Siva is the living illustration of "Brahma-Karma-Samadhi" which Lord Krishna has described in the Bhagavad Gita. His is a life long ceaseless meditation on the Absolute. It is Siva who has fulfilled the mission of the sages of the Upanishads and who has synthesised meditation and life itself into a divine unbroken experience of God-consciousness.

His life demonstrates his teachings. And, he instructs his disciples to practice what he has aptly termed "battle-field Pratyahara". The "aspirant should be able to shut-in the mind on the battlefield of daily life, anywhere at any time. At the same time, Siva insists upon the first attempt at meditation in the  early morning hours - Brahmamuhurta. This is when the Sadhak fixes his mind on God: Dharana. The rest of the day is to be meditation, unbroken God-consciousness in the midst of endless routine of variegated activity.

Siva is synthesis, every inch of him. He cannot see difference among the yogas, religions or systems of philosophic thought. To prove this, this Bee-God has gathered the essence from all Yogas and from all religions, and in his own honeycomb, the Sivananda Literature, given us the honey of Divine Life, the Yoga of Synthesis.

He wants us to be Bhaktas and Yogins, Dhyanins and Jnanins, dynamic selfless workers and detached Vedantins, all at the same time. He leads the way. The continuous meditation during the day that Siva practises and preaches is, thus, made to run through all the grooves of the Yoga of Synthesis. God in the man makes us all his servants, God in the shrines makes us all His devotees, God within us beckons to us to close our eyes and remain self-forgetfully absorbed in Him, God in All reveals the Cosmic Consciousness that pervades all creation and transcends it. This is the method of meditation that Lord Sivananda exemplifies in himself for our emulation.

DLS Australia's note to reader: The above article is part of a larger multipart article "All About Sivananda" by Swami Venkateshananda reproduced from the Yoga-Vedanta Forest University Weekly Vol. VIII Pg 390  from sometime between the late 1950s to early 1960s. This is from a collection of periodicals in the possession of Sri and Smt Aravindji formerly from Johor, Malaysia and based currently residing in Parramatta, Australia. Sri Aravindji kindly loaned the periodical for reproduction in this manner.