Sivananda's Personality - 15.

In 1949, opening a cupboard, the Master’s attendant found a bedsheet bitten by a rat, and inside the sheet were four of its newborns.

They had hardly opened their eyes.

He took them to the Master.

When the Master saw the baby rats, his heart was flooded with compassion.

He felt greatly pained that they should have been disturbed.

He asked the attendant to put them back immediately in the same place and condition, lest their mother should miss them.

This was done.

But in a day or two, the mother rat got killed by a cat.

Soon after, the little ones also died.

When the Master saw the dead rats, he felt sad and did Maha Mantra Kirtan for a pretty long time for the peace of the departed souls.

His attendant also joined him in the Kirtan.


The Master fed ants with sugar, birds with rice, monkeys with gram, fish with bread.

He kept water in pots for birds.

"This will develop mercy and cosmic love," he said.

"It will soften the stony heart and instil the sense of oneness or Adwaita. No one can hope to attain oneness without doing such service. Mere study of Vedantic books without practice is absolutely useless."


Sri N. Ananthanarayanan
To be continued  ...