Swami Sivananda’s Mahasamadhi

An exemplary Karma Yogi who truly lived the ideology of “Serve, Love, Meditate, Realize,” Swami Sivananda of the Divine Life Society, Rishikesh, attained Mahasamadhi on 14 July 1963. He was the dynamic sage who turned Balakrishnan Menon, a skeptic journalist, into Swami Chinmayananda, the charismatic Jivanmukta, by initiating him (Diksha) into sannyasa on 25 February 1949. When Gurudev heard the news of the Mahasamadhi of His Diksha-Guru, He undertook a tapovrata – severe austerities that lasted a whole year.