The perception of pain and suffering is often the impulsion behind the sudden rise of a religious awareness, and it acts as such a powerful awakener that one begins to see a new world in front of oneself. The transitory character of things, which is the basic conditioning factor of all things, is exactly what misses attention of people. It required a person like the Buddha, Gautama Siddhartha, to tell people that everything is transient. Why should someone tell us that things pass away? Do we not see this phenomenon with our eyes? We do see the coming and the going of all things, but why should Buddha come and tell us, as if we do not see it and know it? We see the birth and the death of people, everything insecure everywhere on earth. One's condition on the morrow is not a guarantee today. Transitoriness is a poor word to describe this problem. It is as if we are carrying death on our head, or it is hung on our neck, and our only possession worth we can call as our treasure, this only treasure, seems to be our subjection to death. Nothing else seems to be present, existing or stable anywhere in the world.

The stability of objects is an illusion; nothing stands, everything moves. Neither the flame of lamp nor the movement of a river is a phenomenon of staticity. It is a dynamic action. Velocity is mistaken for stability. Fast moving electric fans look like stable existences, as if they do not move at all. When the rapidity of a movement passes beyond the ken of the capacity of eye's perception, it ceases to be an object of the eyes. Our eyes cannot catch up the speed of things. We see what is not there. Hence it requires an awakened spirit to come and tell us that things are not what they seem. Even this shall pass away. Everything passes away, not merely shall pass away-everything passes away every moment. There is a continuity of procession of events. The whole world is a procession and not a stable entity. It is a rapidly moving series of cinematographic pictures, as it were. Even this is not a proper comparison because at least one picture is stable, even for a split of a second at least, but here in this world nothing stands stable even for the split of a second.

The world is a process. When we say the world is a transition, we are likely to feel that something is moving from one condition to another condition. It is not something that is moving, it is only movement and nothing but that. It is difficult to understand what a force means. Force is not a substance. We cannot tangibly cognise it or perceive it or come in contact with it. There is no tangibility in a processes or a movement. This is the way in which we can distinguish between objects and bits of energy or force. So there is some great similarity between our modern discovery of the whole world being a sea of energy and the ancient Buddha's proclamation that all is transition. They are only two different ways of the description of the same occurrence; the world is not, it is just a movement. How is it that we seem to be caught up by apparent stabilities of things in this world and we do not perceive the inherent destruction that is gnawing into the vitals of the apparent stabilities? Are we not from moment to moment heading towards death? Are we not preparing for this terminal of the movement of our procedural activities through this anatomical body? Are we existing or are we moving, even if it is only movement and transition and dying? How is it that we do not perceive it?

The reason is a peculiar interaction between the perceptual faculties and the structural pattern of objects so-called, which really are not objects. A particular collocation of forces at a given point in space and time catches the attention of a particular structural pattern of the perceptual apparatus, and this peculiar momentary interaction between these two terminals of perception give the impression of a stable object in front. This is a sort of scientific explanation of the erroneous perception of stability in actually moving forces. While science requires a laboratory to discover the momentary condition of things, an illumination struck the vision of this kind in the mind of a Buddha. It is suddenly presented before the mind of great leaders of mankind, spiritual heroes, and they realise the anityata, the dukhamayata, asasvatata of the whole world.

Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj was a medical man. The anatomy of the physical body may be said to be a real description of its beauty and Gurudev used to say only doctors can know the truth of things because they can probe into the human system more accurately, more precisely, than the naked eye of a relative, a friend, a father, mother or a brother. The medical man that he was could very easily be turned into a physician of the soul. We are told, though very little of his life is known to us from recorded history, we hear it said that phenomena of transition, transitoriness, sorrow and pain and suffering of people awakened his spirits, and his actual career as a torchbearer of the spirit may be said to have sometime commenced by the year 1922-1924, the year of the great flood, as we are told. In the year 1922, there was an astounding flood everywhere, water water everywhere, the level rose to such an extent that towns were flooded they say, and occasionally in the cyclic movement of time, such floods come. We had a little experience of it here, in the year 1963, when five feet of water was inside the Kutir of Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj and inside his bedroom one could be drowned. After that the Ganga never rose to such an extent, it never rose at all. Devotees with an eye to seeing the mysteries of things saw significance in Ganga rising to such a level which she never did at any other time. She came, as it were, to meet the great spirit that left. Otherwise how could we expect Ganga to rise to such a height, five feet inside the room? Anyway those days many of us might not have been in this world, some of us might have been little children and a few might have been grown up boys. The years were 1922-1924. We need not go into the details of the manner of his movement northwards like a wind, the point is that the wind touched to the north.

