Live the Divine Life

Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati

Swami Sivananda was given a direction that in his personal life he should be a Vedantin, one who does not see any difference between people, but who sees the spark of divinity in everyone. This is the theory of Vedanta: to see oneness in everything. When Sri Krishna was asked ‘What are the qualities of a lovable person?’ he says the first quality that a person should overcome is the mind-set of duality in life (12:13): Adveshta sarvabhootanam – “One who does not differentiate between me and you, one who sees everyone as equal.”

A person who sees everyone with the same attitude is egoless. Swami Sivananda said that in order to experience the transcendental quality, you have to be egoless. For him, the focus of spiritual life was to be egoless. This was his teaching. He said that God resides within every human being, in every heart. Every individual has an immortal element, an immortal soul, and to experience this it is necessary to cut off the head of the ego. Once this is accomplished, your material life will transform into divine life.

Within you is the hidden God,
Within you is the immortal self,
Kill this little ‘I’,
Die to live,
Live the divine life.