Service before Self: Seva as Sadhana

Jan 14, 2004, 12.08am IST

Pranav Khullar, TNN.

Rishikesh: The ideals and motto of the Divine Life Society — “Serve, love, give, purify, meditate and realise” — are reflected in the life and work of Swami Chidananda Saraswati. His spiritual journey began on a Buddha Purnima day in 1943 inspired by his mentor Swami Sivananda.

Chidananda’s fervour to serve found the perfect outlet in the welfare work he undertook at Rishikesh. He believes that service alone can purify and prepare the soul for deep contemplation.

A story is often recounted of how Chidananda found a leprosy-afflicted person on the Hardwar-Rishikesh road. He carried him all the way to the ashram on his shoulders. He served him through the day, as a mother would care for a child. Eventually, he established a colony for similar patients in Rishikesh, as a means of preserving the self-respect and dignity of the suffering. The spirit of seva has become the core of his own teachings on sadhana. When he was asked what was necessary to obtain the Guru’s grace, Chidananda immediately pointed out that the path of selfless service, seva, is what should be valued as the perfect sadhana.

According to Chidananda, love is the law of life and to love is to fulfil the adage: “To live is to love”. You live that you may learn to love, you love so that you may learn to live. True religion is not about ritualistic observances, baths or pilgrimages, so the Swami asks us to heed the universal psychological law: Hatred breeds hatred, love begets love, and fear breeds fear. In his morning meditation talks at Sivananda Ashram, compiled as Ponder these Truths, he says the key to blessedness is to be aware of that blessedness. The path that leads us beyond sorrow can be found through compassion, humility, truthfulness and self-control.

A Franciscan by heart and an Advaitist by calling, Chidananda has always held that yoga cannot stop at the psycho-physical level — the body has to transform itself into a vehicle of sattva or purity through paropkara or selfless service. This sadhana or discipline will in turn lead one to a meditative state: Dhyana or medi-tation is not possible without a preparatory ethical disciplining of oneself.

Swami Chidananda often narrates the parable of the two monks journeying together, to illustrate the true yogic paradigm. The two monks encounter a village woman beside a stream. She has missed the last ferry and is perplexed as to how she can cross the stream. Seeing her predicament, the younger monk lifts her up and fords the stream along with his older companion. The companion monk is extremely upset as it is against monastic rules to touch a female, and castigates the young one throughout the rest of the journey till they reach their mona-stery. Finally, the younger monk said to him: “While I have left the woman long ago by the stream, you seem to be still carrying her in your head”.

Swami Chidananda’s message evokes the fundamentals of human life — of unrequited love and compassion, which alone can sustain and bond commu- nities. His teachings have embodied the ancient Vedantic truths in the simplest and most endearing way possible. He says: “Let your example speak more than your words. Reform yourself and be yourself what you want others to be. Practise what you preach; otherwise don’t”.

Watching the Ganga flow past on a wintry evening in Rishikesh, I was overcome by the sheer simpli-city of the message, an anahata (universal) nada (sound), which can be easily heard if only we care to listen carefully.