LIVES OF SAINTS

Born on the 8th September, 1887, in the illustrious family of Saga Appayya Diskhita and several other renowned saints and savants, Sri Swami Sivananda had a natural flair for a life devoted to the study and practice of Vedanta. Added to this was an inborn eagerness to serve all and an innate feeling of unity with all mankind. His passion for service drew him to the medical career; and soon he gravitated to where he thought that his service was most needed. Malaya claimed him. He had earlier been editing a Health Journal and wrote extensively on health problems. He discovered that people needed right knowledge most of all; dissemination of that knowledge he espoused as his own mission. It was divine dispensation and the blessing of God upon mankind that the doctor of body and mind renounced his career and took to a life of renunciation to qualify himself for ministering to the soul of man. He settled down at Rishikesh in 1924, practiced intense austerities and shone as a great Yogi, Saint, Sage and Jivanmukta. In 1932 he started the Sivanandashram. In 1936 was born The Divine Life Society. In 1948 the Yoga-Vedanta Forest Academy was organized. Dissemination of spiritual knowledge and training of people in Yoga and Vedanta were their aim and object. In 1950 he undertook a lightning tour of India and Ceylon. In 1953 he convened a 'World Parliament Reliogions'. He is the author of over 300 volumes and has disciples all over the world, belonging to all nationalities, religions and creeds. To read his works is to drink at the fountain of Wisdom Supreme. On 14th July, 1963 he entered Mahasamadhi.

Publishers' Note:

Swami Sivananda's "Lives of Saints" was first published in 1941 and reprinted in 1943 and 1944. A companion second volume, under the same title, followed in 1947, the year of the Master's Diamond Jubilee. It contained life-sketched of may more saints not covered in the original publication.

In the current edition, we have endeavoured to consolidate, not only the stories included in the above two volumes, but also those written by Swami Sivananda in other miscellaneous books. As such, the present publication has verily turned out to be treasure trove of inspiring spiritual biography, instructive anecdotes and lofty admonitions of men and women of the highest realisation. For sheer variety and range, this book perhaps has no equal.

Here, two points deserve special mention. Firstly, this book is totally non-sectarian and free from prejudice of any kind. It thus manages with marvelous success to draw out the very best from each subject it touches. Secondly, as these sketches come from the pen of a spiritual personality, they present all the lives in a distinctive spiritual personality, they present all the lives in a distinctive spiritual perspective, which a layman writing the same biographies would hardly be able to do. This fact, in itself, enhances the worth and utility of the book a great deal.

We feel privileged to be able to offer this book to the reading public. May the light of these saints guide and illumine the path of the readers. May their blessings shower upon the readers and the whole mankind!---Shivanandanagar, February 19,1993.---THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY

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