HT:Vishnu_Devananda_Passes
Editor
Head: Vishnu-devananda Passes on at 65
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Subhead:
Canada-Based Yogi Influenced Millions in West and East
Text:
By Lavina Melwani, New York
Hindu dharma has lost a great soul who pursued world peace in an Apache
aircraft, and opposed war and hatred with a passel of flower petals.
Swami Vishnu-devananda attained mahasamadhi on November 9, 1993, while
on a pilgrimage to the Mookambika Devi Temple in South India. He died
at Kasturba Teaching Hospital in Manipal, Karnataka. The cause of death
was septic shock resulting from a blood infection. The swami's health
had been failing for several years. His body was placed in the Ganges
in the holy city of Uttarkashi in the Himalayas.
Sent to the West by his guru, Swami Sivananda, to spread the doctrine of
Vedantic thought and yoga, Swami Vishnu-devananda adopted methods that
attracted world attention. He was dubbed "The Flying Swami" by the
international press when in 1971 he took to the skies, piloting his own
two-engine Apache aircraft above strife-torn Belfast in Northern
Ireland. Accompanied by co-pilot actor Peter Sellers, he "bombed" both
sides with chrysanthemums and leaflets for peace. This was the first of
his many peace missions to trouble spots around the world.
In the same year, his little plane, decorated for the occasion in
multicolored hues by artist Peter Max, carried him over the Suez Canal
between Arab and Israeli lines. He was pursued by both Israeli and
Egyptian warplanes but the Swami accomplished his "bombing" mission and
met with officials from both sides with appeals for reconciliation.
In 1984 he took a London doubledecker with the sign "Yoga for Peace"
splashed across it on a journey from Europe, through Iran and
Afghanistan, into troubled Punjab in India. He entered the Golden
Temple and spoke with the barricaded Sikh leaders within, and also tried
to mediate between the Hindu and Sikh factions in Amritsar.
In 1988, when the Berlin Wall was still an ugly reality, Swami flew over
it from West to East Berlin in an open ultra-lite aircraft. To the East
Germans, Swami conveyed the message that the resilient human spirit-like
his little aircraft-could overcome man-made barriers like the Berlin
Wall with a message of love and peace.
Swami's Spiritual Flights:
Swami Vishnu-devananda was born on December 31, 1927 in Kerala, South
India. After graduating from university and serving briefly in the
Indian army, he met the man who changed the direction of his life: The
legendary guru Swami Sivananda who had given up a career as a medical
doctor to pursue the spiritual life and the study of yoga, founding the
Divine Life Society in Rishikesh.
The young disciple studied extensively for ten years. Sivananda then
asked him to take the message of yoga and Vedantic thought to the West
with this prodding: "People are waiting." A small Sivananda Yoga Vedanta
Center was started in Montreal, Canada, by Swami in 1959. From that
tiny seed, blossomed the many Sivananda ashrams and centers all over
North America, Europe, Middle East and Australia. In 1991, with the
ending of the Cold War, he established centers in Czechoslovakia, Russia
and the Ukraine.
In 1960 Swami wrote The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga which went on
to become the definitive book on hatha yoga. By 1993, it had been
translated into 16 languages and has sold over 3 million copies. He
personally trained 7,000 yoga teachers.
Neela Devi, a Washington-based yoga teacher and student of languages who
was a disciple from the very beginning, recalls, "He taught by example
and not by preaching. He was a genius of a teacher." She taught yoga
for many years in Palm Springs to very worldly people, and was given a
plaque for services to the community. She says simply, "It was Swami
speaking through me. A true and honest messenger, he was always very
careful to give Swami Sivananda's message as he heard it, not as he
interpreted it. So what we got was pure. What we got was real."
Swami once said, "Whether a Hindu mind, or a French mind, or a Black
mind, or a White mind, a man's mind or a woman's mind-the mind contains
lust, anger, greed, hatred, jealousy, envy and fear. This exists
always. Not even the scientists, with all their marvelous technology
can cope with their own minds. Only yogic self-discipline provides such
a comprehensive system of mind control."
Swami Padmapananda, a swami at the Sivananda Center in New York,
remembers the fearlessness and courage of Swami in combating problems.
He would speak up against yoga teachers if he felt they were not
teaching the true traditions or compromising them in any way. He was a
man of action but he also knew the power of humor. Swami Padmapananda
recalls that during peace demonstrations in Jerusalem, he along with
Swami and other disciples stood on their heads for peace, all the while
playing the harmonium and singing "Raghupati Rahghav Rajaram." Seeing
Swami standing on his head with his legs in the lotus pose, reporters
asked him why. He replied, "Well, the world is upside down. By
standing on our heads, we hope to put it right."
Few knew the real person behind the very public persona. Says Neela
Devi, " I think in private he was a saint. In public he wanted everyone
to see him as a flawed human being so that people could relate to him.
It was the little things, the day-to-day kindnesses, feeding people,
supporting them-those were the things people didn't see."
Throughout his life, Swami worked unceasingly for the spread of Hindu
dharma, organizing yoga conferences, giving lectures and writing books
including Meditation and Mantras, Karma and Disease, Sivananda Upanishad
and a commentary on Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Always alert to the cause of
Hinduism, he confronted the Vatican in 1990 on its condemnation of
meditation and the spiritual techniques of Eastern philosophies. In
1991 he organized a worldwide Om Namo Narayana Peace Campaign to chant
and write this peace mantra. In 1993 he did the inauguration of Ayyappa
and Subramaniya World Peace Temple at the Sivananda Ashram headquarters
in Val-Morin, Quebec.
Today thousands of people of all faiths and races have discovered inner
peace through yoga, thanks to Swami. As Neela Devi points out, "You can
go to any small town in New Mexico or Colorado, or in South America and
someone is teaching yoga. If you ask them who taught them, it always
backs up to Swami Vishnu. He started the Sivananda Ashrams worldwide,
so if there's any teachers teaching anywhere, even if he wasn't their
teacher, he taught their teacher. He's the granddaddy of all the
teachers." And that perhaps is his lasting legacy.
Copyright 1993, Himalayan Academy, All Rights Reserved. The information
contained in this news report may not be published for commercial
purposes without the prior written authority of Himalayan Academy.
(The publisher's request is that the material not be used in magazines
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Redistribution electronically (for free), photocoping to give to
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