God, ethics and
after-life.
At such times there invariably appears on the scene a person inspired by lofty ideals, who,
perceiving the widening gulf that is created between him and the people, at once sets about
‘bridging’ it in the way best suited to the particular occasion. He applies himself to bringing out the
choicest gems of religion in the language of the people, in a manner acceptable to popular taste and
to the need of the hour. Getting into their midst the message of beauty and hope in a form they can
easily understand, the people turn round and eagerly grasp their heritage again and at once find their
lives transformed by it. Thus responding to the rousing message of this man of the people, there
takes place a general awakening in society.
Laughed at by the learned, condemned by the orthodox and ridiculed by the sceptic, these
few farsighted ones disinterestedly rendered their service to the people. Sri Jnanadev thus gave his
peerless Gita and other works to Maharashtra, while Ekanath brought the great Bhagavata to the
homes of the people. The brave-hearted Potana, the genius of Sant Tulsidas and Kambar of sacred
memory, brought the precious gems of the Ramayana and the Bhagavata to the door of the humblest
in Andhra Pradesh, Hindustan and Tamilnadu respectively. They have become household words
there and have come to be well known in all the land. Lakshmishakavi and Moropant have done like
services to the Kannada and Marathi people with their exquisite Kavyas rendering the sacred
Mahabharata in the vernacular. Likewise the lofty thoughts of vedanta are now available to all in
the Vichara-Sagara of Nischaldas.
Coming to the present era, a similar situation had begun to develop; but this time it was
rendered very queer by a singular irony of fate. Doubtless history repeats itself, but Providence is
sometimes apt to exhibit a strange humour and thus this time she made it repeat itself with a funny
twist in it. What distinguished the present mass from previous history was that, instead of the
unlearned masses being deprived of and estranged from God and religion, this time the once
orthodox upper class, the once zealous custodians of the scriptures, themselves now fell prey to the
advent of new ideas and ideals from the Occident. Sanskrit was relegated overnight to the dust of
the antiquary’s shelf. Loyalty to religion, tradition and time-honoured social customs came to be
regarded as something not quite in fashion for which one had to make an apology. The intelligentsia
were the first victims to the baneful educational policy of the East India Company whose avowed
5
SWAMI SIVANANDA & THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY
and openly admitted policy it was to ‘gradually and eventually render the English tongue into the
general language for the nation’.
The systematic adoption of English as the medium of instruction, following Lord
Macaulay’s Minute of 1835, converted the once exclusive custodians of Sanskrit lore into a new
English-knowing educated class that supplied the Company with qualified scribes, interpreters,
assistants, etc. Later under the Crown, they became the bench clerks, the camp clerks of the
civilians, revenue clerks, accountants, etc. So now that little section which had the key to the land’s
culture in its keeping had shelved Sanskrit learning, forgotten the shastras (scriptures),lost contact
with all original tradition and begun to get anglicized by bounds. The treasurers themselves
neglected the treasury and the wealth that it contained! How this affected society in general may be
imagined!
This time, therefore, the role of reviver and reclaimer of scriptural knowledge and of
spiritual life devolved upon one who was himself of this new class. And the irony of it all lay in the
fact that he had necessarily to do this work in the very language that had brought on the decadence
which he was to arrest. For the historical malady was not, in the present case, confined to any
particular linguistic province or region like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh or Tamilnadu, but was
epidemic through the length and breadth of Bharatavarsha. This made the problem assume a form
distinctively peculiar to India, possessing as she does a dozen different vernaculars with widely
divergent scripts. These regional vernaculars were restricted in their scope, and to tackle the
problem through any one of them would mean a failure to reach and cover the entire seat of the
trouble. And so, even as the burnt shoe-leather served the shoe-bite of the simple villager or as the
auto-vaccine that the modern physician prepared from the body of the patient himself, this ‘case’
called for medication on like lines. Providence consequently chose an educated and somewhat
anglicized apostle to resuscitate the Indian genius. The very factor that had been largely responsible
in bringing on the malady, now became the medium of doing this work of restoration. Swamiji set
himself to broadcast the truths of Religion and Spirituality in English to people who had gradually
begun to feel that as a sort of second mother tongue.
