Miracles of Sivananda

 

A DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY PUBLICATION

 

Third Edition: 1992

(2,000 Copies)


World Wide Web (WWW) Edition : 2000

WWW site: http://www.dlshq.org/

 

This WWW reprint is for free distribution

 

© The Divine Life Trust Society

 

Published By
THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY
P.O. Shivanandanagar—249 192
Distt. Tehri-Garhwal, Uttar Pradesh,
Himalayas, India.

Contents

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE

Miracles are not miracles for the Yogi. They are natural and almost inevitable in the plane of consciousness in which he lives. Therefore, he is not even aware of his own psychic and spiritual powers, any more than we feel that being able to walk, talk or see is a wonderful power.

Yet, the layman who experiences the miraculous powers of a sage or Yogi is so highly inspired by them that his faith in the Yogi grows, with it his devotion to the Lord and love of divine life. Spontaneously he expresses his amazement and wonderment—mixed with thankfulness for the benefits derived—at the great powers of the Yogi.

In the miracles of Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj recorded in this volume, the reader will not fail to notice that they have invariably brought about an inner spiritual transformation in the devotees concerned. This is the greatest miracle of Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj. The devotee’s disease is cured or life saved; the devotee’s faith is at once increased; and at the very same moment, there is an inner transformation, a purification of the heart, an intensification of aspiration to realise God. Sri Swami Sivanandaji’s is a miracle that does not help the devotee merely to tide over a difficulty, but also to make rapid spiritual progress, enjoy deeper meditation and live in tune with the Infinite. Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj does not encourage jugglery; but his miracles have always taken the form of an inner spiritual transformation in those who are the beneficiaries.

The present publication is intended to bring home to the public this vital factor in the life of a saint.

—THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY.

YOU CAN

Do all the good you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
At all the times you can
To all the people you can
As long as ever you can.
—Swami Sivananda.

THE MYSTERY ABOUT MIRACLES

(H.H. Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj)

Miracles are based on the principle of the concentration of the mind.

The mind has immense powers. It derives its power from the Atman or the Supreme Soul.

The mind is a collection of thoughts. The mind’s energy is dissipated by worry, evil thoughts, cares, anxieties and lack of Brahmacharya.

If you can control the immense amount of power which the mind possesses, through concentration and sublime thoughts, you will acquire Siddhis or the power to do supernatural actions.

The eight major Siddhis are greatest miracles performed by the Raja Yogins. There are various minor Siddhis also.

Siddhis come during the practice of concentration. They are by-products of concentration. You will have to shun them ruthlessly. If you fall a victim to these Siddhis, you cannot reach the goal.

The Siddhis performed by Raja Yogins are true. They cannot change the molecules of an object. They can draw their supply from the cosmic source, ether and create any kind of object through their Yogic power.

A Jnani performs miracles through the power of Satsankalpa (pure willing). A Raja Yogi does miracles through Samyama (Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi combined).

By doing Samyama on the sun, the Yogi gets the knowledge of the fourteen worlds.

By doing Samyama on the moon, he gets the knowledge of the regions of stars.

By doing Samyama on the Pole Star, comes the knowledge of the movements of the stars.

By doing Samyama on the strength of elephants and others, he gets strength equal to those beings.

By doing Samyama on the form of the body and checking the power of comprehension, he is able to make the body disappear or dematerialise.

By doing Samyama on the appearance, etc., of others, the Yogi gets a knowledge of their mind.

By doing Samyama on the Moment, he gets discrimination.

By doing Samyama on the relation of the ear and ether, the Yogi gets the powers of clairaudience.

By practising Samyama on the relation between ether and the body, the Yogi attains extreme lightness of the body and the ability to travel through space.

By Samyama on the three modifications of the mind, comes the knowledge of the past and future.

Samyama on Samskaras gives him knowledge of births.

Samyama on the senses gives mastery over them.

By practising Samyama on the distinctive relation between Sattva and Purusha, he gets the powers of omnipotence and omniscience.

Samyama on the inner light gives him the knowledge of the subtle, the obscured and the remote. Samyama on one’s own Self gives the Yogi clairaudience, higher touch, clairvoyance, higher taste and higher smell through intuition. By intuition he gets all knowledge.

Real Yogins perform miracles to convince their disciples of the existence of transcendental things and God. They will not perform miracles on the platform.

Queen Chudalai performed miracles to open the eyes of her husband Sikhidhvaja. She stood above the ground. She moved in the sky. Sri Sankara performed many astounding miracles. He drank molten lead and passed into the body of a king (Parakaya Pravesa). Sri Sadasiva Brahman was a great Yogi. He performed many real miracles. He was seen in different places at the same time. He was buried underneath the ground on the bank of Kaveri river for some months. His hands were cut and he brought again the full hands.

Akalkot Swami turned bone into gold. Another Swami passed urine over a stone and it turned into gold. Ramalinga Swami turned water into oil. Jnanadev made a wall move. Changdev rode on a tiger, using a cobra for a whip. Such miracles are performed through the power of the Yogi’s Satsankalpa. He is one with the Cosmic Will which creates, sustains and dissolves this universe, just as the single Sankalpa of the Supreme Being...“I am One, may I become many”...at once materialised into this vast universe.

Some are born Siddhas. Sri Dattatreya was a born Siddha. He created a woman and a bottle of wine by his Yogic power to get away from the disturbing crowd.

Some exhibit small miracles with the help of some disembodied spirit. These are nothing. These have nothing to do with spirituality. Drinking nitric acid, swallowing nails, chewing snakes and glass pieces, walking over fire are not the real Siddhis of spiritual Yogins. They have nothing to do with Yoga. They are performed by charlatans to collect money. Even educated people are deceived by looking at these performances. Beware of cheap miracle-mongers. Do not be duped.

Miracles have been caused by prayer. God has always granted the fervent prayers of faithful devotees. The greatest miracle is faith.

Mantras have great power. Sound can be converted into light and form. Certain mystic formulae have tremendous power. When a man has been stung by a scorpion, the Mantravadi recites a Mantra, and the man is relieved of the pain! Is this not a miracle? This is the power of the Mantra. That power has been further augmented by the spiritual power of the great Yogis who have chanted the Mantra and attained Siddhi in it. The faith of the Sadhaka who takes to that Mantra now acts as a key to release its divine force.

To convert water into wine is not difficult. But it is difficult to transform worldly-minded people into divine beings and put them in the path of Yoga. This is the greatest miracle.

Miracles there have been for ages and will continue to be till the end of the world.

Miracles are astounding only for the layman. For Yogins, these are simple things. They are not extraordinary. For those who know the principles and the laws of Yoga, who have controlled nature, they are common occurrences.

EXPERIENCES OF SADHAKAS

Miracles are God’s answers to the devotee’s sincere prayer. Miracles are a saint’s timely reassurance to help the sincere Sadhaka, escape a pitfall and circumvent an obstacle. They are the subtle emanations of the saint’s soul-force which are borne on the wings of the saint’s love of all beings and love of service, that reach the destination in time to save, uplift and to guide.

The helping hand is hidden from our view but nothing is beyond the saint’s comprehensive vision. To his all-seeing eye there is no secret; in the realm of his infinite power there is no miracle. He performs miracles in precisely the same manner as we lift our limbs.

Countless have been the instances when disciples and devotees of H.H. Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj far and near have received great help from him in mysterious ways to ward off physical ills, mental disturbances, intellectual confusions and spiritual setbacks. Many have already been published and a few more and representative selection from the devout letters of spiritual aspirants from various places are given here, and they are surely an inspiring reading if only they convince us of powers higher than human and rekindle in our hearts an aspiration and a hope that would spur us on to greater and ever-increasing endeavour to reach the goal of human life.

The divine touch of sages healing incurable diseases and at times even bestowing back dead are actually facts in the spiritual realm. These miracles baffle reason, no doubt; but, more often than not the miracle implies not merely the nullifying of known law but rather the evoking and bringing into play of a higher law of which the uninformed observer is quite unaware. Hence the latter’s wonder and astonishment at the occurrence. When the cause is hidden from your ken and in the absence of the connecting sequence the effect alone is beheld, you feel it as something supernatural.

Clergymen, Doctors and Some Scientists Agree that

THE AGE OF MIRACLES

HAS NOT PASSED

1. Dr. John Brobeck, Professor of Physiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Medical School:

Scientists who are Christians do not consider the miracles described in the Bible as impossible, and such scientists now accept that the blind were made to see and the lame to walk.

2. Dr. W.J. McNally, President of the Montreal Medico-Chirurgical Society, and a Roman Catholic:

Miracles are very real things. A miracle is something done by God and can be brought about at any time. Jesus performed miracles while on earth, and Catholics believe that miracles can happen again whenever God wants to intervene.

3. Dr. J. Cyril Flanagan, Montreal Dentist and Prominent Church of England lay reader:

Miracles are caused by a power scientists know nothing about.

4. A Psychiatrist:

There is no final answer to Plato’s dictum that mind comes first and matter latter, which is the idea behind miracles.

5. Prof. T.G. Henderson, Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at McGill:

The sceptic tradition established by English-speaking philosophers, such as Hume, had almost worn itself out. The human seems to be more receptive today of these events which do not conform to the general law. It is possible to interpret individual events even if seemingly outside the general law of nature.

6. Dean James S. Thomson, of the Faculty of Divinity at McGill:

All experienced ministers, most doctors, would agree that miracles have never ceased. Scientists have abandoned the view of the universe as a closed mechanical system operated by what are called the laws of nature, but we must still believe in an orderly world, although not to the exclusion of spiritual agencies which are the direct action of God.

7. Rev. Norman Lawson, Minister of St. James Union Church:

I believe in a world of law and order, in which the effect always followed the cause. But, miracles usually happen in times of great faith, and faith releases powers that cannot operate unless it (faith) is present. In time when scepticism is rife faith does not operate on the same scale.

8. Rev. Roland Bodger, Rector of St. Cuthbert’s Anglican Church:

Miracles in themselves are not very significant spiritually.

Sivananda—the Real Siddha

(Sri Swami Sadananda)

It is usual for Swami Sivananda to tell us and also write in his books that a real spiritual aspirant ought not to hanker after Siddhis or supernatural powers, because when they are desired, further spiritual progress will be arrested. He has seen some instances in which people who were making good progress were caught by the temptation to acquire these powers and from then they had a serious fall. Nobody can dispute the correctness of Swamiji’s opinion in this matter. But a doubt comes to me from time to time. Numerous are the letters received at the Ashram from people in different places mentioning many miracles performed by Swamiji. It cannot be that all who write such letters are uttering falsehoods or are under any hallucination. It is likely that there is a small percentage of self-deceiving persons. But judging from the nature of the events reported to have happened—reported with many details and meticulous care in the narration—I have to come to the conclusion that Swamiji is exercising supernatural powers or Siddhis. If so, will he have a fall? I can safely assert that he cannot fall—because he has risen above the states of rising and falling. Since he has reached the stage in which he can identify himself with the Supreme—call it Atman or Satchidananda or Isvara, as you like—where is the question of rising and falling? When the ego is negated, how can there be any kind of danger?

Of one thing we can be certain. The real Siddha who does not want or care for Siddhis, but who manifests Siddhis for unselfish reasons and as a result of communion with the Lord or the Brahman, is an entirely different person from the little man who has psychic powers to do things which are extraordinary or who has control of spirits. The power over spirits (good or bad) is entirely different from spiritual power. And no real Siddha goes about calling himself a Bhagavan or parading his powers. It cannot be said that the Siddha does not know that he performs miracles but they are not miracles to him—they are just ordinary things for him because he lives in the plane beyond the reach of the common man. I have to conclude that Swami Sivananda is one such. But he does not reveal himself as such to all and sundry.

Miracle-Maker

(Sri Swami Shivapremananda)

Is Sivananda a miracle-maker? Yes and no! Time and again he has declared that a true Yogi or Sannyasi should never openly display his spiritual powers. For all his spiritual achievements go in vain if they are exhibited in the market of inquisitive onlookers. But Truth can seldom remain hidden for long. Numerous episodes of amazing faith and devotion pour forth from all parts of the world, testifying the unique, hidden spiritual spark of Swami Sivananda. And he becomes mute when curious visitors and correspondents press and badger him to tell them the secret of what is called his “Miracles”. On rare occasions he would smile charmingly and say politely: “It is all God’s Grace!” Yes! disciples of Swami Sivananda are intensely aware of his miracles though he has never openly displayed them.

