Swami Sivananda observes Swami Vishnudevananda doing the scorpion pose.

Swami Sivananda

Quote: “Serve, Love, Give, Purify, Meditate, Realize.”
 – Swami SivanandaSwami Sivananda (1887-1963) was born in South India to a pious Brahmin family.  He became a medical doctor and hospital director during his pre-sannyas life in Malaysia.  

He found out that curing people of their physical ailments did not really solve the problem of human suffering and he started his quest to find the answer, becoming a wandering sadhu and starting to practice intense tapas (austerities) and meditation in Rishikesh, Himalayas.  

He became not only a doctor of the body but also a “doctor of the soul”.  He founded the Sivananda ashram in 1932 and the Divine Life Society in 1936 and published 200-300 books in English outlining practices for a spiritual life.Swami Sivananda’s teachings can be summarized in six words: “Serve, Love, Give, Purify, Meditate, Realize”.  

Swamiji attained Mahasamadhi in 1963.  The government of India published a stamp in his honor for his 100 year birthday anniversary, as he is recognized as an authoritative teacher in classical Yoga.  Swami Sivananda, foreseeing that the whole world would need Yoga teachings, wrote his books in English, accepted western disciples, and sent some of his closest disciples to the West to teach Yoga.  One of his foremost disciples is Swami Vishnudevananda, whom he sent to America in 1957 with the words: “Go to America, people are waiting” 

Swami Sivananda is a modern day saint from India who lived from 1887 – 1963. 

Swami Vishnudevananda brought the classical Yoga teaching to the West in 1957.  He lived from 1927 – 1993.