In Thailand there is a tradition that every person must live the life of a monk for a while. What is the reason?

In Thailand every Buddhist has to adopt the lifestyle of a monk for some time. He shaves off his hair, wears geru clothes, begs for alms, sleeps on the floor and lives in a monastery. This is applicable to all Buddhists, prince or pauper.

I have lived on alms, too. I did not need to, but I purposely undertook seeking alms for four to five years. I did it because it was essential for my mental growth and mental health. Whatever I have gained in life can be attributed to this mode of living. There was absolutely no necessity of 0begging because my needs were limited, and I had neither family nor children. Why should I have sought alms? In Benares where I was, one never starves, yet begging and resting for the night in a dharmashala, under a tree or in the veranda of someone’s house have such reactions on the mind and body that one’s mental and spiritual life is uplifted.

I do not know when and how it began, but this mendicant lifestyle is prescribed in all religions of the world. It is there among Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Jains. I have wandered from Afghanistan to Burma. Whenever I had some money, I undertook a train journey. One could travel to Benares without a ticket also. In those days, sadhus received a lot of support. Now it is very difficult. I moved around a lot in 1945 in Afghanistan, Baluchistan, etc. in Assam I took elephant rides. In Madhya Pradesh I lived among the adivasis, tribal people, in places where there were no roads, where even bicycles could not reach. I used to sleep in cowsheds. The adivasis were very poor. One of them fed me with mouse soup for two months, and I drank it unawares. I was doing my chaturmas in Bastar. One of the disciples of my Guruji was a revenue inspector there. When I asked for a place of solitude he took me to the adivasi village for solitary living. The huts there have only one big room. Everything happens there. They all sleep in the same room in a row. I too used to sleep in the same row along with them. During the day I would sit under a tree on a mat of leaves. My host would bring me rice and mouse soup. After the completion of two months the revenue inspector came to take me back. He too was served the same meal. He asked the adivasi what it was and learned that it was mouse soup. We were shocked, but the soup had no adverse effect on me. I understood his poverty because of which he could serve me nothing better. I was surprised to find that the soup affected neither my body nor mind. There were many such incidents in my mendicant life.

The choice of the life of poverty, of begging, is a therapy. It removes sickness. Poverty is not a curse, but its distress is a curse. Poverty is curse when you feel its pangs. The Mahabharata tells how when Dronacharya saw the utter disappointment on his son Ashwatthama’s face at being denied milk, his heart moved so much that he shifted his loyalty from the Pandavas to the Kauravas. When your wife or parents complain about some deprivation, it stings your heart. Even I would have been affected if I had had children and a wife. There was nobody to take me to task for not earning a living, and I was happy that way. However, I saw how unhappy people are, both the haves and the have-nots. Those who have no money are unhappy because of deprivation and those who have plenty are unhappy for not having more. They become greedier and unhappier. All the saints-Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi-were beggars. Nietzsche, the great political philosopher was poverty-stricken. There are many more examples like that. The great mathematician Ramanujam died of untreated tuberculosis.

Excess of money also brings sickness because a smug complacency, a false security comes to you, which leads to excessive enjoyment. Excessive enjoyment invites ill health and ill fame. You also harbour the fear of the income tax department. Everything that makes you happy and comfortable is packaged with fear and anxiety. Therefore, money should go to him who will spend if for the well-being of others. He may then earn millions of rupees, but he will not claim its ownership. He will consider himself a trustee.

There is a story about Mahatma Gandhi. Once, his wife kasturba found a four-anna coin lying on the floor of the ashram. In those days four annas had a lot of value. She picked it up and bought a toy for her grandchildren. Gandhiji learned about it and lost his temper. He told her that the money belonged to the institution; it was not his, even though it was given to him. He told her that she was not to use a change of sari till she weaved a new one by herself. He wrote about this incident in the ashram bulletin Harijan Patrika under the heading, ‘Embezzlement in Gandhi Family‘.

If a person sets aside one part of his income for the family, one part for the society and one part for the people who live below the poverty line, then even if he amasses wealth it does not matter. It does breed vice. This allocation of money is righteous because, after all, the money that you earn comes to you from society. So you owe it to society. Society gives you education and employment, builds your house, builds social systems of law and order, sets up public utility services and maintains your security. For all this you are indebted to society. That is called social debt.

Everyone has to pay back five kinds of debt. The first is social debt. Then there is the debt you owe to your mentors and educators who contribute to your intellectual growth. One more debt is the one you owe to the poorest and helpless section of society. The saint pays back all the debts as did mother Teresa. Sainthood is not conferred as a degree or qualification. Those who pay back this debt are called saints. A saint is one who dedicates himself and everything he has to those who have no one to look after them, the loveless and the orphaned. Even God is described like this. He is the one who gives refuge to the hapless and the loveless. He is deenabandhu, friend of the poor. He is deenanath, lord of the poor. He is deendayal, merciful towards the poor.