Concerning Miraculous Occurrences

(Sri Swami Omkarananda)

“A most miraculous work ....
I have seen him do.
—Macbeth, IV, 3

The magical operations of the realised powers of the liberated consciousness of Swami Sivananda have been creating miraculous phenomena in the ‘everyday life of psychically-susceptible’, or probably ‘believing’ or ‘desiring’ or ‘deserving’ disciples in every town and city of the world. Whether it is a solitary building in a locality on fire that remained miraculously unburnt in the land of Pakistan, during the ‘partition’ holocaust or a fast-running car on a hill-track that was, though two of its wheels going far over the precipice through its centre of gravity fight in the abyss, mysteriously pushed back on to the road by a powerful invisible hand, or a German or a Latvian devotee, who escaped death during the air-raids of the world-war, while everyone around him faced it—it is undeniably and unmistakably, as the written personal letters of the parties referred to testify, the work of Swami Sivananda.

Who is this Sivananda, on the banks of the Ganga, in the heart of the foothills of the Himalayas, whose ‘voice’ is heard by a few continental European devotees in Germany and Denmark day after day? This Sage, in whom the divine nature is so fully manifest and active, this Sivananda who has been granting sights of his physical form, at the same time to two persons—one in the isle of Ceylon and the other in Santiago, South America—who is he? Shakespeare asks us to “consider him well” (King Lear).

Who is this Sivananda, who, while not moving a furlong away from amidst us is reported to have literally stood by the sick patients in a Durban hospital? This Sivananda, whose packets of ashes sent by post all over the world, as Prasad of Lord Visvanath in the temple of the Ashram, have not only been curing the headaches of the housewives in the city of Bombay, acting as laxative to chronic constipation patients in Singapore, but proved to have breathed a new vigorous life into the dying bones of men in South India—who is he? This Godhead redeemer, this Sivananda, who makes his presence palpably felt by a devotee in Geneva and chats with another in Kuala Lumpur—who is he? Shakespeare answers: “The Thing Itself” (King Lear), and by this he means the higher liberated consciousness in all its bareness. Yes: Sivananda has contacted the Godhead within us: he has experienced the inmost principle in us, the Thing-in-Itself, and is in possession of Its powers. The supreme poet Shakespeare has caught in the magic web of his ethereal thought, the very soul of the fact: Sivananda is the Thing Itself. The Consciousness of this sage does not function, as ours does in us, through the sensuous media of the physical body, through the limitation of the mental apparatus. His is the Consciousness that is unimpeded in its action, pervading everywhere, spreading its tentacles around the world into the hearts and minds of everyone who looks to him. Though present everywhere and by the side of everyone on earth, he is specially felt, or seen or known by only those who have consciously or unconsciously tuned themselves with him. The most refined soul of an eminent American Poet, tumbled upon this experience:

The tidal wave of deeper souls
into our inmost being rolls.
And lifts us unawares,
Out of all meaner cares.

It has been an ecstatic experience with hundreds of Sivananda’s devotees though they have not come anywhere near the physical appearance of the sage to feel and know him. As we learn from some of his epistles, laden with admiration of the invisible and pervasive greatness of Swami Sivananda that they have been standing either by his picture or by his photograph or in airy nothing, saying of him in the words of Tennyson:

“Thou seemest human and divine,
the highest, holiest manhood, Thou.”

No universally acknowledged world-teacher of a few centuries past, we have reasons to maintain, was so powerful, so popular, so full of divine boldness and energy, so bubbling with joy, so triumphant in his ways, so infinitely confident, so spiritually magnetic, so clever in exploiting normal, supernormal, scientific means of communications to distribute physical well-being, mental peace and spiritual salvation, to countless individuals inhabiting this globe of ours. There is something within and around the circuit of the self-luminous spiritual form of Sivananda. Of the Sage, Shakespeare said:

Within whose circuit is Elyssium,
and all that poets feign of bliss and joy:
—Henry VI 3rd Pt. 1, 2.

Swami Sivananda’s life amidst us has been giving us innumerable intimations of the nature of the Eternal Being; a little sympathetic attunement with his presence would engender in us a concrete sense of the divine power; he has been delivering to us the Messages of God, distributing a little of his knowledge and peace. Swami Sivananda is the standing truth of the many possibilities of the powers of Consciousness.

Did the postman deliver you a registered packet containing a book—yes, just the book that you would have desired to possess this morning? Then look up for the autograph in the book. It is from Swami Sivananda. A spiritual mind reads your thoughts, for Swami Sivananda; and a spiritual force operating on mental thoughts and physical things materialises your thoughts. Did that barren woman in Madras conceive? She would tell you that it was a little magic wrought by the repetition of a sacred formula, Mantra, which she received from Swami Sivananda, and that the sage himself had conducted prayers to that effect. A Persian devotee of Swami Sivananda, an in-patient for some time in a hospital in the Russian zone of Germany, was declared by the head physicians of that hospital, to be a hopeless and incurable case. However, the doctors operated upon the patient, with a strong conviction that the patient would not survive. The patient who is now hale and hearty, discharged by the hospital during the month of May, 1954, writes that while he was being led to the operation theatre and in the operation theatre itself, he did nothing but with all the faith his heart is capable of, thought of Swami Sivananda and repeated his name; and Lo! a miracle was performed. The patient began walking on the third day, while others who have been operated upon for the milder forms of the same disease, are lying in the hospital for months and showing no signs of survival. The second para of the writer’s letter speaks of the utter amazement of the doctors. Reading this letter, Shakespeare says of Swami Sivananda: “The mere despair of surgery he cures” (Macbeth, IV, 3).

But this is only one among the countless cases of miraculous healing that Swami Sivananda has worked. The Sage has been doing deeds that are: more divine “Than breath or pen can give expression to” (Troilus and Cressida, 3, 3). He is “Of greatest works finisher” (All’s Well That Ends Well 2, 1).

And the story of the life of this light of the world is spiritually exciting and enlightening. Conceiving a curiosity, cynics come to criticise him, but go converted. The miraculous power of the story of the Sage is known to Shakespeare. His “tale, sir, would cure deafness” (Tempest, 1, 2).

Shakespeare has seen Sivananda minister “to a mind diseased”; pluck “from the memory a rooted sorrow”; raze “out the written troubles of the brain” (Macbeth, 5, 3).

The concomitant powers of Swami Sivananda’s God-communion, have brought into existence innumerable instances of miraculous happenings. But, whether it is the divine powers of Providence or the forces of the liberated Consciousness, that are working through him, these miracles, or that it is he that has been consciously exercising the highest spiritual forces in bringing them into being, or whether he knows as to what is being done through him, must, for our uninitiated intellects, remain a riddle of the Spiritual Sphinx; for the sage has not so far given a public acknowledgement of his authorship of the many miracles that are being rationally referred to as being performed by him. However, The Divine Life Society has been preserving the recorded oral narrations and the epistles embodying documentary evidences of the extraordinary happenings and supernormal ‘occurrences’ wrought by Swami Sivananda. As we estimate the records of the miracles that Swami Sivananda has worked in the lives of countless souls around the world run into five fat volumes. They are remaining unpublished for want of a competent editor who could wield this enormous material, give it a logical correctness and present them for the reading public. Or, would it not be better for us to cease to entertain the idea of pouring this ‘wealth of evidence’ into print and sing with Longfellow:

His signal deed and prowess high
Demand no pompous eulogy
Ye saw his deeds!
Why should their praise in verse be sung?
The name that dwells in every tongue
Nil minstrel needs;
—Coplas De Manrique.

and again

Upon the pages of the scaled volume that I bear
The deed divine is written in characters of gold,
That shall never grow old,
But through all ages burn and shine
With soft effulgence!
O God, it is Thy indulgence
That fills the world with the bliss
Of a good deed like this!
—Epilogue to The Golden Legend

Or shall we not be moved by an aspiration to provoke and enlighten the mind of the sceptical sections of contemporary humanity shut as it is in the brilliant shell of the limited experience, enquiry and enlightenment, proclaim the miraculous deeds of the modern Messiah, the Swamiji, whose marvellous modes of transmitting messages to devotees all over the world, have completely overshadowed the modern wonder of wireless that depends for sending its signals on the existence of electrical waves and cannot afford to dispense with the transmitting and receiving points? Yes, Robert Browning’s experience is shared by everyone of us:

do I not
Pant when I read of thy consummate deeds,
And burn to see thy calm pure truths outflash
The brightest egoism of earth’s philosophy?
—Pauline.

We have our full share of Shakespeare’s wonder at the divine deeds of Swami Sivananda; so, the resolve of the supreme poet rendered into the following two lines, would be ours individually:

I would applaud thee to the very echo
That should applaud again.
—Macbeth, 5, 3.

Swami Sivananda’s Miracles

(Prof N.K. Srivastava)

The scientific method of observation is limited to the objects of the senses and intellect. It is yet too imperfect to be applicable to transcendental facts. Still the miracles of a saint must be reported objectively. Hence in themselves the miracles have a pragmatic value.

Honesty and fairness to the scientific world demands that the miracles should be reported in the lifetime of the saint so that if there is any doubting Thomas among the authorities on the scientific research, he may have the opportunity of contacting the saint and verifying for himself the saint’s power of performing miracles.

What is a miracle? It is not an illusion of magic. It is the saint’s mysterious ability to approach God and persuade Him to include in the programme of nature something which the saint or His devotees and lovers consider unselfishly desirable for the good of humanity. This includes individual or collective or even cosmic problems.

When I first met Swami Sivanandaji in 1943 the problem of marriage was agitating my mind. He guessed it. He kept mum over it for two years. A year before my marriage, he sent me his Ashirvad that I was going to be married. It was a surprise to me for I had nearly given up the idea of marriage and there was no proposal of marriage.

At that time my youngest sister, Miss. Mira Srivastava (now Mrs. Sinha) had a peculiar type of facial eczema. The more it was treated the worse it became. The doctors were outwitted. We brought her to Swamiji. First he tried to put us off by suggesting the names of some big doctors in Delhi. But my mother and all my sisters who became great devotees of Swamiji afterwards fell at his feet as their last refuge. He chanted Ram Nam and gave an ointment to apply. In a few days she was radically cured. For her beauty of face and happy marriage she owes to Swamiji a debt of gratitude which neither she nor her husband nor her brothers and sisters can ever pay.

My father fell seriously ill in 1941, while we were all staying at Gopal Kutir, Rishikesh. He despaired of his own life. I rushed to Swamiji for medicine. Without even hearing my account of my father’s ailment, Sri Swamiji gave four powders. He told me to enjoy the Lord’s Prasad without worrying about the illness of my father. The powders would cure him. The third powder brought him round.

My sister, a blessed disciple of Swamiji, went to Patna and started preaching the gospel of Swamiji. A woman came to her and begged that a son might be born to her. In her ecstatic mood Shyama gave her a Mantra and blessed her in Swamiji’s name. Shyama, immediately afterwards, wrote to Swamiji to support her in her presumptuous act. Swamiji wrote her back saying that her blessings had already been substantiated. In due course, the woman had a beautiful son.

In 1944, I paid a casual visit to Rishikesh. I went to Swamiji to pay my respects. Of his own accord he told me that I was going to fall seriously ill in a few months’ time. I was taken aback at his words. But instantly he assured me that I would be well. The prophecy was fulfilled. He also predicted that I was not to stay long at Surajpura. This prophecy also was fulfilled.

Sir Rajira Ranjan Prasad Sinha, the President of the Legislative Council of Bihar, fell seriously ill. I had talked many times to him of the glories of Swamiji. In a moment of despair he sent for me. He asked me to make a personal request to Swamiji to save him. I did so and his life was saved for a few years, for which he was ever afterwards thankful to Sri Swamiji.

The Raja of Atgarh had fallen from the eyes of the British on account of his burning patriotism. He sought a very noble refuge in Swamiji. Both he and his Rani led an admirable saintly life when I met them at Banaras. To my surprise Swamiji’s blessings saved him from the persecution of British imperialism!

