Swami Sivananda - The Long Arm of Grace!

Swami Sivananda - The Long Arm of Grace! 

If the success of one’s student is the yardstick to measure success as a teacher, then Swami Sivananda is arguable India’s greatest spiritual teacher over the past 100 years or so. In addition to being a spiritual giant, he also encouraged his students to form separate institutions focused on different aspects of spirituality. Some of them are:
·       Chinmayananda Saraswati, founder of the Chinmaya Mission
·       Satchidananda Saraswati, founder of the Integral Yoga Institutes, Around the world
·       Satyananda Saraswati, founder of Bihar School of Yoga

Sw. Sivananda’s mandate to his students to ‘serve, love and give’ continues to inspire so many across the world. There are two important ways in which this great man has intrinsically influenced my life.

The first – by birth. But, let me come to this later. The more recent influence began three years ago. After a five year period of ‘searching,’ I found myself in the ashrams of the Bihar School of Yoga (BSY). As noted above, these ashrams were founded by a prominent disciple of Sw. Sivanananda. This was my first overt exposure to this great man and over the past three years, as my association with BSY has become deeper, my admiration for this great man has increased exponentially. In my other posts, I have discussed my growing relationship with BSY and hence will put this aside for now.

Sometime in the recent two years, I found myself discussing BSY with my maternal uncle Madhurai G.S. Mani or ‘Mani mama’ as we all know him. Mani mama has been the spiritual guide for our family (and to so many others), but since my immediate family and I had never been spiritually inclined (with the notable exception of my brother Shiva), I had never really connected with Mani mama on this subject. So, this conversation with him was very tentative at first. Over the past two years, our conversations have grown richer. During our interactions, I learnt that Mani mama had spent 3 months with Sw. Sivananda  in Rishikesh way back in 1956.

So, yesterday when  my cousin Vijay sent me this awesome picture on my phone which Mani Mama (or rather his wife ‘Lalli Atha’ had found), I simply had to go and see it. This picture taken in 1956 beautifully captures the intimate chat between Sw. Sivananda and a young Mani Mama (all of 23 years!). had a lovely chat with Mani mama about this and other experiences. An enriching conversation indeed!




So, was is a co-incidence that I had found myself visiting an Ashram in rural Jharkand five times over the past 3 years – an ashram dedicated to Sw. Sivananda’s principles of ‘serve, love and give’? Ha!




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