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MP3 download(Spoken on September 8, 1997, early morning talk)
Stars there are in the heavens which rise in their brilliance in the distant firmament, shedding their radiance on themselves as there is nothing around them to shine upon. They glory in their own light, they bathe in their own resplendence, they come into being and disappear into the vast expanse. There are other stars which rise in the heavens in a similar manner but shed their light on all things around them, making everything imbibe the radiance emanating from them, and energising others with the force and potency of their beaming energy.
So are different kinds of saints and sages. Mighty luminaries descend upon this earth. They do not come for somebody's sake. They come for the sake of that which sent them. There are incalculable distances of space, large stars shining even now, we are told, which the human eye has never caught till today. Why do they exist there? What for are they shining? They shine in the glory of themselves. They live and exist in their own glories. Other stars which shine upon other objects outside are of a different kind.
Great personalities descend from heaven, for what purpose is not our duty to ask. The existence of a thing need not necessarily be for the sake of another thing, though it can incidentally also be a blessing to all things around it, the nearer one is to that mighty Eternity which sent them to the lower regions. That mighty Being has its own purpose in causing them to come. That is to say, it is not that things exist only for other things. They can exist for themselves also. Usually nothing can exist by itself. Its existence is conditioned by the existence of other things around. But there are existences which are unconditioned.
In the advent of Satgurudev Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj we have these two characteristics surprisingly present, incomprehensible though they may appear. Can one exist for one's own self, having no relationship with anything outside, and simultaneously also exist in relation to others? The combination is difficult to understand. There is an incomprehensible inwardness of these great masters which harmonises itself in a mysterious manner with a conditioned existence of other things around them, which means to say that I can exist for myself only and I can exist for others also. This is humanly inconceivable. All things in the world are interdependent. No one can exist for one's own self.
But there is a status of existence where one can be oneself, in which condition it gathers in itself the relationships which otherwise condition it in respect of other things, external things. The factor of dependence of one thing on another thing here gets absorbed into the supernal inwardness which recognises the interdependence of all things – the existence of the world, of human beings, things, plants and trees, animals, all species – but, at the same time, it transcends them. One can be immensely compassionate, deeply concerned with the welfare of other people, very active, very busy in doing good, and at the same time totally unconcerned with anything that happens in the world – deeply concerned as a father or a mother may be in relation to the child born to them, yet not concerned with them. Such people are not human beings. They are supernormal giants, colossi, mammoths that stride over the earth. They are not to be understood because anyone who cannot live such a life cannot also appreciate that kind of existence.
The greatest of men that were born into this world, mighty masters, sages and saints, were highly respected, revered and reputed, and also highly misunderstood. They became the centre of controversies in their activities and behaviours. This feature we observe even in incarnations like Rama and Krishna: incomparable majesty and power, indomitable force, going together with an unintelligible complexity of behaviour, so that one cannot know whether they are humans, sub-humans or super-humans. Any quality can be attributed to them.
Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj was like that. No one can know how he would behave on a particular day. Every day he is a unique, different person. You cannot take him for granted. We see many people around ourselves. To a large extent we know how they behave, what they do, but have you seen any person who behaves in any way he likes, and expects others to follow the line chalked out by that behaviour? This is godliness manifest in human character. Inscrutability is the nature of God. Inscrutability is also the characteristic of Godmen. They are not supposed to be locked up in a stereotyped Procrustean bed of regimentation, logic and systematic behaviour.
These words come from me because I have seen Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj; I have lived with him, worked under his guidance and with him, and noted his daily behaviours. Due to the inscrutability of his behaviour, many would not dare to sit near him. We people would like to avoid him as much as possible. These days people run after Gurus. Wherever the Guru goes, one thousand people follow that Guru. They pursue the Guru wherever he goes. Whether the Guru is sitting or standing or moving or speaking, it does not matter. The people are crowding around him. But this was not like our experience. We would rather avoid him as much as possible. We feared him because of the inscrutability of his behaviour. Most of us used to go the other way when we found him coming our way. It was not possible to see him, because if we see him we do not know what he will tell us.
Are we not afraid of God Himself? We are frightened by His very name. We are so frightened by the name of God that if we deeply go into the meaning of our wanting God, we would rather not want God at all afterwards. We would like to have a God who would behave with us in the manner we would like Him to behave. We would like a God who will grant us what we think is good for us. We do not want a God who would like to swallow us and abolish us completely.
An egoless stalwart was Swami Sivanandaji. Therefore, people with a little bit of egoism would dread him, could not go near him. An egoistic person cannot stand before an egoless person because that person who has no element of egoism will look like thunder acting in a mysterious manner, frightening in an ununderstandable manner to the one who is ridden over with ego. Love of God also goes with fear of God. Love and fear are incompatibles. You cannot love a thing and then fear it also. It is not possible. But here is an instance where you are terribly afraid of God because you do not know what He will do to you, but you know you cannot exist without Him. Your unlimited wanting Him goes simultaneously with your unlimited fear of Him. Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. This is what we are told. Or, is it love of God that is the beginning of wisdom?