When I met Swamiji for the first time in 1940, I did not believe in the reality of meditation. I thought it was all either a dream or wishful thinking, illusion or hallucination. But he asked me to meditate for some hours that day. It was the first day of the first Sadhana Week. The very first day I saw Swamiji laughing in my meditation. I then tallied this experience with similar experience of my sisters in their meditation, the very same day and hour. The time of meditation was 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

In September 1948, I stayed with Swamiji and plunged into Sadhana under his direction. I was practising Sirshasana-meditation without Swamiji’s knowledge. When my practice went up to 45 minutes, one day I saw Swamiji in my meditation in a gown which he had never put on before. After my Sirshasana-meditation, I was proceeding to the Bhajan Hall. On my way I met Swamiji coming up the stairs of his Kutir. I was dumbfounded to see him dressed in the same gown which I had seen in my meditation. He smiled and remarked that I was doing Sirshasana very well.

On September 13, 1952, the clothes of my wife caught fire. Her burns were of the third degree. On the 14th, I received a letter from Swamiji asking me her condition! I had not written to Swamiji since I left him in 1951! Nor had he! The doctors despaired of her life because the wounds had become terribly septic. But she got a letter of invitation from Swamiji to join the Sadhana Week in December 1952. We were fully reassured that she would not die. She is alive and kicking.

Once I approached Siva and prostrated as usual. With his usual smile Swamiji asked me to go behind the temple with my family and meditate there. Puzzled was I, and I thought, “Let us have a trial, in any case Swamiji is a saint, I will obey his commands”. Thinking like this I went with my family and lodged ourselves in different nooks and sat there doing our Japa. Oh what a wonder! Everyone of us beheld the luminous form of Siva in front of us with his radiant smile on his lips. All the members of the family were wonder-struck. After a pause we went silently to the Master and bowed to him. He said, “You had a nice meditation? It is a good experience”. Now the little bit of doubt I was having on Swamiji’s greatness had gone completely and automatically I surrendered to him.

At least Vedantins hardly believe in anything but the highest impersonal universal experience of Samadhi. Yet Sri Swami Krishnanandaji, a Vedantin of vast learning and practical wisdom was once sick—rather his body was! Biliousness and fever had a firm grip on his poor constitution; and they showed no sign of relaxing their hold for days on end. No medicine, fasting or other therapeutics could be of any avail. Very near despair he resigned himself and thought the best thing was to take rest. Hardly a few minutes had elapsed the dull head suddenly cleared up. A gush of energy filled him. He rubbed his eyes and sat up. “What am I dreaming? Oh! am I drunk?” He looked around Siva—Siva—Siva—all around Siva. Siva on the walls, Siva on the chair, Siva himself as the water-pot. Siva the door, Siva the door-mat, Siva the stick, Siva the bed, Siva the cloth. Siva alone exists. Biliousness vanished. Fever disappeared. Krishnanandaji was a few minutes later taking his bath.

Master Of Miracles

(Sri A.K. Sinha)

It is meet that life-history of our revered Gurudev, His Holiness Sri Swami Sivananda, should have been published by a large number of his devotees. I make no attempt at describing him just as I would not try to describe the sun. That my family and I look to His Holiness for divine help when in difficulties either spiritual or material, would show what he is to us.

What he is to us, he is to innumerable fellow-men of ours. His letters invariably soothe his devoted correspondents however miserable they might be. Those of us who have had the good fortune of experiencing his personal magnetism would forget their worries and feel uplifted. How I wish the statesmen of the modern world met His Holiness. They would then realise how terribly misguided they are and how swiftly their materialistic plane could lead them and their countries to destruction. I have still hopes that the mad race of armaments will end by teaching the runners the lessons that they need—the lessons that are contained in masterpieces in spiritual literature that flow from His Holiness’s pen to prove that love and not hatred can bring peace to mankind. There are two incidents that have recently occurred which I am tempted to mention for the benefit of my fellow devotees. My youngest son while appearing on the last day of his university examinations found to his great disappointment that he could not answer a single question and became so desperate that he stood up with the object of handing over a blank answer paper. He suddenly saw His Holiness putting his hand on his (boy’s) head and sternly asking him to sit down, since the youngster knew all the answers. He obeyed and did answer all questions. His success has been gazetted.

My wife got a severe attack of paralysis while serving me during my illness. Famous doctors who said that it was impossible for them to forecast before 72 hours have passed what turn the disease would take, were amazed to see her getting life in the paralysed parts long before the period of 72 hours ended. My wife felt that His Holiness was making passes over the paralysed parts and what the passes had done the doctors later came to know.

Let us pray that our beloved Sivanandaji lives in his present body for many years to help the world out of the cruel materialism which disgraces mankind. What our foreign brethren have been able to achieve through His Holiness’s grace thrills me and I have no doubt that each of them is popularising Swamiji’s gospel of love in his or her own country. Glory to Swami Sivananda!

Greatest Miracles Of Sivananda

(Sri Swami Venkatesananda)

Devotees of Siva, all over the world, have recounted the astounding experiences they have had of the divine powers of Bhagavan Sivananda; how he appeared in their dreams and gave them wholesome advice, how they saw him in a vision and got his blessings, how he saved them from calamity and healed them of their illness.

To a great Yogi, space and time are no great impediments. If the X-ray can see through flesh and the meteorological instruments can probe into the weather of tomorrow, what cannot the spiritually enlightened mind of a Yogi do? Clairvoyance, thought-transference, distant-healing, etc., are so commonplace with Siva that he might not even be aware of them.

The conduct of The Divine Life Society’s affairs is a great miracle. Without a budget, without a reserve fund, without a bank-balance and without a regular source of income to run a big institution on such a lavish scale is a miracle.

To recruit everyone with the least inclination and lesser qualification into his fold and to transform everyone into a saintly personality without the rigours of austerity or regimented life of Sadhana—that is a miracle of the highest order.

To sit in his simple Kutir on the banks of the Ganga in a corner of the Himalayas and to spread the light of divine knowledge to the four corners of the world, to let his life-transforming message resound in every nation of the world, this is the greatest miracle of this all-pervading Divinity who appears before us as Swami Sivananda.

Here are some few incidents where Siva’s Prasad has worked wonders:

“I started for Hyderabad (Sind) to bring my moveables from there with your blessing and your Prasad as my protection. By the miraculous effect of your Prasad and blessings several other passengers in the train coming to Bombay were saved and all of us returned to our home safely with our lives and moveables unharmed. Whenever I was in need of help or in any trouble I concentrated, meditating upon you and also used the Prasad sent to me by Your Holiness. My words cannot describe your invincible divine power in the matter of how I have been saved and how I have been brought out from entanglement. I pray that Your Holiness’s miraculous blessings may be showered on me and I request Your Holiness to shower your blessings on my mother and wife as they are sometimes ailing from sickness.

—Sri Dwarakadas, Madras.

When I was a student I was suffering from a pain in the stomach. Your Holiness was pleased to send me Prasad and give me Upadesh of ‘Om Namah Sivaya’ Mantra for Japa. I have been doing Japa regularly for the last three or four years. I have gained good improvement in my health. I have no pain now.

—Sri Gopal Rao Bapat.

The Divine programme was such that the Prasad reached me the very day when the previously sent Prasad was finished and nothing was left for the next morning. That is my medicine.

—Sri Vidyananda (Raja of Atgarh).

It is strange, indeed! Complaints of mine are cured. As soon as I receive thy letter and apply the Bhasma I am cured of my disease. All the members of the family are amazed at thy power.

—Sri Triolkooswar Barua, Jorhat.

Miracles Of The Maharshi

(Sri Ram)

We all know what a miracle is. Any extremely remarkable happening or extraordinary occurrence is a miracle. The great French philosopher, Voltaire, once said that “anything admirable is a miracle”. If the sun shines at midnight, if the moon sheds her lustre simultaneously with the sun at midday, if a dead man walks with his head in his arms, if a piece of dry straw or paper flung into a blazing fire remains unconsumed, if a lamp burns without oil, it is undoubtedly a miracle; and God willing all these things are not outside the range of possibility.

Some foolish philosophers hold that there is no such thing as a miracle since it implies the violation of certain immutable, eternal mathematical and divine laws by God Himself, the Author of those laws. It is true that God is the Author of these laws and the Architect of all creation, but will they not concede God the power and the freedom to modify a law here or alter a law there for reasons best known to Him and Him alone and incomprehensible to their puny, pigmy intellects?

Oh! When will man learn to respect God without questioning His Omniscience, Omnipotence, Wisdom and Independence? Oh, when will he learn to bow down before Him in humble submission born of complete faith in Him and His countless attributes! Does man want God to be tied down to reason and reason alone? Cannot God do anything without assigning any reason? Cannot God be above reason or transcend reason? Is it not the height of sheer foolishness to probe into the whys and hows of God’s actions? O ignorance! Thy powers are inscrutable and impenetrable indeed!

This world has in all ages and climes seen miracles by the hundreds. Savitri rescued her husband Satyavan from the clutches of Yama, the God of Death. Markandeya, destined to die at the age of sixteen, successfully defied Death and is supposed to live even now as young as when he conquered Death. Jesus fed five thousand people with just five loaves of bread; the daughters of the high-priest Anius changed whatever they liked to corn, wine or oil. Karna was the son of Kunti and Sun-God in the same manner as Romulus and Remus were the offspring of a god and a vesta; the Palladium descended from heaven on the city of Troy. The hair of Berenice was transfigured into a constellation. Is there a nation in which the most extraordinary and amazing miracles have not been performed which the people of those nations do not cherish with faith and reverence?

When there is faith, there is miracle; where there is reason, miracle is wisely silent. It certainly stands to reason that miracles can be performed by the saints even today, if they were possible with the saints of yesterday; if they are possible with Christianity they are equally possible with Hinduism or any other religion.

The possibility of working miracles depends upon an intimate knowledge of nature which fortunately or unfortunately is not yet the common property of all. The impossibility of performing miracles can arise when such miracles do not coincide with the laws of nature so far known to the present-day generation. But all thinking and intelligent people will decline to assign a finality to the inexhaustible and endless wealth and resources of Nature.

Of course, it should be admitted that the possibility or otherwise of believing in miracles depends upon several factors such as the temper of the individual, environments, association and development. If he is a believer in an all-knowing and all-powerful God, and if he is endowed with the eye of faith, he sees one thing; but if on the contrary he is a member of the godless and diabolical society, the material eye is still blinded and disabled to see anything at all.

We often forget the wealth of knowledge and discoveries that stood to the credit of our forbears in ages long gone by. We discredit past facts on the ground that they are very often so very different from the present known facts. As kingdoms have appeared and disappeared, as nations have grown and decayed, as tides have ebbed and flowed, as seasons have appeared and vanished, as day and night have alternated, as men were born and have died, as gases expanded and contracted even so the sciences have flourished and degenerated.

Has not scientific genius a hundred and one miracles to its credit today? Will it not be arrant foolishness to deny it the capacity to do so thousands of years ago? What strikes us today and what does not strike us today, has struck people before and the famous Vedic precept “What you have today is but an imitation of what you had millions of years ago” sounds perfectly logical. It is the conceit of man that makes him revel in the idea that he is the specially gifted person by the God to alter the destinies of the world or revolutionise it and that the ancients could not have known that he now sees through the fire of his genius and that the ancients could not have known that he cannot now see through the fire of his genius.

Why do not miracles happen now before our eyes just as they did in days of yore? There is no reason why they should. Are miracles to occur for everyone for the mere asking or wishing whenever and wherever desired? Were such a happening the sole ground for carrying conviction then miracles should go on endlessly and everywhere and there would be nothing in the world save miracles! But then they would no more be miracles!

How can one’s complaint that he has not been personally a witness to miracles be evidence that others have not witnessed them and that if miracles have failed to come to the notice of a few men they have no existence whatever in the present times?

If miracles must take place for every man, then Krishnas, Christs and Buddhas must be born every day, nay every minute “ad nauseam”! We must therefore in addition to the evidence of our own senses add the evidence of seers, sages and saints, expand beyond our tiny intellectual cell and wait in patience.

As to the question why miracles are confined to certain ages and not continued through all time our simple answer is that we cannot lay down conditions on God’s operations. He knows, in His supreme wisdom when it shall be a day and when it shall be a night. Unbroken continuity of miracles or God’s direct manifestations would lose all meaning and fail in the purpose for which they are intended. Manifestation at particular times is the general Law of Periodicity which prevails all over the world in God’s government of His Universe. As evolutions and involutions alternate, periods of special manifestations and non-manifestations of God also alternate. And this is the moral effect of training ourselves in faith, charity, love and expectancy and appetising ourselves for the sublime beauty and bliss in store for the truly yearning souls.

