Gurudev, Swami Satyananda, has connected us with Swami Sivananda, and that connection is very strong. He is as real in our lives as anything else. The only thing he said was, “Live a divine life.” Everything else fell into that, whether it is ’serve, love, give’, the 18 ITIES, whatever he taught was summed up with this one phrase, ’live a divine life’.
You are divine, but you don’t feel it. Many times we feel we are wretched, hopeless, never able to do anything. Swami Sivananda gave this very beautiful idea, that you are divine. Why don’t you feel that? You must feel it too. There are times when you do feel wretched, but this idea will immediately bring you out of that negative spiral. You are divine, live a divine life. You do not have to give up anything. In fact, you have to add something to your life, and that is the realization that you are divine. Awaken that divinity.
Swami Satyananda showed us the way to realize that divinity. Look at the tandem they work in. Swami Sivananda pronounced, ‘live a divine life’ and Swami Satyananda showed the way. He established the practices of yoga and various traditions; yoga is not the only one; he established thousands of traditions. Every kind of tradition that is there from ancient times, he brought them to light in a very simple way. He said, “If you want to lead a divine life, this is the way. This is the way. This is the way.”
Whatever temperament you have, whatever you are; maybe you are foolish, ignorant, in darkness, because it is only when you are in darkness that you seek the light. If you are in light, why are you going to seek? What are you going to seek? It is only when the path gets very cloudy, murky and not clear, that we seek clarity, how to move forward. He has given all the ways to do that, whether it is yoga, mantra, seva, havan, kirtan, yajna – thousands of ways, very simplified so each person can do them.
That is the bond which has to exist between a guru and disciple. Guru speaks and disciple translates.
12 September 2019, Paduka Darshan, Munger, published in Glimpses of the Divine IV