Sivananda's Personality - 18.

The Master delighted in doing personal service.

If anybody came to him in the hot sun, he often fanned him and gave him some refreshing drink.

Sometimes he hastened to hold the umbrella over the head of a sick or aged person.

At other times he hurried to untie the bootlaces of stout or aged people, when they found it difficult to bend down.

To him no service was menial; all was sacred.


When H.H. the Dowager Maharani of Mysore visited the Ashram in 1949, the inmates brought chairs and benches, and placed them outside the Diamond Jubilee Hall, but the austere Maharani said that she preferred to sit on the bare ground.

As soon as she said that, the Master stooped down and removed the stones and pebbles on the terrace, making room for Her Highness to sit.


The Maharani began to protest, "Swamiji, you should not trouble yourself to do all this."


Quick came the Master’s reply, "No, no, please do not stand on formalities.

‘Ghar ka ladka—I am your own son’!" "What is my duty?" was the question the Master asked himself constantly, not "what will others think?"

Once, he carried Sadhu Leik, a European Sannyasin, on his head in a rope-cot, and admitted him in the Punjab Sindh Kshettar Hospital in Rishikesh. On a different occasion a Sannyasini fell down unconscious.

The Master carried her on his back to the hospital.

Sri N. Ananthanarayanan
To be continued  ...