Unless and until the individual soul is prepared beforehand by a course of spiritual culture (Sadhana) beginning with inclination or proneness and terminating with a burning craving for the Divine, it cannot appreciate the Divine. The fruit must, therefore, be withheld for a long time before its lusciousness and sweetness is longingly experienced or felt.

Even when Incarnations like Christ, Krishna, Buddha or Rama traversed this earth, people disbelieved their divinity. Lord Krishna advised the Gopis who believed in Him unswervingly “Go home, ye Gopis for ye will keep your minds better fixed on Me when so distanced than when near Me” (Bhagavata: X-23-24).

God remains hidden from our sight that we may constantly remember Him the better for a thing loved is more doted on in its absence than when present before our eyes. Like the poor man whose mind continuously dwells upon his lost gold, God becomes lost to us in order that our minds may dwell upon Him at all times not that He is unwilling or apathetic to answer our prayers or longings. Break in the continuity of God’s miracles is only apparent but to the spiritually illuminated or perfected soul a Wonder of wonders, a Miracle of miracles always sustains!

Various miracles are attributed to Jesus Christ. When he was preaching and teaching in a synagogue the Pharisees brought a man with a withered hand. Jesus pronounced his word of healing upon him and immediately he became whole. On other occasion a palsied man was brought to Jesus’ presence. Jesus saw through his divine eye the cause of the malady and the profound faith the sufferer had in him. Therefore, Jesus took pity on him and assured him of God’s forgiveness. Similarly, to the sinful woman who washed his feet with her tears in deep penitence and to the dying thief who turned to him on the cross, Jesus prayed for God’s forgiveness.

Repentance, contrition and change of heart are the conditions laid down by Jesus in his teachings for securing God’s forgiveness of human sins.

The miracles attributed to Jesus are essentially records of healing and the majority of them were healings of deranged or disordered minds. Many diseases like epilepsy or insanity that would now be termed physical or mental were in the days of Jesus attributed to devil possession. There is a remarkable instance recorded in the Bible wherein Jesus wanted the devils on coming out of a man’s body to enter into a herd of swine. The devils actually entered into the swine as Jesus willed, rushed down a precipice and were drowned in the sea.

Power over devils and the testimony of demoniacs whom he healed were the chief evidence that induced belief in his divinity in the minds of the apostles. Undoubtedly Jesus did possess tremendous powers to calm disordered minds. The working of those powers was psychological. The miracles of healing leprosy, paralysis and blindness also belong to the category of mental or spiritual healings which are now well-known to medical science.

But one thing stands out patent to all intelligent and thinking people about the miracles of Jesus. His miracles failed to compel belief in his authority in the critically minded Pharisees who often challenged him to show them a sign from heaven that they might believe in him. But Jesus sternly refused to give them any sign. “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign and there shall no sign be given to it”, he declared. He was unwilling to compel belief that way.

His miracles of healing were all acts of mercy compelled out of him by human suffering. He strictly advised all concerned not to advertise his miraculous powers. The miracles were his responses to acts of faith on the part of the ailing and the diseased whom he healed. It is very noteworthy that he failed to perform such miracles when such faith was lacking.

Where there is faith, healings like those of Jesus still take place. When Jesus was once preaching in his home-town of Nazareth he met with the proverbial disdain of “the prophet in his own home.” The people taunted him with his low birth and challenged him to perform any of his miracles. The Messiah failed to do even his works of healings because of the unbelief.

“Mystery” is an open secret to those who have willing hearts to receive the truth but concealed to the unreceptive and the ununderstanding.

Capacity to perform miracles or otherwise is not the sole criterion by which the spiritual splendour and magnificence of a saint is to be assessed. God manifests Himself through certain chosen saints by working certain miracles through them for the supreme good of the world while certain other saints may be left out for such purposes for reasons best known to God Himself and absolutely beyond the ken of man.

There are several thrilling miracles attributed to my spiritual Lord and Master Maharshi Sivananda who is himself not aware of any of his spiritual powers (Siddhis).

Establishment in right conduct, practice of all branches of Yoga, practice of truth assiduously for a number of years, intense feeling of universal love, practice of the presence of God, conquest of body and mind, practice of good thoughts, good words and good deeds, complete self-effacement and surrender to the Will of the divine are some of the important exercises which make the Maharshi a fit and adequate instrument for the working of miracles by God, who is the sole Author of every miracle, big or small.

Maharshi Sivananda is no miracle-monger who claims any extraordinary spiritual powers or believes he is performing any miracle. There are saints who are aware of their psychic powers and saints who are unaware of them. The Maharshi belongs to the later category.

A big business-magnate from Calcutta, Sri Kashiram Babu recently wrote to an inmate of the Sivanandashram: “Miracle-maker is he who is the presiding deity of Ananda Kutir. You, I and various others involved in the miracle are all the dolls in his hands. He is the wirepuller and to his tunes the dolls dance. The moment he ceases the wirepulling there ends the power of the dolls to dance. That is the truth and that truth he is teaching us every day and through the medium of you, his disciples, we people of the world get to it regularly. Glory to the Miracle-Man and his choicest instruments who adorn his Kutir”.

There are many miracles attributed to the Maharshi that shall ever remain unknown to us. Here are extracts from original letters from the devotees and admirers of the Sage testifying to the authenticity and perfect reliability of some of the miracles worked by the Maharshi in which they themselves were participants:

“Fortunately now I am not suffering from the malady I informed your Holiness in my letter dated 11-8-49. It was a miracle that soon after posting the letter that complaint vanished. It is the greatness of Guruji and God”.

—Sri K.A. Tawker, Madras.

“At Dronachalam in Feb. 1948 I had typhoid and you treated me and cured me by post. In Sept. 1948 early in the morning I had a dream in which I was praying to you with Naivedya (offerings). A black dog came and caught hold of it. I was about to beat it. You appeared smiling and said you were with me. I feel you are with me”.

—Sri P., Dronachalam.

“I feel and am having your Holiness’s grace always with me at all times. This has been proved on 2nd Feb. 1949 when your Holiness’s grace had spared my life from the bite of a cobra”.

—Sri M. Sundaram, Bangalore.

“I am glad to inform you that my son K. Srinivasan, your humble devotee who is in correspondence with your Holiness and who is having your Holiness’s blessings now and then along with your Divine Life Society pamphlets, was through your grace and blessing saved from a serious motor-accident, met with on his way home from college yesterday”.

—Sri C.S. Krishnamurti, Hyderabad.

“Your Holiness’s blessings have every time turned the anxious and trying problems into a hopeful and pleasant phenomenon. Miracles indeed!”

—Sri Hansraj Chadda, Dehra Dun.

“I should certainly say that whenever I get any trouble I at once write to Swamiji Maharaj and by the blessings and divinity of Swamiji I become free from troubles”.

—Sri Shanti Mahajan, Broach.

“On the 14th of this month I had to deliver an address to the members of the Indian Institute of Culture, Bangalore, on Kalidam’s ‘Parvati’. I am always diffident about my speaking capacity. That day in the morning I prayed to Thee and said that the lecture should be a great success; then I applied the Vibhutis (Holy Ashes) of Lord Visvanatha sent by Thee sometime back. It was a wonder to me during the lecture words flowed like the waters of the Ganga for an hour and fifteen minutes. All were supremely pleased and inspired”.

—Prof. Ramakrishna Bhatt, Bangalore.

“I was able to give relief to some one suffering with scorpion-bite by praying to you and the Lord. You are a Doctor and you saved me several times. I saw you by my bedside in Feb. 1948 when I was laid up with typhoid. I can forget anything but your love for the aspirants”.

—Sri G. Srinivasa Rao, Banganapalli.

“A month ago one morning while waking up, I saw your face just as if you had been really in front of me”.

—Sri Mahasita, Paris.

“Yesterday during the Sankirtan and before expressing a few words about Divine Life I just thought of you and lo, I saw you seated in my heart and sometimes in front of me”.

—Sri Damodaran, Mysore.

“I beg to state that by thy blessings my wife has almost completely recovered and that both my wife and myself have been doing Japa and Bhajan of our Mantra and been acting according to your kind directions. I look upon the recovery of my wife from a long-standing disease as nothing short of a miracle wrought by the divine Grace of your Holiness”.

—Sri Pandurangappa, Mysore.

“Everybody in the South Indian colony of South Calcutta Branch says that your Holiness has come to Calcutta and is staying in Ezra Street and that some one had the good fortune of giving you Bhiksha too, while you are actually at Ananda Kutir (Rishikesh)”.

—Sri Narayana Swami, Calcutta.

“In 1947 a Malayali gentleman named Govinda Menon suffering from leucoderma arrived at Ananda Kutir in the full hope and faith that he could rid himself of the fell malady by the grace of the Maharshi. The Maharshi was impressed by his faith and devotion. He asked the young visitor to remain with him for some time. Govinda Menon did regular Japa, Kirtan, etc., took several baths daily in the Ganga, prostrated at the feet of the Maharshi and lived on a restricted diet. Strange to tell in about two months’ time he became completely cured. He left the Ashram full of joy and praise for the Maharshi.

“When I was breathing the hallowed atmosphere of Ananda Kutir you addressed me as Professor and I very humbly told you that I was only an assistant lecturer. Now through your grace your very words have come true! I have been promoted to the gazetted rank in Madras Educational Service. I consider this to be the first mundane fruit of my visit to the sacred Ashram, a stepping stone to better things on the earthly plane, more lasting things on the spiritual plane”.

—Prof T.K. Srinivasan, Madras State.

These are by no means a catalogue of miracles standing to the credit of the Maharshi but just extracts from genuine letters that give a glimpse into the psychology and mental make-up of the individuals who are well-fitted to derive the benefits of the blessings of the saints and sages that have miraculous results to transform pain into joy, failure into thundering successes, disappointments into achievements, sickness into blooming health, calamity into deep peace and darkness into light, health into dynamic life, and adversity into roaring prosperity. Those who give testimony to the Maharshi’s divine powers are not just simpletons, but men and women imbued with tremendous faith in the Maharshi and God, men and women of learning and intelligence and people from not only India but all parts of the world.

Siva Rescues Devotees From The Jaws Of Death

(Prof. O.P. Sharma, Delhi)

As Lord Krishna has said in the sacred Gita, the Lord Himself is presenting Himself as so many Avataras even in this Kali-Yuga and we can definitely say that Sage Sivananda of Ananda Kutir really represents such an Avatara in this materialistic age.

He is just now sitting amidst us an embodiment of the Lord Himself. No argument is necessary and no logic to argue about his unquestionable greatness. We must only have a direct approach to reality which is existing before us all. Like a child we see him smiling and cutting jokes. Sometimes he dances in ecstasy forgetting his entire personality. His generosity and enthusiasm in the distribution of divine knowledge with his eloquent smile is like that of a child. He never cares or worries himself with any kind of worldly Maya. He ever watches with a smiling mood every one of our selfish activities but he never utters a word about anything. Every day he is acting as doctor for our very souls. Every observation by his eyes is a kind of injection to our souls. His Darshan itself will certainly relieve us from the bondage of birth and death. Let us, therefore, approach him with real fortitude and have eternal Bliss, Moksha. It is foolish for man to attempt to try to fly to other worlds. Why should we at all attempt to fly to Chandraloka! Every attempt of such a kind will lead us only to frustration and nothing more. There is a Helicopter, namely Lord Sivananda resting in your heart, you can depend upon him, sit in it and fly to the land of immortality. Faith only is needed and faith is the very first step of realisation. Faith takes firm ground through a sudden chance and gets into that chance by taking a trip to Ananda Kutir and having Darshan of Gurudev. He is verily the Lord incarnate. The embodiment of God in the form of Lord Sivananda is waiting to receive you with wide open arms.