Writing in simple and easy English, Swamiji commenced systematically spreading into
every nook and corner of the land, the neglected and discarded principles of divine-living, the living
of a ‘Life in the Spirit’ on earth. Ceaselessly and tirelessly Swamiji has striven to hammer into a
self-forgetful people the precious ideas and ideals that had been pushed out of their ken by the
inroads of an Occidental culture. For, in effect the harm had not stopped with a mere decay of the
nation’s literature, but there had poured over the land a host of ideas and customs entirely
detrimental and antagonistic to the indigenous culture and the spiritual genius of the nation. The
whole outlook of the nation was turning commercial and mercenary. Those remote remnants of the
orthodox community that remained untouched by the foreign ‘infection’ retained the old traditions
merely as a paying profession, specializing in astrology, astronomy, etc., and in the performance of
formal rites and ceremonies, as purohits (priests) or shastris; else they were pundits versed in
debate and grammar. Spirituality everywhere came to be at a sad discount.
By making use of every possible method and every available avenue, Swamiji flooded the
land with spiritual knowledge. He acquainted thousands with the life-giving facts and details of
spiritual life, God, Religion, Morality and Right Conduct (dharma). The truths locked up in
6
THE NEED OF THE HOUR
devanagari script began to be boldly broadcast to all in a style of English so simple and so direct
that even a high-school lad in his teens could understand it without difficulty at the first perusal.
Since his launch into this effort he has been bringing the Upanishads, the Tantras, the Yoga Sutras,
the Bhagavata, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, Gita and the Yoga-Vasistha to the light of day
again. Through his efforts the vital subject of brahmacharya (chastity) has regained its legitimate
place in the knowledge of the youth and student population of the country. The living of the
householders’ life upon very idealistic lines was advocated with considerable success through his
works. Very many householders are themselves living testimonies to this fact now. The ideal of the
highest Goal of life—of God-realization—the only real purpose of human birth, he has constantly
highlighted before the nation’s eyes. The details of the various kinds of practical Sadhana (spiritual
practice) to achieve this end, Swamiji patiently and painstakingly collected, classified and
arranged, and gave to the world in his own inimitable direct, forceful and clear style. In this destined
role of his as disseminator of spiritual knowledge and awakener of the masses, Swamiji has come to
be known by all for his enthusiastic propagation of purely non-sectarian universal ideas of the most
tolerant and all-embracing character, comprising the truths common to the major religions of the
world. This then has been his life’s work, the part given to his share in the nation’s destiny by the
Benign Powers that ever watchfully guide, control and shape the course of all things on this
terrestrial plane. How far he has succeeded in his work is patent to any observer. It is apparent in the
almost nation-wide awakening that has gradually taken place among all sections of the public. His
dynamic and indefatigable dissemination and propaganda has specially had a strong effect upon the
middle and the upper-middle classes that were rapidly becoming unduly westernized. They have
been brought back to a proper appraisal of the worth and beauty of their own religious and cultural
heritage.
SWAMI SIVANANDA AND THE SPIRITUAL RENAISSANCE
Sri Swami Krishnananda
The Problem Stated
The world we live in is observed to be a solid mass of matter. Even our own bodies are seen
to be parts of physical nature governed by mechanistic laws, which alone appears to be all that is
real. It has become a commonplace idea today, especially in the universe of science, that life is
strictly determined by the law of causality which rules over the entire scheme of the world. We are
told that distinctions that are supposed to subsist between such realms of being as matter, life and
mind are only superficial and are accounted for by the grades of subtlety in the manifestation and
spreading of particles of matter. Even the organism of the human body, which appears to defy the
laws of the universal machine that modern science envisages, is explained away as only one of the
many forms of the workings of the brute force of matter which is the ultimate stuff of all things. The
natural consequence of such a theory as this is the astonishing conclusion that human life, like every
other material substance in the world, is completely determined by blind causal laws and the
so-called free-will of man is subservient to them, if not a mere chimera. When we protest that man is
not merely matter but also mind, it is explained that mind is nothing but a subtle and ethereal
7
SWAMI SIVANANDA & THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY
摘要：

SwamiSivananda&TheDivineLifeSocietySriSwamiSivanandaFounder-PresidentSriSwamiChidanandaPresentPresidentSERVE,LOVE,GIVE,PURIFY,MEDITATE,REALIZESoSaysSriSwamiSivanandaSriSwamiKrishnanandaGeneralSecretaryIfyouwouldliketovisittheDivineLifeSociety,pleasewriteto:SwamiKrishnananda,TheGeneralSecretary,TheDi...

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