Varanasi: “This is an ideal life. A well-regulated, well-disciplined life, which is why everybody is attracted to it,” claims Swami Sivananda, whose barefoot walk at the Darbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan — to receive his Padma Shri award from President Ram Nath Kovind last week — has charmed many across the country.
He has quickly become an Internet sensation, with a Doordarshan video of him receiving the award getting over six lakh views YouTube. What Sivananda fails to mention, however, is the other factor that has often made him the centre of attention: his long life.
The yoga guru claims to be over 125 years old. According to his Aadhaar card, Sivananda was born on 8 August, 1896, in pre-partition Bangladesh.
Espousing the cause of a minimalistic and “desire-free life”, Sivananda may be the oldest living person in the world, claim followers.
According to the Guinness World Records, the record of being the oldest living person in the world is currently held by Japan’s Kane Tanaka, aged 119 years.
Some of Sivananda’s followers told ThePrint Sunday that they are in the process of applying for the record on behalf of him.
From Partition to Covid, Sivananda professes to have braved it all, and credits his dietary habits and fitness regime for the achievement.
Also read: How regular yoga practice led to peace of mind, less anxiety during lockdown — IIT Delhi study
The ‘ideal’ way of life
Sivananda is no newbie to awards. In 2019, he won the Yoga Ratna Award in Bengaluru.
But despite the accolades and the attention, there is something unassuming about him. The self-proclaimed ascetic and yoga guru says he has been living in a single room near Varanasi’s Durga Mandir for the past 43 years, and claims that it is his “ideal way of life” that attracts people to him.
“A simple diet, a well-regulated, well-disciplined and desire-less life. I don’t run after money. Happiness comes automatically. Bhajan keeps one’s mind peaceful,” he told ThePrint Sunday.
His daily routine has remained the same for years. Every day, hee gets up at 3 am and goes for half-an-hour’s walk, followed by yoga for an hour, sunbathing and scripture chanting. He has only two meals a day, with no breakfast.
“After bhajan, I do yoga, followed by Geeta-path and Chandi-paath (scripture-chanting). After spending some time in the sun, at 12 noon, I take my lunch. This comprises two chapatis, aloo chokha or some dal,” he says. Dinner again consists of chapatis, with dal or vegetables.
Along with strictly following the three litres-of-water-per day rule, Sivananda also sticks to minimal consumption of sea salt and oil.
“Sea salt is very harmful. Black salt or rock salt is better. Consumption of oil leads to stones in the gall bladder — it’s the root cause of it,” he says.
He also avoids fruit and milk, but this is more for philosophical than health-related reasons. Sivananda says he feels he shouldn’t enjoy such luxuries when the poor can’t afford them. The only times he has fruits is if someone forces him to.
Although he himself does not eat breakfast, Sivananda does not suggest that young people follow suit.
“Young people should eat breakfast. Their immunity will become low if they remain on an empty-stomach,” he said.
A trained yoga and pranayama expert, he can still ace a headstand, despite his self-professed 125 years. For a long and healthy life, the yoga guru suggests regular breathing exercises, including the sheetali mudra — a breathing exercise believed to calm the mind — to people of all ages.
Sivananda also claims he has never visited a hospital for any treatment, other than for his routine check-ups.
From being born to poor parents to award-winning philanthropist
Sivananda does not remember his early life clearly, and says what he knows about those years is based on what he has heard from his guru, Swami Onkarananda Goswami, to whom his parents had given him away as a child.
“At the age of four years, I was handed over to a monk, and it was under his guidance that I started to eat rice, dal, sabzi. At my mother’s house, I only had water strained from boiling rich (starch). When I was six, my parents both died on the same day — Mother died before sunrise and Father died after sunrise. They had no money, no food,” he says.
After performing his parents’ last rites at the age of six, Sivananda says he started wandering from place to place with his guru.
“I spent some time in Nabadwip (in Bengal) and around two years in Vrindavan, and then came to Varanasi,” he said.
With no school education, Sivananda says he received training in yogic and spiritual knowledge under Onkarananda Goswami, and subsequently took up the cause of leprosy-affected persons in Puri, Odisha, who he continues to help with food and other necessities.
He began helping leprosy patients 55 years ago, he says.
“They (the leprosy patients) have no food or clothes. I feel for them, love them, they are dependent on God. I give them only food and they are happy. My followers collect everything and we simply distribute them,” he says.
The yoga guru has followers from across the country and abroad who collect funds for an annual event in Puri in December, say his followers. A Rashtrapati Bhavan communique details food, clothes, blankets, mosquito nets, cooking utensils and other items of need as donations made by him to these patients.
“Swamiji does not have any trust. There are hundreds of followers of Swamiji based across India and foreign nations like England, Germany and Australia. Some of them have donated houses to him to run ashrams, to teach yoga and meet his followers. The building for the Sivananda Ashram in Varanasi was also donated to him. The same is true of the house in which he lives. He has no bank balance,” says an aide, Ram Biswas.
Eye on ‘liberation’
Sivananda’s life’s mission is communicated in the the book Rog Arogya. Based on the yoga guru‘s teachings, it has been written by one of his followers, Ashim K. Pyne. The book includes tips for good health, yoga techniques, healthy relationships and spiritual mantras.
He says his followers often offer him gifts and money, but he refuses the latter.
“How can I take it? It is illegal and indecent,” he tells a follower who tries to offer him money in ThePrint’s presence.
Donations are welcome only for the cause of leprosy patients, his aides say.
For Sivananda, the ultimate goal is liberation, and he credits his guru for his good health and “satvik” way of life.
“God might be able to do certain things, but guru is greater than God, because God has to take the route of the guru to grant you liberation. There are many who don’t think of their body, but about liberation from birth and death,” he says.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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