I can dare say it is only a chance followed by some miracles which made my conviction, my faith strong and deep-rooted. That is why I never look at this body sitting before me as an aggregate of five elements but as God Himself manifesting His own Roopa through this glorious form—the form of my revered Guru Sri Swami Sivananda. Here I am narrating a few miracles which changed my entire angle of vision. Certainly I should have been an atheist but for this accident which entirely changed my view of life. I can say they changed my entire life. Everything about my life was a blessing of the Lord Siva. This is my staunch belief. During the year 1942 when the Quit India movement was in its rage my parents visited the Swarga Ashram. They were on their way back to Rishikesh. The Tongawala suggested to them that they can have Darshan of Swamiji also. So they got down at 2 p.m. at Ananda Kutir. They were informed that they can have darshan of Swamiji at 5 p.m. as it was the usual time for him to come out of his Kutir. At the first sight of Swamiji my father was simply hypnotised and my mother was simply fascinated. There was a very grand spiritual aura over his entire face which had a command of its own. There was a very grand cheer and smile in his entire personality.

My mother was worried for the entire period of her later life. My eldest brother Sri R.C. Kumar was at the fighting front in Egypt and for a very long time we never heard anything about his whereabouts. We were all forced to believe that he should have been dead in action in Egypt. My mother’s condition was most pitiable. The majestic personality in the Lord Siva simply smiled and uttered a few graceful sentences. They were this: “Never despair. Your son is all right. He will return soon”. This was all. To our great astonishment my brother reached Sialkot on 21st September 1942 all of a sudden and his first letter from Bombay was received as soon as he stepped on the Indian soil. This was certainly a grand miracle.

So many incidents happened in my brother’s life during his war services that every escape we were feeling was surely a blessing from the majestic Siva of Ananda Kutir. He came back at the appointed time. He was brought to Ananda Kutir by my mother. Surely, he was baptised by the living Lord whom we can all see. He is now working as O/C of a big E.M.E. workshop in India.

Another wonderful incident also happened. It was in August 1947. All of us made up our minds to stay at Sialkot city during the days of disturbances. We had a notion that even in spite of change of governments, people might not change. During the midnight of August 8th my mother was startled by a sudden dream and she suddenly rose up. She dreamt that Swami Sivanandaji ordered: “Leave this place immediately and go to Haridwar”. We simply obeyed reluctantly. We only got into the Indian Border and to our great amazement we heard also that the next train which followed ours was smashed by the Muslims near Wazirabad. Inscrutable are the ways of divinity. But the same God also comes to save us through such sudden dreams and he really guides us every moment of our life. On reaching Haridwar we immediately proceeded to Ananda Kutir and took solace in the Darshan of Gurudev. Rather we took shelter under his ardent protection and settled ourselves. My mother was a staunch devotee of Swamiji and I was also given Guru-Mantra by him. Sometimes I pray for Jinnah Saheb for his indirect blessings on me and family for his creation of Pakistan that gave me a cause for contacting the revered Swamiji. Though we lost everything that belonged to us in Pakistan, we were most blessed in settling at Delhi. My confidence says all this is due to the blessings of my revered Gurudev.

During the Kumbha Mela at Haridwar my parents accompanied by an old lady friend went to take the holy bath in the Ganga. It was not an ordinary day. The crowd was incalculable. Men and women in their enthusiasm were crowded like anything and they were trampling everything. The old lady who followed my parents missed the way and she was thrown down. She was absolutely helpless and cried, “O Siva! come to my rescue”. What happened was this mysterious accident. She actually saw the Lord before her human eyes and without the loss of even a second there was a long rope by her side. Just nearby where the helpless lady was lying from the second storey of a huge building two small boys that were playing witnessed the fate of that lady and suddenly lowered the long rope from above. The lady caught hold of it and was pulled up safely to the amazement of one and all.

The fourth miracle was this. This was a personal experience of myself and my parents. I was living in Sahji Mandir at Delhi. My centre for the B.A. Examination was Daryaganj, i.e., five miles from home. On the 18th of November, the day of the examination, I caught severe pneumonia and later on influenza, too. My suffering was immense and acute. I was absolutely helpless. My condition was only worsening every moment. I was surely in the jaws of death. I was able to observe four pitch coloured dark bodies having deformed organs with long teeth and with wide jaws. They carried thick and strong ropes in their hands. They simply frowned at me. I attempted to cry in despair and I could not. The members of the family began to mourn that I was dying and at the last moment my mother took up chanting the Gita. I could not understand or hear anything. This was only a later narration by my parents. Just at this moment of despair the postman knocked at the door and delivered to us a book-post from Ananda Kutir. That contained a few Tulasi leaves and two packets of Prasad, Vibhuti and Kumkum. Some hope slowly came into my mother’s mind. She opened the packet and diluted the Vibhuti with water and slowly administered two spoonfuls of the Lord’s Prasad into my mouth. I opened my eyes and there was a hope of recovery. By the Lord’s grace and the grace of Gurudev what a great wonder it was that I was saved and I appeared in the B.A. Examination in April 1950 when I was twenty years of age and I got through. This surely was not by my efforts but by the grace of Lord Sivananda.

These are some of the great miracles that actually happened in my life. They bear a very deep effect on my soul. I have my deep faith in my Sivananda of Ananda Kutir. My suggestion to my friends and well-wishers will only be to keep immense faith in Siva of Ananda Kutir. Read his literature over and over again. It is immensely simple. Even a child can read and follow his grand truths. You must find the reality even now. His books are his precious gifts. He gives them with immense love and sincerity. Read his books over and over again and pass them on to your immediate friends and relations who can benefit by them. Do never hoard them. I have my personal experience that by passing them on to others many people have mended themselves and changed their mode of life itself. My advice to all my friends is, “spread the gospel of Siva, do not be selfish and narrow-minded. He is the Guru of the entire world. Everyone has to share his teachings. All these we can do only if we create more and more opportunities for others to come into his fold and his service”. I conclude with the wish that many more miracles of such kind will ever happen; they will exist and give real solace to our stricken hearts at all times.

Swami Sivananda—the Miracle-Worker

(Col. A.N.S. Murthy)

Many have known the life of Swami Sivananda, of his birth, of his early education, of his services as doctor in Malaya, his return to India and of his subsequent Tapasya for Self-realisation at Rishikesh. Many also know how after realising the Self, he has been propagating and reviving the religion and philosophy of this ancient land through his many books, letters, speeches and through his all-India tour but, few know of the many miracles he has been working.

Yes, miracles such as the healing of the sick and feeding of the poor, if one would have them that way. True, these are not the magic variety such as one generally associates with the word miracle. His hospitals and assistants to attend the sick, his ‘Langar’ and ‘Sadhus’ to cook and feed about two hundred pilgrims a day, his large establishment for printing and distributing his many books are, perhaps, like other similar institutions.

In a previous article published in the Birthday Number of ‘The Divine Life’ in 1951, while attempting an analytical study of this anchorite of Ananda Kutir, I had expressed my wonder how the Swamiji could manage to keep going his many enterprises enumerated in that article, everyone of which require money, and yet more money. That wonder still persists. However, it is not this side of his miracle-working I have now in mind.

Miracles such as making five thousand loaves out of five, or making a fig-tree either have long ceased to surprise me. We in India have often associated such acts with magic. The former is of a low category attributed to magicians who can invoke evil spirits, while the latter is attributed to spiritual aspirants who enamoured of a few powers that come their way in their upward climb to Godhead stop at that particular rung of the ladder, and remain content with the cheap popularity that the display of their Yogic powers brings. Nevertheless India regards these as but magicians although of the “white variety”.

Him alone who, regardless of such way-side powers marches on to the ultimate goal of God-realisation does India and Eternity adore as the Sage of sages. All others are regarded as aspirants fallen on the way and therefore not full-fledged. Swami Sivananda is of the former order and belongs to a long line of Self-realised, selfless souls such as Sri Sankaracharya, Swami Dayananda, Swami Vivekananda and others. These souls having realised themselves have thought fit not to work miracles of the cheap variety but the miracle of the highest order—miracle of changing man himself. How Sri Sankaracharya, Swami Dayananda, Swami Vivekananda, by the example of their lives, through their writings and speeches had changed the life of many millions is recorded history. Likewise, Swami Sivananda’s life, his books, his letters and his speeches have brought miracles in the life of many. Many who had wandered from the right path, after hearing his clarion call, have chosen to follow him.

He has been able to attract to his humble abode at Ananda Kutir men of all classes. The rich and the poor, the princes and the peasants, the sinners and the saints, from the South and the North, from our nearest neighbour Ceylon and from far off Finland have all gone to him and have come back inspired, changed, resolute to follow his teachings and lead a moral, spiritual life, the life that shall lead to Self-realisation.

Men who have never been associated with religion have succumbed to his call. Military officers of the rank of Generals and Brigadiers have gone to him and come back as confirmed religionists. Many have resolved to touch never more meat or alcohol in any form.

So have many in far-off lands taken enthusiastically to his teachings. His extraordinary influence is not restricted to his personal contact. His writings and letters have had the same influence as his personal contact and those that have read them have not only taken to a better life but have also helped others to do likewise. Thus have sprung in many parts of the world his Yoga centres of classes, although he has not left the shores of India, so far, on any preaching mission.

Let the witnesses themselves speak. Here they are: Mr. Harry Dickman of New York: “The most merciful Sivanandaji has offered free his deep knowledge. He has sent advices to many European Sadhakas. He has given instructions to various students in Europe as how to remove the diseases of the body, mind and soul. It is a Wonder of wonders how Siva can accomplish this especially if one remembers that he has great many followers in India, that he writes in many Indian monthly and weekly papers. We here simply wonder how it is humanly possible to write so many books, to train students in all directions, to conduct Kirtans and public lectures and to serve the sick and the poor. Yes, the world needs Siddha Jnanis and Siva is such a one”.

Mr. Hussain Kazimedeh Iranshahr, Professor, Zurich University: “Swami Sivananda is not only the soul of The Divine Life Society but also a guiding light of the whole of humanity. This great world-reformer, dynamic, social and scientific worker, religious and modern thinker, philosopher, author, orator and poet is doing to the whole world an infinite service”.

Mrs. Liliane Samash of California: “His good thoughts and goodwill protect me and take away all evil thoughts of the mind and destroy all Karmas and strengthen my will”.

Mr. C.E. Diem of Australia: “Swamiji’s teachings warm up the hearts of countless lonely people and give them new hope. I have presented his books and conveyed his teachings here, in Australia, to many friends and have no doubt that finally this dissemination of spiritual knowledge will bring the people closer and land them towards the final realisation that we are really one and therefore should treat each other as we would like to treat ourselves including even our dumb brethren, the animals”.

These are but four representative letters from many thousands of similar ones that Swamiji continues to receive from all over the world. In addition, this writer happens to know quite a few who were bad characters till they came to Swamiji and as a result of his contact have chosen the path of the spiritual aspirant.

Is not changing man’s life to godly ways the highest of miracles? Is it not, therefore, that sages throughout the ages have sought to bring man to the righteous path?

Was it the aim of Jesus to make men walk on the waters? Was it the aim of Zoroaster to make his followers to walk through fire? Their one great desire was to turn men towards God, to make them live as their Creator intended. The great sages know that changes here and changes there, change of governments or change of position, the giving of little wealth here or a little happiness there was but a very superficial way of treating the evils of the world and, therefore, they sought to change the root of all evils—the heart of man. They know that unless man is changed no amount of other changes can bring peace and goodwill on earth.

Swami Sivananda has been flooding the land with his ‘Jnana’ and beckoning all to take to divine life. That many have answered and are answering his call is what I consider a Miracle of miracles, particularly in these days when the world is almost mad with ideas of war and hatred and various kinds of materialistic crazes.

Miracles Of Guru-Bhagavan

(Sri Satchidananda Prasad Sinha)

You may believe it or not, to me Gurudev is really a living God. He is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. Only a year has passed since I have come to his divine lotus-feet and I cannot check my temptations of putting here in black and white a few of my experiences of this short period.

I cannot forget the memorable day when the Lord’s grace bloomed over me for the first time. It was the 8th September, 1957. A friend of mine instigated me to accompany him to the place where Gurudev’s 71st birthday was being celebrated. I had never seen Gurudev before, nor had heard anything about The Divine Life Society, but felt that, as though through an unknown spirit, I was compelled to participate in the programme. I performed Pada-Puja to his image and participated in the illuminating speeches given by his devotees. There I learnt that our Gurudev was a living God.

