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We live in a skeptical and materialistic age. Materialism
has become the god of the present time, and mankind seems to have reaped
all the available benefits. We are enthralled by the entertainment possibilities
our technological achievements have brought us. The level of wealth in
the developed countries has increased to the point where common people
have more luxury than the kings of yore. We can employ the technology
in such a way that almost miraculous results can be produced. For example,
the world is now connected in a way never before possible, and the possibilities
for further advancement seem unlimited. These very words you are reading
issue forth from a cyber world that did not exist fifteen years ago, and
the transfer and acquisition of information has become almost overwhelming.
Tantalized by our success, we seem to be confident enough to reduce everything
to a purely empirical level. One thinks, "If I can't see it or prove
it, it's not real." Yet, great sages, saints, and enlightened people
throughout the ages and from all the world's cultures have told us, "No,
your mind and senses are not the final word. There is something higher."
They have pointed most fervently to a state of consciousness in the human
being that goes far beyond this world that we perceive through our individual
egos. They also tell us that if we remain satisfied merely with this shadow
world of the mind and do not strive to realize the truth, our lives could
be considered to be a waste.
Swami Sivananda was one of the most powerful and gifted emissaries of
this higher knowledge in the 20th century. An American professor once
asked him, "Have you seen God?" Gurudev responded, "I see
nothing but God!" What sort of worldview could that possibly be?
Can any of us imagine the state of being of a person who sees things in
that way? His entire being is united with God, he sees only God and he
sees all others as only God. In his enlightenment, he experienced no differences-all
is One.
Swami Sivananda understood that most of humanity could not yet bring forth
in themselves a unified consciousness such as this. Gurudev then offered
every possibility to aspirants to contact the profound divinity in themselves
that he knew them to already be. He taught meditation, selfless service,
study, ethical practices, philosophy and used so many other avenues of
spiritual practice in order to get people to wake up. He knew that to
the extent the selfish ego was sacrificed and overcome, to that same extent
the already present divinity in a person was allowed to unfold.
For him worship, especially in the case of people with a devotional temperament,
could be a means of contacting and paying homage to that Being which is
the basis of all things. It was not merely the outer forms of worship
that were important, but the inner bhav (state of mind) that truly divinised
the worship. Gurudev believed in the power of prayer and the subtle energy
created by peaceful and devotional supplication. He started an Akhanda
Kirtan (unending chanting) for world peace during the darkest war year
of 1943, and that chanting has continued unbroken to the present, 24 hours
a day for 59 consecutive years.
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