The first sentence Swami Sivananda said to Swami Satyananda was, “Stay here and do hard work. Do hard seva. Do hard karma yoga. Once the dross of the mind is cleaned with karma yoga, the light will shine forth.” That is what happened. Swami Sivananda inspired all his disciples to tread the path of seva and the path of dharma. The mandate of yoga was part of dharma and seva.
Sage Patanjali and Swami Sivananda have given definite systems for the development of the human personality. In the Yoga Sutras, Sage Patanjali described the method for working with ourselves to transform our restricted, conditioned nature and to experience inner freedom. Sage Patanjali’s system represents the effort one makes in sadhana to understand oneself. Swami Sivananda, our paramguru, emphasized self-expression and self-actualization. He defined the eightfold path of self-expression. The yoga of Swami Sivananda begins where the yoga of Sage Patanjali stops.
I used to wonder what the final aim of yoga was. In my early days I was involved with the practices and teachings, but there came a point in my life where I began to ask, what do I do now? I saw the answer in the life of our guru, Swami Satyananda. After having attained personal enlightenment, he began to involve himself more with other people. I used to think, is this what I will be doing in the future? What is the purpose, the reason for that involvement? Then I understood the teachings of Swami Sivananda, the yoga of self-expression.
In Swami Sivananda’s yoga, the first-stage is seva, service. If seva comes after samadhi, after dhyana, what is it? It is again involving oneself in the affairs of other people and the world. What we attain, experience and acquire through our process of sadhana has to be used for the betterment and upliftment of others.
The sequence of Sage Patanjali’s yoga begins with the yamas and niyamas. Yama and niyama help to regulate the functions of the human personality and nature. After that, come asana and pranayama, then pratyahara and dharana, followed by dhyana and samadhi. From a seed we have become a tree and its fruits come in samadhi. Sivananda yoga begins with seva and love, they are the first two stages, the first expressions of this yogic journey. The third and fourth stages are giving and purifying. The fifth and sixth stages are becoming good and doing good. The seventh and eighth are meditate and realize.
The stages of meditation and realization are the same as the seventh and eighth stages of Sage Patanjali’s yoga, dhyana and samadhi. Sage Patanjali’s dhyana and samadhi represent the micro-cosmic effort, where we experience the flowering within. The meditation and realization of Sivananda yoga is the macro-cosmic expression, where we experience oneness with the higher nature, which is not a personal, subjective experience, but a connection with people, with the world, with creation and with God.
If, after attaining realization, one stands before God and says, “I have become enlightened, now I am able to experience you,” he will say, “You have been selfish because you desired God-realization, which is only for yourself. By attaining this state you have not helped anyone. You cannot enter the kingdom of heaven because you have only cared for your own emancipation, freedom and realization, not the suffering of any other being around you. Go back to the world and become selfless. Die to live the divine life.” The yoga of Sivananda begins with self-expression and self-actualization.
The first component is service. Service is an extension of one’s actions. When we are able to serve others without expectations, it becomes seva. Seva has to be connected with the idea of compassion and love. Love has to be experienced in an expressive unconditional way. From the example of Swami Satyananda it can be seen that unconditional love means giving and involving oneself, and conditioned love is taking, withdrawing and isolating oneself. We are conditioned and therefore the expression of our qualities is also conditioned. We take from other people to fulfil our needs and aspirations. We become happy with what we have received and we isolate ourselves from other people. Taking and isolating ourselves is reflected in relationships too, ‘me and mine’, not letting go of what I consider mine. Taking and withdrawing, not sharing, is conditioned love.
Giving and involving becomes unconditional love. When we give, we are not taking, not shutting ourselves within four walls, but reaching out to others and helping them grow. As we help others develop, we are involving ourselves in their journey, encouraging them to be an active participant in the process of growth, inspiring them to transform their restrictive natures.
According to Sri Swamiji, charity is the mother of poverty. From charity, dependence takes birth. If you give a fish to a hungry person, he will expect another fish next time from someone else. He becomes dependent on other people and rather than acting he becomes poor and dependent. Giving is not charity but helping the other person uplift the quality of their life. Giving can happen in any form. In the early 1970s, we conducted a yoga seminar in a mining region in India. The miners were poor people, who would go to a bar and drink after working all day in the mines, then go home, abuse their wife and children and go to sleep. There was little food or clothing in the homes and sickness was evident.
Part of the yoga seminar was shankhaprakshalana, which was done by the entire workforce. When we returned after a month, we saw a big change in the lifestyle of the people. After doing shankhaprakshalana, the men had to follow certain dietary rules, including not drinking alcohol for a month because of the sensitivity of the stomach lining. The miners were following that rule, so their health and the family environment had improved. As a result, the families were saving money which was being spent on food, clothes and medical care as well as books, notebooks and pens for the children’s education. Their lives had improved.
Yoga can change people’s lives. If a positive change improves people’s living conditions, that is also a form of giving, a type of service. In this way we can use yoga and our personal attainments to improve other people’s quality of life. The concept of service mentioned above is an extension of action. Most human actions are guided by ambitions and needs, otherwise there would be no need to perform action. Ambitions and needs only represent our aspirations to acquire something better in life. How much of the need is real and how much is artificial?
When action is performed to fulfil our needs and ambitions, it is self-oriented, for our own benefit, well being and happiness. We are happy sitting in our air-conditioned home while fires are raging all around us, content with our ideas of security and safety, status and prosperity, name and fame, and the drive to acquire more. This is the cause of deterioration in the human personality.
When action is not self-oriented but extending outwards towards other people in a selfless way, that selfless action is called seva. Generally, seva is translated as service, but in reality seva means connecting with the other person. Connecting with other people happens when the mind and heart are not confused by their own selfish natures, not guided by their own desires and cravings, but have become peaceful, open and free. When the heart and mind become peaceful, open and free, then we become a human being in the real sense. When the qualities that we share as human beings flower, we follow humanness in life, and the religion we follow becomes humanism, which is the expression of the divine nature in human life.
1 June, 2006, Volklings, Germany, published in Yoga Sadhana Panorama, Volume Six