Bhubaneswar/New Delhi: Humility in abundance, walking bare feet in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, 125-year-old Swami Sivananda received a standing ovation and PM Modi’s bow when he received the Padma Shri award from President Ram Nath Kovind. Swami Sivananda has dedicated his life to the welfare of human society. His simplest ways of disciplined and well-regulated life with early morning Yoga, oil-free boiled diet and selfless service to mankind in his own way have given him disease-free and tension-free longest life. He demonstrates his life as an exemplary lesson rather than preaching.
Born on 8 August 1896 in Sylhet district (now in Bangladesh) of undivided India, Swami Sivananda lost his mother and father at the age of six. Due to abject poverty, his beggar parents could feed him mainly boiled rice water during his childhood days. His Guru Omkarananda Goswami brought him up, imparted all practical and spiritual education including Yoga without school education. He has been a positive thinker throughout his life. ‘The world is my home, its people are my fathers and mothers, to love and serve them is my religion’- this has been his belief.
For the last 50 years, Swami Sivananda has been serving 400-600 leprosy-affected beggars with dignity at Puri. Swami Sivananda’s healthy and long life has drawn attention from across the globe, including his commitment to motivating countrymen for COVID vaccination after immunising himself at the age of 125 years. In presence of the doctors and management teams in a conference hall, to the query on the secret of his longest life, along with sharing his desireless, simple life, he demonstrates different Yoga and exercise as means of his healthy and long life