I was very much inspired by the speeches delivered on that occasion. I constantly meditated upon the whole event. My heart ached to have a Darshan of the God. I had no sound sleep. I always thought about the plan as to how I shall be able to go to Rishikesh and have Darshan of Him. At last the favour of Gurudev descended upon me and I had an opportunity to visit Rishikesh during the Pooja holidays. I was overwhelmed with joy when I put my head over the lotus-feet of Bhagavan, I forgot all about my existence and felt I was in heaven. I received his divine blessings and came back to Patna felt staying in the Ashram for 24 hours only.

Once in a cold winter morning in February 1958 a friend of mine who lives adjacent to my quarters came to me in a perturbed state of mind and told me that his only grandson was having high temperature. The child was only two and half months old. I at once went with him and found that the temperature was 105 degrees. The condition of the boy was precarious. I was visibly moved and sent for a doctor. I took out my Mala, closed the eyes and began to chant the Mahamrityunjaya Mantra. I meditated upon Sri Guru-Bhagavan who is the Doctor of doctors. I prayed for his mercy and blessings.

To my utter surprise I saw Guru-Bhagavan wearing a long warm coat and a walking stick in one hand. He took the child in his lap and intimated me that the child would be all right in a short time and then left the place. When I opened my eyes, I knew I had sat there for half an hour. I took the temperature again; it was 103 degrees and the child was returning to normal. In the evening the child was completely all right. This is Gurukripa. He does not like to see his devotees in trouble. He is always by his side, who totally surrenders to him.

On another occasion again I troubled my Bhagavan. Whenever I feel hopeless I seek his favour and cling to his feet and receive his divine mercy without loss of time. It was in the month of May, 1958. I had to go to my father-in-law’s house with my wife to attend a marriage ceremony. I had to reach an interior village of Muzaffarpur district in North Bihar. The road was motorable but on reaching Muzaffarpur town I came to learn that due to heavy rains about ten miles of the road had been badly damaged and motor buses could not pass. As I had to reach my destination that very night I engaged a bullock cart; but people warned me not to proceed as there was likelihood of dacoits attacking us en route. I had firm faith in Guru-Bhagavan and I had no fear at all. I asked the cartman to proceed further. It was a moonlit night and the sky was very clear. I began to chant the Mahamrityunjaya Mantra with faith and devotion. When we reached the danger zone I saw two white bulls coming from either direction. I saw Guru-Bhagavan with Trisul in his hands riding on the two bulls. Tears of devotion rolled down my cheeks and my throat and voice choked. The bulls followed us for about three miles. When we reached a safe place they vanished all of a sudden.

People may believe the above statements or not but I have felt them myself. For me they are nothing but his kindness. I have received several letters from him containing instructions and guidance and I feel his presence always by my side. I always pray for his divine mercy and pray that he may live long.

Miracles Of My Master

(Sri Chellaramani)

Since the days of yore, the general masses in all countries have associated religion with miracles. Even today there are persons everywhere who would seek the help of priests, Sannyasins and Yogis for the cure of their various ills. This practice is common not only among the unsophisticated but is prevalent in the educated classes also. Even those who are proud of their rational bent of mind are occasionally forced to beseech aid from the supernatural sources, as a last resort, when all other efforts prove abortive. Some persons even go to the Himalayas in search of Yogis and Mahatmas who could effect miracles and return disappointed when they do not find any who is in a position to answer their expectations.

But many in this country have little knowledge of our Shivanandanagar, a place of miracles, where the miracle-master Swami Sivananda lives. If one has got the requisite faith in him and purity of heart and one is able to effect absolute self-dedication to the grace of Swamiji, he never fails to cure all the ills of life.

From my personal experiences I would quote some instances, when I have felt the power of his miracles just by remembering him and beseeching his help.

In 1948, we migrated from Sindh to the Indian Union. When I was travelling by train with my family, a magistrate of Pakistan appeared suddenly at Mirpurkhas station and ordered his men to take down my luggage for search. It was nothing but only an implied harassment and giving trouble with an evil intention, because we were allowed to entrain only after a thorough search at Hyderabad (Sindh). Observing the magistrate’s rude manners, I closed my eyes and prayed earnestly to my Sadguru Sri Swami Sivananda for help. Thereupon, unexpectedly a gentleman known to me appeared at the platform and managed to relieve me of the trouble of detention and I was allowed to travel by the same train.

Again, in the same year, while I was on my pilgrimage to the shrines of Kedarnath and Badrinath (which necessitates a trek of about 200 miles in the interior of the Himalayas) my right leg became acutely painful and swollen after I had covered only half the distance on foot. Therefore, I entered as an indoor patient in the civil hospital at Okhimath for treatment. I remained there for a full week, but there was no improvement. On the contrary, the doctor suggested an operation. I became very disappointed. Then I remembered my Sadguru Swami Sivananda and dropped him a postcard, seeking his blessings. It was to my surprise that the day he received my letter (at Ananda Kutir) improvement started and I could walk towards Badrinath very shortly, without having to undergo the operation. Thus I completed my sacred Yatra by the miracle of my Master.

In 1950, I attended the great Kumbha Festival along with my wife and daughter. On the Kumbha day when we were returning to our place of residence after the sacred bath at Har-ki-Pedi we were caught up in the tragedy of stampede due to uncontrollable surge of the moving pilgrims. Before our eyes we saw about thirty persons crushed to death. We all desperately remembered Sadguru Swami Sivananda at the moment of acute anxiety. Immediately stout ropes descended on us from above and we were hauled up in no time to the upper storey of a building by some merciful people as if by magic and were thus able to save our lives by the grace of Swamiji.

I was promoted as an Assistant Engineer in 1951. But I was reverted back in 1953 without any fault of my own, though my juniors were continuing as Assistant Engineers. I appealed but it brought no satisfactory result.

My friends advised me to approach Delhi and somehow try for reinstatement by hook or crook if necessary. But I did not like to employ unfair means and instead of wasting my money I was impelled as though by an inner urge, to donate Rs. 500/- towards the Moola Dhana Fund of the Visvanatha Mandir at Shivanandanagar and have a special prayer offered to the Lord. To my great wonder, I was soon reinstated as an Assistant Engineer and am still continuing in that post with the blessings of Swamiji Maharaj.

May the miracle-master of ours live for a very long time in our midst, so that he may alleviate our difficulties and guide us in the spiritual path.

Preceptor Of Miraculous Powers

(Sri Anwarul Hasan, Azamgarh)

It is obvious that a modern Guru must be an adept in the line of deep concentration and meditation so that he may be able to exert telepathic influence from a distance. Apart from being a specialist in the art of meditation he should possess the genius of adapting the literary medium for a full and total expression of his spiritual experiences.

Both these qualities are found in Swami Sivananda to a remarkable degree. Swamiji has revealed the nature of the Sadhana which he himself did before he undertook the sacred mission of dissemination of spiritual knowledge.

It is because of his extraordinary power of concentration that the disciples of Swamiji get spiritual experiences like the one noted below.

“Whenever I do Pranayama, Swamiji’s picture appears before me and I feel as if I were drawing spiritual strength from him...Very often now in my meditation I see Swamiji and a wave of joy and peace comes over me. I feel irresistibly drawn to concentrate on him.”

—Mrs. Gaby Gritsch, Berlin.

Swamiji is the only modern sage who combines in himself the two essentials of a modern Guru. Some other famous Yogis had Bhakti or Atma-Vichara as their personal Sadhana. Swamiji is the only Yogi who adopted deep meditation as his inner Sadhana although he is a master of all Yogas, and preaches the path of synthesis.

Following are a few of the instances of Swamiji’s powers of spiritual telepathy from a distance which have been testified by devotees from various places. Sivananda has got the power to inspire his disciples through dreams.

Sri M.R. Sibal of Hyderabad writes: “I am getting regular lessons on Yoga and philosophy from your august self in my dreams.

“I am myself quite ignorant of Yoga but you have given me some power by giving me your Darshan in my dreams.”

Sri Marie Milkova, Vancouver: “I came to know Swami Sivananda through a dream. It was a strange dream. I saw his name and learnt how to get in touch with him. Swami Sivananda has got the power to cause his disciples and devotees to have vision of himself while one is awake though living at a great distance from him.”

Sri Venkatasubbiah, Hussur: “During the Sadhana Week programme in 1940, there was Akhanda Kirtan in our Branch of The Divine Life Society. My daughter aged 22 years saw Sri Swami Sivanandaji standing on the dais robed in ochre cloth and with Kamandalu in hand next to his own photo. This vision lasted for nearly five minutes.”

Sri Valiram Hardasmal, Hyderabad: “I actually saw His Holiness coming to me relieving me of my distress.”

Sri Rangaswamy Iyengar, Madurai: “When I sat for meditation in the morning, I saw Swamiji standing in front of me. He blessed me and vanished.”

Sri Howard William, England: “I visited Dr. Hari Prasad Shastri in London. He served me a simple meal of Prasad. In that Prasad you were present. I actually saw you in it.”

Sri Gita Margarita, Geneva: “At the midnight mass in the Theosophical Church, it was not an illusion, I really saw you sitting before the cross on the altar in all your loveliness and splendour and childlike purity. Sometimes there is a peculiarly intense feeling of your presence in my mind without any definite vision.”

A remarkable instance of Sri Sivanandaji’s powers in this connection is that of Frau Charlotte Walinski Heller of Germany, who for the past one year has heard a mysterious voice urging her to come to India and learn Yoga under Swami Sivananda. Eventually she visited India and stayed at the Sivananda Ashram for some months.

In conclusion I want to suggest how to have close communion with the Guru. Have perfect intellectual harmony with the Master, by a deep study of his books. Follow his teachings with faith and devotion. Be persistent with your efforts. Have absolute trust in your Guru. Treat him as you would treat God Himself.

It is needless to say that a Sadhaka by meditating on the form of his Guru with a pure mind and intense concentration can make himself receptive to the flow of the latter’s divine grace.

I am sure if any aspirant sincerely approaches Swamiji for spiritual guidance and blessings and follows his teachings with faith and perseverance he is certain to notice significant progress within a short time. May Swami Sivananda live long.

Sivananda’s Darshan

(Sri H.N. Ramakrishnaiah, Bangalore)

On 12th February 1956, at night, while I was sleeping on a cot I heard some sound, as though someone was tapping my cot. I took it to be the noise produced by rats. But after a few minutes somebody called me through the window. I thought that the milkman had come and immediately I got up from the bed and opened the door. I could not see anyone outside. I therefore closed the door and again went to bed as it was only 3.15 a.m. at that time. Shortly afterwards I again heard a noise and I thought that a burglar might have come and with great courage I just peeped through the window. I saw a light and with that light I also saw Swami Sivananda. He called me and when I opened the door with full anxiety Swamiji’s figure vanished. So I determined that I must see Swamiji at his Ashram. I left for Rishikesh on the 25th February and had Swamiji’s Darshan on 29th February.

Miraculous Healing Grace

(Sri Thomas Brown, England)

On this, the 71st birthday celebration of our Divine Guruji Sivananda, may I, one of the humblest Chelas in the far flung frontier of his ‘Empire’ send my best wishes and sincere prayers that we may have the joy of these celebrations for many years to come.

Long I had prayed to Bhagavan, where could I find a Guruji to guide me on the path of Dharma, and then when I was lying in hospital with health lost, career ruined and all the things that make for a comfortable material existence, scattered to the winds, then Bhagavan gave His greatest treasure, our Sivanandaji.

How can I express in words the kindness of Guruji, the flood of books, the kind letters of comfort when they were most needed!

Not only spiritual comfort has this wonderful God-man sent, but I have also been the recipient of his miraculous healing grace during the period of my illness with a dramatic cure which puzzled the doctors attending on me.

May be I shall never know the joy of our Sivananda’s Darshan like those blessed ones who are fortunate enough to reside in Rishikesh, but he dwells ever in my heart even though I am often unworthy of his grace.

We, the outposts of our Guruji’s domain, can only show our love for him by ever performing Seva in his name, that even those who are not fortunate enough to know his greatness and grace may ever come to associate Sivananda with everything that uplifts and leads to God and the truly Divine Life.

May the Blessed Lord make us worthy of Him.

