The cultivation of Vedanta and atmabhava is to live the teachings, not just to understand the teachings. Though people understand the teachings, they do not live them. Swami Sivananda lived them, and that was the difference. Yoga, Vedanta, seva and bhakti became the foundation for launching his vision of living a divine life. The divine life is a way of life that everyone can live. Right now you are living material, sensorial lives, and just as one lives this kind of a life, in the same manner you can live the divine life too. You can do this by cultivating the appropriate understanding, awareness and virtues that uplift human nature and consciousness, and that uplift human society as well.
One person endowed with a particular quality can influence the entire society. Buddha was endowed with one quality and he influenced the entire society with that quality of ahimsa as compassion. Mahavir was endowed with these qualities and he influenced the entire society. Those people who live a qualitative life become the beacons of inspiration for people in society who are searching for a way to overcome their limitations and stress in life.
These are the teachings of Swami Sivananda that he gave to his disciples who became masters of Vedanta, masters of yoga and seva. Yes, mastery of Vedanta is an achievement, mastery of yoga is an achievement, and mastery in seva is the highest achievement.
Vedanta, yoga and bhakti represent three components of life. Vedanta is attitude, bhakti is involvement, and yoga is personal change and transformation. Personal change and transformation of body and mind, cultivation of a spiritual attitude, and involvement in the service of others is the path defined by Swami Sivananda and these are the three methods which he chose to achieve these components.
For the cultivation of a spiritual attitude, he chose Vedanta. Vedanta cultivates and develops the right way to think, to perceive and to fine-tune the gross mind. One learns the way to disconnect the mind from its attraction to the world of senses and sense objects and to reconnect the mind with its source of strength. The subject of Vedanta is attitudinal.
The attainment of health - physical, psychological and spiritual - comes through yoga. Along with this, the cultivation of awareness and the development of sanyam or restraint in life arises through the practice of yoga as a sadhana. Awareness and sanyam are also developed through bhakti and through involvement in seva, where you do not identify yourself as the doer or the enjoyer in the world, rather as a medium through which you are guided to live your dharma in life and where karmas become an offering to the divine.
After having defined these three approaches of Vedanta, yoga and bhakti for the integrated development of human nature, Swami Sivananda emphasized the cultivation of selfless qualities. He used to say that God-realization happens when you become selfless and 'God-imagination' happens when you are selfish. Now, this is a peculiar statement about 'God-imagination' and God-realization.
Do you know what is 'God-imagination'? You sit down, close your eyes and try to imagine light and angels all around you. When you are trying to visualize lights and angels around you this is God-imagination, and that is what people do in their meditation. God-realization happens when you allow the mind to express its own nature and to sublimate itself; after sublimation, God-realization will happen by itself. Therefore, the effort has to be in sublimating and not in imagining. These three methods become the way to sublimate the gross human nature, cultivate the divine human nature and live a divine life.