Bliss Divine
About This Book
Bliss Divine is Swami Sivananda's encyclopedic masterwork — an extraordinary compendium of over two hundred essays on virtually every dimension of the spiritual life, produced by the beloved Rishikesh master who combined the academic thoroughness of a medical doctor, the devotional warmth of a bhakta, and the meditative depth of a genuine yogi in a single extraordinary personality. The topics range from the most fundamental metaphysical questions (the nature of Brahman, the relationship between Atman and the world) through the practical disciplines of sadhana (karma yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, raja yoga) to specific topics in ethics, psychology, health, and social life — all addressed with the same combination of scriptural grounding, practical good sense, and genuine spiritual warmth that characterised Sivananda's unique approach to spiritual teaching.
The book exemplifies the quality that Sivananda himself embodied and consistently taught: the integration of the four yogic paths into a single unified life of service, devotion, knowledge, and meditation. His famous teaching 'Serve, Love, Give, Purify, Meditate, Realise' — six words that capture the complete programme of Vedantic spiritual development — is the organising principle around which all the diverse topics of Bliss Divine are ultimately arranged. For students of the Indian tradition seeking a reference work that covers the full breadth of the tradition without sacrificing depth, this book remains after many decades one of the most generous and useful resources available.
What You'll Learn
• Survey the four paths of yoga as Sivananda presents them: karma yoga (the path of selfless service), bhakti yoga (the path of love and devotion), jnana yoga (the path of discriminative knowledge), and raja yoga (the path of meditation and mind control) — understanding their differences, their interrelationships, and Sivananda's teaching on their integration
• Grasp the Vedantic metaphysics that underlies all four paths: the nature of Brahman as the only reality, the nature of Atman as identical with Brahman, the mechanism of maya through which the appearance of multiplicity is generated, and the liberation (moksha) that consists in the direct recognition of this identity
• Recognise Sivananda's ethical foundation: how the development of the virtues — purity, non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, non-possessiveness — is not a separate moral project but the necessary preparation of the instrument through which spiritual realisation eventually occurs
• Learn the sadhana prescriptions Sivananda offers across different essays: the specific practices — puja, japa, pranayama, meditation, scriptural study, selfless service — and how each addresses a different dimension of the aspirant's development while the whole constitutes a balanced and complete path
• Appreciate the medical dimension of Sivananda's teaching: how his background as a physician informs his understanding of the relationship between physical health, mental clarity, and spiritual development, and how his recommendations for diet, sleep, exercise, and healthy living complement the specifically spiritual disciplines he prescribes
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