Miraculous Experiences Of Swami Sivananda’s Grace

(Sri Dhanam South Africa)

My father-in-law was a follower of Cuddapah Satchidananda Swamiji. I used to watch him pray and practise Yoga and was myself longing for a Guru. One day in 1947, I was bitterly crying at night. That same night I had a dream. The Cuddapah Swamiji appeared before me in the dream and said: “I am not your Guru; your Guru will come into your life in due course.” The Guru’s form appeared before me and said, “Open the chest of drawers in your father-in-law’s room; see what is waiting for you there.” Next morning I opened that very chest of drawers that I had seen in the dream and took out the ‘Sivananda Diamond Jubilee Commemoration Volume’. The moment I joyously took that book in my hand and opened it the very same radiant face of my Guru—Sri Swamiji Maharaj—shone from the pages of that book.

Soon after this miraculous experience, I wrote to Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj. Two weeks later, once again I had Siva’s vision; he appeared in his dazzling form with flowing robes. In that vision, he gave me a book to study. The very next morning the postman brought me the very book, sent by Siva.

The next day I had another vision and Siva appeared. I saw myself in the Ashram at Rishikesh. The flowing Ganga, the towering Himalayas, the peaceful surroundings and the blissful Ashram—I saw them all in the vision. I fell at Siva’s feet and begged, “Not only in this birth, but in all my future births, O Lord, you must be my Guru.” Siva initiated me into the Mantra and assured me: “I am your blessed Guru and I am ever with you.” Since then, I must say, that Siva has been always with me protecting me from dangers and guiding me to the Goal. Every day of my life since then has been one of a round of miraculous experiences; and I shall set forth here only a few of them.

Once again I found myself in Ananda Kutir in a vision and sat underneath the same tree as I had done in the previous vision. This time Siva gave me a message to the people of South Africa and uttered the two significant words: “Detach-Attach”. I had never before heard these words from the lips of anyone. A week later, I got a pamphlet from the Ashram and as I opened it, I found these very words—Detach-Attach.

One day I was fasting. Towards the evening I felt a little weak and I had just dozed a little. In a moment Siva was there encircled by a blue dazzling light. It appeared as though the roof of the house had disappeared and through that opening Siva descended into the house. I touched his feet in humble devotion. He blessed me. In sheer joy I screamed. Hearing this my mother ran into the room. She too saw the dazzling blue light though she did not see Siva’s form. I know that the vision was something very very real and not my imagination.

I began receiving Siva’s Prasad—the sacred ashes every month. I preserved them with great faith and devotion. Into the mouth of every dying creature I used to put a pinch of those ashes in the firm belief that this would secure for them a better birth next time.

My pet dog that I loved dearly—especially because in the afternoons I had to live alone in the house—was found dead one day. I sat by the dog and started repeating the Mahamrityunjaya Mantra. I wrapped the dog in a piece of cloth so that flies and other insects would not sit on its body and its mouth from which froth had already come out. I went into the house and got a little bit of milk into which I put a pinch of the sacred ashes. I repeated Siva’s name thrice and put a drop of that milk into the dog’s mouth. I wept and cried aloud for Swamiji’s grace. I said: “Swamiji, you have divine powers; you can do anything. If you like you can bring this dog back to life.” I repeated the Mahamrityunjaya Mantra again. Then I went to the bedroom to telephone somebody. As I was standing there at the telephone suddenly I found someone tucking at my saree. Who do you think I saw behind me? The dog: all wrapped up in the yellow cloth I had tied round it. It had come back to life. Siva’s Name and His Grace had brought it back from the abode of Yama in order to convince me of the supreme glory of his divine grace. The little dog was full of joy and it went to the prayer-room and sat near Gurudev’s photograph. It refused to drink milk and play with the other pups. What cannot my Gurudeva do? Next day at home and at The Divine Life Society, Durban, I conducted prayers to Siva.

Recently I had incurable warts on both my hands. I tried many doctors and various medicines but in vain. One day Br. Srinivasan asked me to pray for help. I willingly placed my hands before Gurudev’s photograph and after a couple of days the warts completely disappeared. I have not had them since.

Another mysterious thing happened one day. I was doing my usual Suryanamaskar on the terrace. I saw a divine being emerge from the Sun and warn me: “Go into the kitchen at once.” I first thought it was a temptation and I should not listen to the voice. But this warning was repeated. Then at last I went into the kitchen. As I was entering the kitchen I saw a man putting something—most probably some poison—into the cup of the milk. I did not drink it and so I was saved from death.

With all this the crowning miracle of my life would always be the Visva-Rupa of Swamiji I saw three years ago. I saw the magnificent universal form of Siva—the universal being, and in his mouth I saw the entire universe. The vision gave me inexpressible bliss and great peace.

I have often wondered if for my little devotion Siva could do so much, what a great blessing it would be if we completely surrendered ourselves to him, recognising that he is truly God incarnate and dedicated ourselves to his service; birth after birth.

Siva has given me life. Siva is my God. Siva is all in all for me. How then can I sing his glories!

If earth be a scroll
And ocean be an inkstand;
If trees be the pens
And time itself the writer,
Even then Siva’s glories cannot be exhausted.

He is Jesus; he is Buddha; he is Rama; he is Krishna; he is Siva; and he himself is Devi. In him all the gods and goddesses have found their fulfilment. May the dust of his holy feet purify us, ennoble our lives and enlighten our souls. May he live for ever and ever and ever.

Blessings That Spelt Success

(Dr. D.K. Viswanathan)

I want to share with you an instance which has come my way demonstrating the grace of Siva. Sometimes back I solicited His blessing for the success of the negotiations that were being carried out for the future of the malaria organisation programme in Burma which affected the entire country with 20 million population. This reached such a delicate stage at the time that there was a fear that we might be denied an opportunity of being humble instruments of service to the people of that country, through its Government. In the last week of June when I arrived in Burma for discussions I expected Siva’s blessing before I had my first interview with the top officials. Not receiving His Grace in time I went with a laden heart for my meeting and the discussions were very gloomy. On my return to the place of residence I found Gurudev’s blessings in a cable couched in His inimitable language of kindness and encouragement. I expressed to friends that my mission, though it looked extremely gloomy with little prospect of success, had one great virtue in that it had Gurudev’s blessing. The clouds gradually disappeared. In a recent visit which I made to Burma, thanks to Gurudev’s blessing, the negotiations assumed a distinct turn for the better and we are now in great hopes of continuing what Swamiji has called “noble mission for the good of the people”. It is well recognised that international relationship is often determined at the last minute in quite an unexpected manner which will baffle rational and scientific explanation, but will offer no difficulty in understanding, if one realises that it is He that disposes whatever man proposes. In a like manner I have no illusions in my mind that the change that has taken place in the progress of our negotiations for malaria eradication in Burma can be attributed only to one factor according to me and that is Siva’s Grace and His infinite mercy for the entire mankind. Is this not a miracle?

Darshan Of Sivananda With Hridayananda

(Sri P. Seshadri, Devakottai)

On Adi Amavasya day Bhagavan Sri Swami Sivananda came to my hut with Hridayananda and enquired about myself and family. Overpowered with my devotion and overwhelmed with the happiness of meeting Bhagavan I immediately shouted for my wife’s name and for my daughters, Vasanta and Jayalakshmi, “Come on, see Bhagavan, get immediately Mangala Arati, prepare sweets, order for beautiful garlands and flowers for Pada Puja.” I started elaborate arrangements to invite Bhagavan. The Mangala Arati was performed. In the meantime Bhagavan with Hridayananda took His seat with the noble grace of a monarch. With devotional tears rolling in our eyes, we prostrated at Bhagavan’s holy lotus-feet with all reverence and devotion and washed His feet and worshipped them with Tulasi, lotus and roses. Bhagavan blessed us all with His affectionate smile and we had a Satsanga with Bhagavan for a long time and our state during that time was indescribable. A sense of deep peace and inner joy seemed to permeate the inner core of everyone and as if compelled by an irresistible and invisible power, most of us were in an unconscious state and enjoyed and Bhagavan expressed they were A-1 (excellent) and blessed all with His affectionate smile. We have seen the physical form of our Bhagavan in our hut. When I prayed for Japa Mala and Mrityunjaya Mantra, Bhagavan told Swami Hridayananda to send me a copy of the same and Japa Mala. Then Bhagavan took leave of us all with His affectionate smile and requested all of us to come to Ananda Kutir and stay for a week’s time. This is the miracle of our Bhagavan what we actually experienced. O Lord! Thou art the ocean of mercy. Bless us. Protect us without fail. Show us the right path and protect us. This is the only boon we want.

Gurudev’s Grace

(Dr. Sivananda-Sundari)

In my childhood my elders used to tell me inspiring stories about great saints and Bhaktas like Swami Akalkot Maharaj, Namdev, Tukaram, etc., whose photos we had in our Puja room. About Swami Akalkot being bodily visible to his disciples in various places while he was living in his place was well impressed on me and I wondered at the mysteries of great saints. But now I am having such experiences with my Gurudev Sri Swami Sivananda, who has been visible to me at my residence while he has been living in Ananda Kutir in Shivanandanagar in the Himalayas.

Soon after the death of my mother who was a constant companion to me till then, I was posted to a city hospital by the grace of God as the R.M.O. which kept me busy all the hours except a few in the night for sleep; and thus I had no occasion to feel lonely. It was during this time that I came to know of my Gurudev through some of his books which were presented to me by someone for some selfless service done. After one year only I could get leave to go to his Holy Feet and have his Darshan and return with his blessings as his disciple.

I got a transfer order to a mofussil after three and half years service in this hospital. This worried me as to how I could go alone and live in a private house as there were no quarters attached to the hospital. That evening I was sitting and gazing at Sri Gurudev’s photo which was before me, thinking about my transfer. Suddenly I heard a familiar voice calling me as “Doctor, Doctor,” from the front verandah. I was sitting in the back side hall where I used to be day and night and receive memos from the hospital from the back door which was nearest to the delivery room. I went to the front hall and opened the door where I saw my Revered Gurudev with his walking stick in his hand and a Divine Smile on his face coming towards the door and entering the hall. I prostrated at his Holy feet with great reverence and joy and recollected this sweet voice calling me as “Doctor, Doctor,” a few seconds ago. When I stood up there was no one before me and so I went and looked for him in the side room hurriedly. I closed the door and went and sat in my usual place and meditated on Gurudev. From that moment I became courageous about my transfer and since then I always feel his divine presence near me.

My second visit to Sivanandashram was six years after the first as I could not get long leave due to service exigencies. After 7 days’ travelling by train and bus I reached the Ashram one fine morning and came to know that I would be able to have Gurudev’s Darshan only next morning when he was to return from Roorkee after a short stay there for a change after his long illness. I was much disappointed and depressed and so sat down in the Kutir and determined not to have bath or food before having his Darshan. I closed my eyes as tears began to flow and I wanted to hide them from my sister who was with me. In a few minutes I saw a bright light like lightning in the Kutir and Sri Gurudev standing before me. I stood up and prostrated at his holy feet and before I could call my sister he disappeared. I went out of the Kutir and looked for him and asked my sister whether she had seen Sri Gurudev getting in or out of the Kutir. She said ‘no,’ and it was a fact that he was at Roorkee at that time and returned only next morning to the Ashram. Such experiences have revealed to me that mysteries of great saints which I used to think in my childhood as wonders are possible. Our Sri Gurudev is the Omnipresent Sri Krishna in this Yuga and is found to be a moving commentary of the Bhagavad-Gita. My humble prostrations at his Lotus-Feet. May his blessings be upon us all.

As I Saw My Master

(Sri Umakant Pd. Shukla, Hajipur)

...The unbelievers may laugh but I would narrate, without any hesitation, some extraordinary miracles of His Holiness Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj which I experienced.

In May, 1950 my elder brother Sri Lakshmi Kant Shukla was confined to bed. He had kidney and some complicated maladies. One day his condition became very serious and alarming. He was in a coma and was quite unconscious. Despite the best treatment available here he was sinking. His case was declared hopeless and we all lost hope of his precious life. We were weeping bitterly. In the meantime, I remembered His Holiness Sri Swamiji Maharaj and prayed to him to save the life of my brother. Fortunately my prayer was responded and within a few hours and before the arrival of Patna’s doctor, my brother, who was hovering between life and death, regained consciousness. My brother told us after regaining consciousness that he dreamt that Swamiji Maharaj was standing near him keeping his hand on his head and after seeing the vivid dream he at once woke up with the feeling of elation. Thus by the blessings of His Holiness Sri Swamiji Maharaj, my brother was completely cured.

