Swami Sivananda-Hridayananda

The next heart-treasure I want to tell you about is Swami Sivananda-Hridayananda of Sivananda Ashram. Her name means Bliss of Sivananda’s Heart, and it was very appropriate. In the ashram she was simply known as Doctor Mother because she was an eye surgeon and presided over the free eye hospital Swami Sivananda had established in the ashram.

Doctor Mother had been born in Madras State (Tamilnadu) as had Swami Sivananda. She told me that when she first learned to speak her grandmother taught her that the moment she awakened in the morning she should say: “O Lord, I am thy dear one; be with me this day.” And so she always did. She was born loving temples and worship of God. Being outstandingly intelligent and having a heart embracing others, she became a very successful eye surgeon in a clinic of her own. She was married to an equally dedicated and spiritually devoted man and had two daughters.

Listen to the rest of the podcast to hear about: 

• How she discovered Swami Sivananda through his books, began corresponding with him, and eventually met him at Sivanandashram, in time  becoming Swami Sivananda-Hridayananda.

• How she inspired others by her regal yet inward appearance and her devotion to Swami Sivananda.

• How we became acquainted, and how she eventually visited our ashram in America.

The King’s Daughter in Bengal

The story of a saintly woman hiding behind the persona of a mad woman in the plains of Bengal.

Swami Vidyananda Giri

I had been told about Swami Vidyananda who for many years was the director of the Yogoda Satsanga school which Yogananda had founded before coming to America. Two of the residents of the school had urged me to meet with him. When I asked Kalachan-da, the head of the Ranchi Anandamayi Ashram where I was staying, he also recommended that I visit Swamiji at his ashram on the plains of Bengal eastward. “When you see him you will see a perfect sadhu. I cannot say that about anyone else; but he is truly an ideal sadhu.”

I went by bus to the village of Lakhanpur in the Purulia district where he lived. When I met him he took hold of my hands I felt as though I was being touched by spirit, not flesh. He greeted me lovingly and quietly. And from then on I, too, knew a perfect sadhu.

Swami Vidyanandaji lived in a small room off the temple which was furnished with one wood platform bed, a small wood table/desk and two simple wood chairs. He had two changes of clothes and a chaddar. That was all.

Vidyanandaji actually lived between three rooms: his personal room, the guru mandir dedicated to Paramhansa Yogananda and a small Shiva temple. About ten o’clock at night Swamiji would come out of his room and go to the Shiva temple, shut the door and remain there in meditation until after dawn.

Swami Vidyananda had been given sannyas by Jagadguru Bharati Krishna Tirtha, Shankaracharys of the Govardhan Math in Puri, one of the four great monasteries founded by Shankara himself. It is the rule that a Shankaracharya gives sannyas only in his math, but the Shankaracharya had such regard and affection for Vidyananda that he came to the Puri ashram of Sri Yuketswar and in the samadhi temple conferred sannyas on Swamiji. He also broke another rule for Swamiji. A Shiva linga cannot be consecrated until it has been permanently affixed on a foundation. But the Shankaracharya consecrated a Shiva linga of sparkling white stone and gave it to Swamiji to permanently install back in the Lakhanpur ashram. From then on he spent every night meditating before that linga.

Listen to the full podcast to hear how: 

• Swami Vidyananda ran his school on a dollar a day.

• He was initiated by Paramhansa Yogananda in a ruined shack in 1935.

• Vidyananda would spend his meditation in samadhi.

• Vidyanandaji continually read my mind.

• He saw a disciple’s delayed arrival in his mental vision.