Great masters like Shirdi Sai Baba, Akkalkot Swami, Sri Ramakrishna Parmahamsa, Trailanga Swami were all sources of fear to people. You do not know what they will do when you go near. Overwhelmed by the sight of these great masters because you had the blessing of the vision of them for at least a few minutes, you are also taken aback by the intolerable behaviours they sometimes manifest with people outside. This is poignantly described in some of the biographical notes of Shirdi Sai Baba. He was a terrible person, and a most wonderful person.
Swami Sivananda was like that. “I can be Vishnu; I can be Rudra also,” he used to say. “Don't take me for granted. I will sustain you, guard you, protect you like Vishnu himself, but I can also take a rod as Rudra.” These are some of the features of Godmen. They are not men at all. Such words cannot be used in regard to them. When Swami Sivananda would stand, you could not know whether it was a man standing or a woman standing. He had no sexual distinction in his personality. It was something colossal standing, that is all. We never felt that he was a man, nor could we know that he was not a man. A kind of androgynous maelstrom manifested itself in his personality. The bipolar existence was overcome in that unified personality. He was not a human being. Therefore, he could bless us. One human being cannot bless another human being. Because one ass will bray in the same way as another ass, what protection can one ass give to another ass? Someone who is not an ass alone can take care of asses. A human being cannot give anything to another human being because they are made of the same character. Blessings do not come from human beings. Blessings come from those who are not human beings. Such non-human beings are the saints and the sages. Those who have not seen Swami Sivananda will not be able to fully understand what I am saying. Those who have seen him will know what it is.
For years and years we lived with him in fear and love – fear because we do not know how he will behave with us, love because we know that he will certainly take care of us. He will not reject us. He loved nothing, no person, but he loved everyone.
He would conduct satsanga in the night and conclude the satsanga with prayers. Arati is over, prasad is distributed, everybody stands up and starts dispersing. He will also move away in the direction of his kutir. Then he will come back. “All of you please sit down,” he will say. He would start satsanga once again. It was winter. Everybody was covering himself or herself with blankets, coats, sweaters, beddings, etc. People were wonderstruck. What is he doing? Satsang is over. “Prayer for sheep,” he said. “Do you know from where this wool comes which you are covering yourself with, comfortably covered with coat and sweater and other things?” Then he will start: “Jai sheep, jai sheep.” “You fellows enjoy the comfort and the warmth of the wool of these animals, and you have no time to think of their existence. You drink the milk of the cow, and you crave for it. How many of us are thinking that cows are existing at all? We eat the rice and the wheat harvested by hard-working farmers sweating in the heat of the sun, in the rain. Who bothers about them? We are completely callous with things with which we are perhaps not concerned at the present moment, though we could not exist without them. Do you believe that there is a thing called governmental administration? Who bothers? It is there. Something happens; somebody is doing something. But you will not be existing if that is not there. People will fly at the throats of each other in one second if such an administrative system is not existing. Do we know that the sun is shining in the sky? Has anybody thought over it? In the early morn the glorious master rises in the east like an emperor. Do we run for a cup of tea at that time in the kitchen, or salute this great master who is giving us breath to breathe? Do we know that we are breathing the freely given air of Vayu Bhagavan in the clear sky above? Gratitude is the one thing which human beings do not know. The human being is the most ungrateful of animals, as people say. Even animals are not ungrateful.
As evolution advances, people say there is an advance in culture and civilisation. Sometimes it appears it is not true. The more the subhuman species rise through upper species towards human nature, the more the egoism increases. A human being can cause more destruction than a lion or a tiger. We manufacture guns and destructive weapons. Who manufactures them? Human beings manufacture them. Are they intended to kill animals, lions and elephants in the forest? Do we manufacture weapons for protecting ourselves from animals in the forest? No. We require protection from our own brothers. Man is afraid of man. An animal is not afraid of another animal. It looks that when you rise to the levels of greater and greater self-consciousness, there is higher and higher intensity of egoism also. Contradiction is the nature of the human being. Yet there is a potential in the human being which makes it possible for one to be aware of a higher existence, a characteristic that we do not see in the subhuman level. That is why often poets and philosophers say that a human being is God and brute crossed at one point. If you rub the human being on one side, he is a brute. If you rub the other side, he is a divinity.
Whoever tries to follow in the footsteps of Gurudev Swami Sivananda should be able to understand these mighty, divine contradictions. We have observed the advent of the birthday of Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj several times. Today again we are here to observe it. May we dedicate our spirits in humble submission to this mighty spirit that strode the earth many, many years back, which even today sheds its rays of compassion and benediction throughout humanity. You know very well there is no country or nation in this world which has not heard the name of Swami Sivananda. His glory is spread automatically from the little hovel-like residence of his on the bank of the Ganga. Great is Swami Sivananda. May his blessings be upon us.