The Indian culture has always been guided and made rich by the teachings of the gurus, and not by the teachings of religion. This is something that each one has to understand properly and carefully. Gurus guide the aspirant on the spiritual path. It is a practical process of educating oneself about one’s own nature, personality and inherent quality. This has been the role of gurus since time immemorial, as they have provided us with an understanding to realize the causes of our pain and suffering, to overcome them, and to experience the transcendental and the divine nature within all of us.
Religions say, ‘Believe in God’, but gurus have said, ‘Discover divinity within you.’ This is the main difference between religion and spiritual life, although today people confuse religion and spiritual life. They believe it to be one and the same, yet these are two different paths. In the Indian culture, religion is a personal belief and experience, it is not confined to a belief in only one; each individual can believe in different aspects of divinity. This is known as polytheism. This experience of divinity comes by following a path in which we are able to discover ourselves and remove the garb, the covering of ignorance and experience the light and luminosity within. This is also the meaning of the word Guru. Guru does not mean teacher, but dispeller of darkness.
Today many people like to call themselves gurus, yet guru is a qualification which is given to those people who have walked the path themselves, who have attained purification themselves, who have attained the experience of the divine within themselves, and who are able to guide other spiritual aspirants on the path of positivity, creativity and luminosity. This is the tradition that we follow in India. Although many Indians today do not understand this concept of guru, right from time immemorial this concept has been given predominance in our life.
Lord Shiva was the first guru. He is considered to be the first master, who taught his disciple Parvati, his consort, the way to overcome suffering, realize the causes of suffering and attain freedom from suffering. He defined many different vidyas or aspects of knowledge, which lead to transcending the gross, lower nature which is negative, limited and which is suffering, and to identify with the higher, transcendental nature which is pure, benevolent and creative.
The tradition of gurus continues since that time, and society has been guided by the teachings of these masters, not by religious precepts. The teachings and the lineage of these masters are remembered. We chant:
Om namo brahmadibhyo Brahma vidya sampradaya kartribhyo varnsharishibhyo namo gurubhyaha.
The tradition begins with Narayana and comes to Shankaracharya. There is a whole lineage of these luminous masters:
Narayanam padmabhavam vasishtham saktim cha tatputraparasaram cha.
Vyasam shukam gaudapadam mahantam govinda yogindra mathasya shishyam.
In this manner, the whole lineage of enlightened gurus is remembered for they are the guides, the ones who have told us how to cultivate positivity in life; they have told us how to live harmoniously in life. How much we are able to, is up to us. The path is clear and the path is straight.
In this lineage comes our Paramguru, Swami Sivanandaji. Swami Sivanandaji is a very special personality. To know him, you have to understand the history of his birth. There was great saint in South India, Appayya Dikshitar, who was a great devotee of Lord Shiva. One day during his worship he had the vision of Lord Shiva, who appeared before him, in front of the eyes of his mind, and said to him, ‘I shall be born in the seventh generation of your lineage.’ After that the vision dissipated. Sure enough, in the seventh generation a special child was born, who was called Kuppuswami by his parents.
This child exhibited extraordinary qualities and personality from his birth, and endeared himself to everyone. He was educated, and in those days he was one of the few medical doctors in the country, as education was very limited. He went to serve in Malaysia. While he was serving in a hospital in Malaysia, one sadhu came for treatment. This prodigy, Kuppuswami treated the sadhu who became well. At the time of departure, the sadhu presents a book to Kuppuswami, Brahmavichar, Thoughts or reflections on God.
Kuppuswami read this book and it became the matchstick which lit the flame of spirituality in his life. After reading the book, Kuppuswami left his work, profession, returned to India by ship, as that was the main mode of travelling at that time, and went straight to the railway station. There he handed over all his personal belongings to a friend whom he had called and said, “Please take this to my home and tell them that I have another destiny.” Then he travelled north, to the Himalayas, in search of an enlightened guru. In those days, there were no roads, vehicles or cars, motorcycles or scooters, not even bicycles. People had to travel on foot, bullock carts, elephants, or just keep walking. He came close to Rishikesh, searching for somebody who could guide him in spiritual life.
Before reaching Rishikesh, he felt tired, sat down against a tree to relax, and closed his eyes. One does not know how much time had passed, but suddenly this doctor, this aspirant felt a shadow fall on him and he opened his eyes to see what the shadow was. When he opened his eyes, he saw a sannyasi standing before him who asked, “Who are you? What are you doing here? What are you searching for?” Respectfully this aspirant doctor told the sannyasi, “I am in search of a master, a guru, who can guide me on the spiritual path.” The sannyasi said to him, “I am your master and I will initiate you into the tradition of sannyasa.” He gave him the initiation, a few instructions and then walked away. The name of this master was Swami Vishwananda Saraswati, who named the aspirant Swami Sivananda Saraswati.
Vishwananda means master of the universe, vishwa, the world. He was an emissary of Shiva or maybe Shiva himself, who came to inspire and guide his ‘part’, his offspring, and named him Sivananda. The encounter between Swami Vishwananda and Swami Sivananda was a very short one, lasting about twenty to thirty minutes only. This was the only time that guru and disciple were together. The instructions given by Swami Vishwananda to Swami Sivananda were followed by him with absolute conviction, faith, sincerity, commitment until the end of his days – to live like a sannyasin and to serve like a sannyasin. That was the inspiration Swami Sivanandaji carried with him all his life.
12 July 2022, Ganga Darshan, Munger