August 19, 2024
You have heard hundreds of lectures, you admire the speakers, "Oh, marvelous man, he speaks wonderfully..." but... nothing changes, nothing at all. I met 95 year-old Swami angeshwarananda in Canada. At that time they were organizing a convention somewhere in the southern states and I was told that he was also on the list of invitees. I asked him, "Swamiji, are you going?" He said, "Oh no, no, no. I don't believe in these conventions. Self-realization is not given in these conferences. Speaker after speaker after speaker after speaker - and you don't even know who spoke! Self-realization is not in these conferences. It is a good thing, it arouses some kind of curiosity, enthusiasm, it's impressive."
Impressing means 'pressing in', but nothing really happens. So talking, talking, talking, the whole thing is forgotten before the talk is concluded. By his style of satsanga, Swami Sivananda had eliminated this talking boredom, at the same time pointing out that whatever anybody is going to say anywhere in the world is all there in the scriptures that have already been introduced: the Bhagavad Gita, the Srimad Bhagavatam, the Bible, the Yoga Vasistha, the Koran. We have heard them, we have ignored them; so are people going to ignore the person who is talking, the fool who is going on talking.
You may ask someone who was at the ashram in Swami Sivananda's times, on how many occasions Swamiji delivered a lecture. Hardly any! In the life of the ashram, probably Swami Sivananda would have talked, delivered a lecture three or four times a year. He was a listener. He let other people talk. If someone wanted to talk - talk! Because as far as he was concerned it is a waste of time. The knowledge is there in the Gita, the knowledge is there in the scriptures. Read them! And see what kind of awakening is produced by reading them. And read them in the right spirit, listening with your heart to the message contained in them. That was the beautiful style that Swami Sivananda gave us.