His Holiness Swami Sivananda Paramahamsa
His Holiness SWAMI SIVANANDA PARAMAHAMSA was born in the small town of Vatakara in North Malabar, Kerala, (South India). In His early days, the Swamiji observed the sufferings that people undergo at the time of death and moved by this phenomenon, He started thinking.
Then, with a firm determination to find out a remedy for this, He renounced everything and entered the free world. At the end of a good deal of suffering, self – sacrifice and Herculean effort His Holiness discovered for Himself a solution for the suffering and this solution or the method by means of which the death can be avoided is known as “SIDDHA VIDYA”
Self is God and is existent always. It exists while we are asleep. We can realise this self, this God only when we are above the level of all mental passions such as loves and hatreds, and these mental passions cannot be done away with, so long as mind lasts. The mind is non-existent when one sleeps. The eeriest cut-throat and the holiest sanyasin are alike in their sleep. Let us therefore try to lure our mind, or rather, have our mind merged in what we call Jeeva or life, we realise God. This is Swami’s philosophy to put it in a nut-shell.
Based on this philosophy of action, and assisted by a practice of Pranayama, Swami had laid the foundation for world welfare through an association organised by him in Malabar and known as the Siddha Samaj.
After having attained self -realisation by a vigorous practice of this “Vidya” and then harvesting the fruits of it in its fullest measure, the Swamiji, out of dire sympathy for the suffering millions, condescended (came down) from His supreme position, which He had adorned by His own efforts, and began to mix with the common people, preaching to them and initiating them into this noble means of self- realisation.
When people, irrespective of caste, creed and position, began to follow Him in large numbers, being convinced of the teachings and initiated into the noble path, the necessity for a corporate living was felt and “SIDDHA SAMAJ” was founded by His Holiness in the year 1921.
His Holiness Swami Sivananda Paramahamsa attained Jeeva Samadhi on 21th June 1949. His Jeeva samadhi is situated in Siddha Samaj Head Office Vatakara, Kerala.