What was Rishikesh in those days? It is really worth the while contemplating those conditions. Only those who could stretch their imaginations, artist-like, can behold the beauty of such an atmosphere. I have heard, when I was a little boy, that monks used to carry fire on their heads when they moved from Haridwar northwards to Badrinath. To carry fire on the head must have meant intense cold. No roads were there from Haridwar onwards. It was a forest. From what place onwards it was a thick jungle it is now difficult to explain. It was infested with wild animals. Even some 30 or 40 years back people were speaking of tigers in these forests here. Nowadays, they must have receded or they are extinct. There was nothing here which you can call a human environment. It was considered as an abode of anchorites, ascetics, renunciates who could somehow manage themselves-by what means, God alone knows.

Incidentally, I may mention to you the hardships of the lives of these great saints and Sadhus in those days. There was no question of food because Sadhus have no means of purchasing food, and there was no other way of obtaining food. There was a great saint in those days called Swami Vishudanandaji Maharaj, usually called Baba Kala Kamli Wale, because of the black blanket that he used to wear. He was a master spirit in himself evidently, which we can appreciate from the manner of the effect produced by his austerities, as we see today. Pilgrims used to walk on hard grounds with pebbles and stones, with no foot path even worth the name and there was no facility whatsoever, a residence on the way. We should not compare those days with the present days when we can fly suddenly with a motor car and today you reach Badrinath and come back the same evening perhaps. You cannot make such comparisons. It was hardships galore, an unadulterated problem. Swami Vishudanandaji Maharaj, Baba Kala Kamli Wale observed the sorrows of these pilgrims. No water, no food. It appears that he stood in the middle of that little shambles of the so-called town of Rishikesh and insisted that some arrangements would have to be made for the poor pilgrims and appealed to the well-to-do Seths, Marwadis, etc., that a chowkey (halting place) should be built in Rishikesh, and doles should be offered to them and facilities be provided on the way also for taking rest at different stoppings.

This is the story behind the founding of what you call today the Baba Kali Kamli Wala Kshetra, where hundreds and hundreds of Sadhus are given free food and incidentally as a branch, as it were, the Swargasharama Annakshetra was opened a little later. This Ashrama known as Swargashram existed in a seed form functioning in miniature sometime during those days. It may not have been exactly during 1922; maybe two or three years afterwards. It is not very clear to people like us. One of the disciples of this Swami Vishudanandaji Maharaj, Atma Prakashanandaji Maharaj, settled down on the other side of the Ganga and named that location as this Swargashram and opened an Annakshetra for the resident Sadhus there and that was the place of the Tapasya of Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj. There was no Sivananda Ashram. There was no Divine Life Society. There was nothing. It was just stone and thorn and jungle; no house, no human beings.

There was Ram Asharama built by Lala Bidyanath, a great lawyer and scholar, a disciple of the late revered spiritual leader Swami Rama Tirtha. Ram Ashrama is said to be called after the name of Swami Rama Tirtha, the great Saint. We are told that by some mysterious occurrence, God only knows what was the reason behind it, the body of the great Saint was found floating on the river Ganga. This is what we hear and it was seen here at this spot. As a mark of respect for the great Saint whose body was discovered here, Lala Bidyanath had this Ashram constructed-Ram Ashrama, which is now a library and mainly it is a library.

Swami Sivanandaji was initiated into the order of Sanyasa by most revered Swami Vishwananda Saraswathi and magic-like was that initiation, instantaneous was the conversation, and in a minute the whole ordeal was over and the report that we receive today is that, having received Jnana Sanyasa, initiation into Sanyasa by the method of pure communication of wisdom or knowledge. After this initiation, the ritualistic form of it was completed in the present Kailash Ashrama, and we are told at that time the pontiff was Swami Vishnu Devanandaji Maharaj (not the one in who is in Canada now) but a very old ancient Sanskrit scholar-a great genius in Sanskrit studies and Sanskrit wisdom whom Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj used to adore as his own Guru, and a beloved master who completed the rituals of the Sanyasa Diksha, and the Swami flew to the other side and in a little hut, a little cottage, he found his abode.