In July, 1951 when I visited the holy Ananda Kutir, along with Sri Dhirendranath Shukla, on our return journey from Kedar-Badri Yatra, I received a letter from my house about some domestic troubles and perplexing problems. After perusing the letter I at once approached Swamiji Maharaj and prayed to him for his blessings so that I may get rid of the troubles. Sri Swamiji Maharaj called me with his usual smiling face and said nothing. But, to my great surprise when I reached home after a week I was told by my people that the matters which were causing so much anxiety and annoyance to them had disappeared only a few days before. This was all Gurudev’s Grace.

Truly speaking, when I got any trouble, I at once used to pray to Swamiji Maharaj for his blessings and divinity, and I became free from the trouble. But now I think that we should not pray for ordinary worldly things. Prayer should only be made for tranquillity, peace, divine consciousness, devotion for God and Guru-Bhakti by attaining which nothing more is needed.

May he live long to uplift the world in general and to guide and bless his devotees in particular.

Siva Appears In Geneva

(Sri Sivananda-Margarita)

My heart is filled with you. Overwhelmed am I by your kindness. I bathe in a stream of bliss.

Miracles still happen. The Miracle of miracles, you are. You know how to make us happy. Happiness permeates me. I feel saintliness by your blessings. There is Light everywhere.

What a happy and profound enlightened Christmas it was, as never before it was. There was your close contact. There was oneness with you.

It seemed wonder upon a wonder: a letter just for the evening of the 24th, a divine telegram from Himalayas for Christmas morning, a letter in the afternoon and again a letter the next day, with your beautiful photos.

Nobody was so blessed on this Christmas! Here was really the centre of your light just at the moment of the greatest crisis in Europe and danger of a new war.

Your Christmas message was sent to all countries and distributed by Jew spiritualists, Theosophists; is it not wonderful! Theosophists called me “You are Beasant.” This made me very happy. Others ask me to give a lecture about you!

At the midnight mass in the church it was not an illusion but really I saw you seated before the cross on the altar in all your loveliness and splendour and childlike purity. I felt a need to sacrifice.

Now I am ill and writing you from my bed. Your prayers saved me. When you conduct prayers for me the effects are tremendous.

How Sivananda Appeared Before Me

(Sri Laxmi Kumari, Bettaiah)

This morning at about 8 a.m., in the place of worship the thought of ‘Swamiji’s All-India tour commencing from today’ flashed upon my mind. I imagined how Swamiji would be marching followed by his Mandali and how unfortunate I was not able to be present on that occasion. When I was deeply absorbed in pondering over these thoughts turning my face northward, I at once felt that someone was coming to me from the western side. Looking towards the west, a wonderful scene appeared before me. Swamiji was coming slowly and stood up in front of me. Being overjoyed I could not speak at all. Never had I presumed that Swamiji would come to accept Puja from an unworthy creature like myself.

The next mysterious event that took place was that when I bowed my head for Puja I found his form changing from his own to that of Sri Krishna. I did Abhisheka to Swamiji’s holy feet. I was in tears due to the excessive joy for Swamiji’s Darshan. My intense desire was a great blessing on me. I partook of the holy water of his feet with all the members of my family and still preserved a little.

All these happened as a result of carrying out Swamiji’s instructions regularly. Sinful and vicious can also attain Moksha by following the admonitions of Swamiji and obtain liberation from miseries.

Guru As Omnipresent God

(Sri Sivananda-Sarada, Germany)

From an invisible source, I heard a voice in my room. That experience began my contact with the mighty Yogi of India, of the Himalayas. And this was not all.

For, on the Christmas of the year 1951, the Yogi Sivananda granted me the strange experience of his vision. I saw the Indian Yogi as clearly, as vividly, as palpably as I see now his picture facing my writing table. Not even a fortnight passed by after this experience. I was handed by my husband a cover from the Yoga-Vedanta Forest University of the Himalayan Yogi.

The cover brought me a small autographed photograph of the Master. This picture has become my life’s companion; whatever I do and wherever I go it accompanies me. My contact with the Master strengthened itself as much in thought and spirit as through my correspondence with the Yogi. My interest in the Master grew and gathered strength. In thought and spirit I experienced the communion with the Divine Presence of the Master everywhere. For full three years I was trained invisibly from a distance of five thousand miles, until I was taken to his holy Ashram in India where I saw the Yogi in flesh and blood.

At the Ashram I felt quite at home and was always in touch with the Divine Presence of the Master, whether I was in his immediate physical proximity or not. For, the Master is to me an omnipresent being. Everything in the Ashram powerfully suggested to me his Divine Presence. In the limpid waters of the Ganga, in the majestic mountains environing the Ashram, in the colourfully attired visitors who came to see, adore and receive a new life from the Master—in all these I saw Sivananda.

Everyone at the Ashram including myself was very happy. I used to sit close to the Master and observe how deeply absorbed he was in the rapturous meditative moods and yet to all appearances engage himself in dozens of works at the same time. Nothing escaped his eyes and ears and hands and yet he observed in a deep meditation on his own inner spiritual Self. My personal experiences with the Divine Master have proved to me that he is a great Sage, a Yogi, a mystic, the prophet of the new age.

The physical presence of the Master was as wonderful as is his invisible presence. The Master poured into me happiness and peace. I am happy because I am endowed by the Master with a knowledge of real happiness. Sivananda is the universal Master who is surrounded and adored by everybody.

To come in contact with the disciples and devotees of Sivananda is a matter of inexhaustible joy for me. No disciple of the great Yogi remains without receiving in hundred ways the richest blessing and grace of the Master. At the right time the help of the Master somehow comes to us. His Divine Presence always protects and guides us. I am absolutely certain that a Guru like Swami Sivananda is always with his disciples, wherever they be. What counts with the Master is our contact with him in thought and spirit. All that a disciple of the Master is to do is to put aside his own egoistic nature and be receptive to the flow of the Grace of the Master. The Master has his own special methods of testing the disciples. Every disciple at the Ashram has implicit faith in the Master; they willingly surrender themselves to the Master. The Yogi and mystic Sivananda will always guide and help me. The Master’s Ashram in Rishikesh has become my inner world; it provides me spiritual nourishment and shelter. May the Divine Master enlighten and bless all.

Siva Appears In A Vision

(A German Devotee’s Spiritual Experiences)

The aeroplane, radio and television have brought us very near the superphysical plane in which the ancient Yogis of India roamed at will. In their case however the intricate machinery that makes flight in the air possible and that enables us to catch the sound or light-waves that float in the air, was available within themselves.

We have often read in the lives of the great Yogis of the past that they were able to perform miracles. In the life of Lord Jesus (whose Birthday we celebrated last week) we read that he was able to do what was considered impossible.

It is not a legendary belief or a blind faith or the credulous rustic. But it is even a fact even today that by an inner process of training the vital power in man and his mind, he can acquire such a command over the elements that he can bring about phenomena that would astound even the scientist who is familiar with the mechanism of the atomic bomb, the rocket and the television. The mysterious vision that Frau Charlotte Walinski-Heller saw and the Voice that she heard have brought this ancient truth again to the forefront.

During the course of an interview when journalists asked her a number of searching questions Frau Walinski declared that she had actually seen the greatest Yogi Sri Swami Sivananda in a vivid vision on Christmas eve in 1951. Even today she recalls that ecstatic experience with an inner joy and obvious reverence that is well portrayed on her face which assumes a natural expression of glowing happiness as she describes the great experience. It was that mystic experience that has revolutionised her life to the divine life cause.

Notwithstanding her Western upbringing and education she is implicit in her faith and explicit in her conviction that this Yogi who had thus revolutionised her life “is a very near incarnation of God if not God Himself and if the fact that he is God militates against the prevailing notions of God and His Incarnation.”

Frau Walinski who has led the normal life of a pious Catholic all her fifty years of life is a well-educated intelligent German lady and is certain that she is intellectually too strong to be influenced psychically. She has wonderful business acumen and has had an eventful career as an executive in a publishing house. Her husband is a police official and they have two sons. The children have inherited the piety of the parents and have perhaps been greatly influenced by their mother’s spiritual experience during the past few years. One of her sons has, after she left for India, written to Sri Swami Sivanandaji to accept him as Gurudev’s monk disciple; the younger son is in the words of Frau Walinski a great spiritual child who knows all the messages that she has received from Siva.

Throughout the past few years this pious family had been practically guided in their day-to-day life by Gurudev in a mysterious manner. “Every morning Siva wakes me up”, says Mrs. Walinski. “He has solved many difficulties in our life. And I am sure that he will work through me in the future and help me serve humanity.”

What is most significant is the fact that the Voice often corroborated by Gurudev’s own letters has invariably urged her to work, work. “Work in the home as a wife and mother. Work in the office and do your duty, and serve humanity too in the manner you best can,” has been the invariable command. And Frau has implicitly obeyed working throughout the day at home and in the office and till late into the night on her own books and translations of Gurudev’s works in German.

In August this year she had a Vision in which Gurudev asked her, “Will you be a good disciple?” and she replied, “Yes.” Then the Voice commanded her to proceed to India. On the 7th August she saw the Vision, and on the 19th of September she received Gurudev’s letter whose contents had been revealed to her beforehand. She was convinced beyond doubt that her visions and the messages she had been receiving from the Voice were absolutely real. During the moments of her meditation arose an inward feeling in her that really and truly mankind is one family and the whole world is knit in one Supreme Spirit, and that the spiritually awakened can speak with one another across continents with the ease with which people talk to each other from two neighbouring rooms. When she had thus determined to come to India the problems were those of passage money and the husband’s reaction. “Siva said everything would be all right,” says Mrs. Walinski and in a few days a good friend turned up who said he would finance the trip and her husband voluntarily came forward to do all he could to materialise her spiritual ambition. So she is in India at the feet of the master.

Soon after her arrival Gurudev gave her Mantra-Diksha and she attends all the Satsangas at the Ashram. She likes to sit at Gurudev’s feet in Indian fashion and refuses to occupy a chair. From the next day of her arrival at the Ashram she dresses herself in a saree. The ease with which she has effected the change over makes one feel that she must have been an Indian in a past birth. Perhaps a disciple of Gurudev even then.

Frau Walinski is the author of a series of five books in German entitled “Holy Day for the Soul” which are being published by a German publisher.

An Entrancing Vision

(Sri Irmgard Kaupisch Von Heppert)

The vision that I had three days ago was thus and I had it after my meditation.

I met Swami Sivananda on a lonely mountainside. It seemed to be autumn. Around him there were sitting seven Swamis. In the middle was a mirror. On it was a dancing flame. Swami Sivananda got into the flame. Then the flame changed into water. I found myself in a big pool of water swimming around from right to left.

Then I got out following Swami Sivananda by another route. I went into another cave. There I saw twelve monks in meditation. Swami Sivananda entered this circle. Standing in the centre and lifting his arms he said: “Thus we join together, so that we might realise the Unity again”. I felt it was a sublime act. Then we were on the mountainside again.

Swami Sivananda always came to me with the smell of herbs. He gave me a stick with the two ends carved. “use it rightly”, said he and vanished.

Political pressure is rapidly bringing on a crisis. We would like to build a party of non-violent people on the Indian pattern. For this we need the direction and guidance of Swami Sivananda. We should get the necessary training and discipline in his Ashram.

Life-Transforming Miracles Of Swamiji

(Sri Swami Ambikananda)

Difficult indeed it is to know the inner activities of the sages who though seemingly silent and simple, work wonders in transforming the lives of men and women who put even a little faith in them and look up to them for help and solace. It is not to be believed by those who have never experienced it. But in reality the miracles performed by the sages are thousandfold greater than the so-called miracles of the miracle-mongers.

I already looked up to my Master as my Divine father and mother, but I was not so much aware of his life-transforming activities and dynamism of his sweet and silent grace. When I got a letter from my son regarding the benign influence of my Swami Sivananda, I was really struck with wonder. My son writes that when he got some books and magazines from Swamiji, he was so much charmed by them that he nearly lost the earthly consciousness and forgot to go to his office. He has been much drawn to Swamiji and he wants to come to him for his Darshan and for obtaining his grace. My son who had never had any chance before to study any spiritual books and to come into the contact of a sage, now has got sudden transformation in outlook and his ways by the grace of the Master. Glory to Sri Swamiji!

Another event still more wonderful has happened in the case of my younger sister. Her