If all the moneyed people follow the rule of sharing, of reaching out to the needy, then money is not harmful. Then you need not be worried about money. Money creates havoc only when it is put to selfish use, greedy consumerism and unlimited sensual enjoyment. I am not criticizing money as such. And I do not denounce poverty as such. I only condemn its distress and suffering; otherwise, poverty is a positive quality. Similarly, wealth is a curse and a blessing at the same time.

Satsang : 13 September, 1997

Paramhasma Swami Satyananda Saraswati : Issue – July 2008

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Swami Satya Sangananda

Swami Satyasangananda (satsangi) was born on 24th March 1953, in Chandorengore, West Bengal. From the age of 22 she experienced a series of inner awakenings which led her to her guru, Swami Satyananda. From 1981 she traveled ceaselessly with her Guru in India and overseas and developed into a scholar with deep insight into the Yogic and Tantric traditions as well as modern science and philosophies.

She is an efficient channel for the transmission of her Guru’s teachings. The establishment of Sivananda Math in Rikhia is her creation and mission, and she guides all its activities there, working tirelessly to uplift the weaker and underprivileged sections. She embodies compassion with clear reason and is the future of her Guru’s vision.

Swami Niranjananada

needs of different cultures. In 1983 he was appointed President of the Bihar School of Yoga. During the next 11 years he guided the development of BSY, Sivananda Math and the Yoga Research Foundation. In 1990 he was initiated as the Paramahamsa and in 1993 anointed preceptor in succession to Paramahamsa Satyananda. Bihar Yoga Bharati, Institute for Yogic Studies was founded under his direction in 1994, dedicated to university level studies in applied yogic science, philosophy and psychology. He has authored over 20 revealing and precise books, on Yoga, Tantra and the Upanishads. Swami Niranjanananda is laying the foundations to preserve and regenerate the total scope of Yogic science by combining academic and scientific methodology with a spiritual vision.

Swami Satyananda Saraswati

For 12 years he served his Guru. After completing his Yogic training, he traveled throughout India as a wandering Yogi for further 9 years, interacting with and inspiring people from all strata of society, in order to assess their needs.
In 1956, he founded the International Yoga Fellowship Movement and in 1963, the Bihar School of Yoga, to spread the word of Yoga to people of all nationalities and creeds.

Over the next 20 years Paramahamsa Satyananda toured abroad and became a leading exponent of Yoga and Tantra. He was highly respected and loved by Yoga aspirants, disciples and devotees all over the world. He also initiated and trained thousands of sannyasins and karma sannyasins to further the Yoga movement in India and abroad.  He held a Yoga conference in Dublin in the 70’s.

During this period he also authored over 80 books on yoga and spirituality, which are a valuable source of knowledge. In 1984, he founded Sivananda Math, a charitable institution, and the Yoga Research Foundation, a medical and scientific institute. In 1988, after completing his duty to the Yogic mission, he renounced all that he had created and now leads the life of a Paramahamsa sannyasin. Since that time he has lived a secluded life in Rikhia.

Swami Sivananda

This dedication to others expanded into a spiritual fervor that stimulated him to take up the monastic life for the enlightenment and spiritual welfare of the world. After wandering around India in the traditional manner of a sannyasi, he settled in the holy city of Rishikesh in the Himalayan foothills in 1924. Quickly the young sadhu became the focus of unreserved admiration from his fellow sadhus, many of whom he nursed through illness and infirmity, gathering food daily from many sources in order to feed those too feeble to seek out their own food.

In 1932 he started Sivanandashram, and in 1936 the Divine Life Society that was destined to be come a worldwide source of spiritual uplift to mulititudes of all lands. Sivananda wrote over three hundred books and printed many periodicals–all on spiritual life and aimed at all classes of people whatever their level of development might be.

He coined a motto: “Be Good. Do Good.” And he embodied this in his own life. Having become Good (God) he was able to do the highest Good by imparting God-consciousness to others. The number of souls awakened, inspired and enlightened by this great Master cannot be even estimated. I personally knew many, and saw them spiritually transformed beyond all expectation.

As one who was privileged to meet this Great Soul in the last year of his life (1963), I can bear testimony to his inconceivable greatness. There is no human virtue that he did not embody to the maximum degree. Nor was there any form of yoga in which he did not demonstrate absolute perfection. This is not mere emotional effusion–it is sober fact. I saw it with my own eyes, heard with my own ears, and experienced with my own inmost being.

Shortly before his departure from this world, I bowed for the last time at his feet, in the meantime having become Swami Nirmalananda Giri. Throughout the entire morning satsang he kept turning to me and saying: “‘Swami Nirmalananda Giri’! I am so happy. I am so happy.” And so am I happy in the remembrance of You, Swamiji, as I write these few words. Though one with That “from which the mind and the senses turn back,” still those of us who knew and loved you can speak of your glory and aspire to the same attainment.

” !! Om Namo Bhagavate Sivanandaya !! “