September 9, 2026
Why Do we wish to study Swami Sivananda’s teachings? His teachings were embodied in him. His whole life and his every action were the cream of his teachings. Therefore it is more fruitful for us to see if we can learn from his life itself. Is it possible for me to contemplate his life and to learn something from that?
We who have witnessed his life, were ourselves awed sometimes. Sometimes he looked so human and so simple, and sometimes that simplicity was so complex that were tempted to give up. He was so beautiful, so simple, so straight — and that was what was so difficult for our complex minds to understand. We tend to crystallise and petrify things so that they become hard. For example, I pick up some teachings and I want to put them into practice. My life is in motion, the whole world is in motion. I don’t take any notice of these ever changing phenomena. I have a teaching and I am going to apply it here. But life is not something which stands in front of you — life is in motion. Yet we tend to become petrified, to become rigid.
Therefore we find it extremely difficult to watch a genius in action, a saint in motion, a living saint who is also not petrified. We are familiar with robots, pillars; we are not familiar with human saints.