Parables of Sivananda

Truth is simple. Simple are the words of God-realised saint. How simply our Gurudev, Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, states the subtlest of spiritual truths, so that even laymen can understand! The Sage’s compassion is such that he wants the truths of the scriptures to be made available to all, to whatever intellectual level they may belong. Therefore, he has literally exhausted all the methods of stating the truth. He has written commentaries on ancient texts; he has presented learned theses on metaphysical questions; he has narrated them in the form of interesting stories; he has given laconic expression to them in aphorisms; he has vividly dramatised them in his plays; he has sung them in songs and woven them into sublime poems; and now comes another potent method of instruction-the Parable. The story is interesting; the mind readily grasps it. The spiritual truth which is the other side of the story automatically gets inerasably lodged in the mind. The truth becomes not only clear, but indelible.

These Parables are of incalculable benefit not only for the Sadhaka to meditate upon, but for the spiritual propagandist-with the parables he can drive his sermon home into the heart of the audience.

Describing a dialogue between Shiva and Parvati from which emerged Pashupata yoga, Swamiji speaks of the eternal search for happiness, the classical understanding of suffering, yoga as a science of life, sequential system of sadhana and the final state of transcendence.