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        Saint, sage, seer, venerable and profound Sadguru Sri Kandukuri Sivananda Murty is a revered and sacred name that reverberates through out the length and breadth of India as an omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient spiritual personality influencing the lives of thousands of his disciples. He was born into a royal family of Urlam and Devadi Villages in Vizianagaram District of Andhra Pradesh in the year 1928. From his child hood days, he was deeply drawn towards spiritual subjects and especially towards Yoga sastra. He took a Voluntary retirement from the Police Department of Andhra Pradesh and began devoting his time towards the upliftment of the poor and educating the people about Hindu Dharma and its eternal verities.

As a great patriot, his love for our great country and its ancient culture rooted in Sanathana Dharma is indeed phenomenal and unique. He has travelled extensively all over India including the troubled border areas and performed over 450 Rudrayagams for the protection of Hindu Dharma in all corners of the Country.         As a spiritually powerful public communicator, he constantly exhorts in all his public lectures that all citizens, including Sanyasis, who are dependent on Society are duty bound to think and act as custodians and trustees of public welfare. He is a walking encyclopedia on Hindu Dharma, History, Indian Fine arts like, Music, Dance, Drama and literature.         His essays on contemporary subjects like cultural, political and spiritual history were serialized in a Telugu daily, and was later published in two volumes under the name of ''Bharatiyata.'' His commentary on Kathopanishad received profound acclaims from the Paramacharya of Kanchi and Sringeri Shankaracharya.         As a spiritual leader Sadguru Sri Kandukuri Sivananda Murty, is in the immemorial tradition of great Rishis, Saints and Sages of India going back to the dawn of history. His AMRITOTSAVAM was celebrated on a grand scale with joy and fervour by thousands of his disciples in India and abroad in December 2003. All his disciples from various walks of life viewed his AMRITOTSAVAM as a supremely auspicious occasion for thanks giving to the great Mahadeva for conferring affection and offering benediction to one and all who come to him to seek his solace and blessings. To quote the words of one of his disciples Prof A.Prasanna Kumar: ''Sri Sivananda Murty Guru is more than a Guru. He is energy and grace personified. His disciples feel secure in his presence. He does not seek anything from anyone, for that matter does not need anything for himself. He offers advice and guidance for those who seek it with a smile that disarms and a kindness that overpowers. The relationship between the Guru and Sishya is not easy to describe. Faith cannot be explained. It has to be experienced.''

        I have read several essays and articles written by his beloved disciples in India and abroad about the elevating, ennobling and abiding grace of their great Guru. When I look at those Garlands of Humble Tributes to their Guru, I am only reminded of the words of Swamy Vivekananda painting the relationship between the Guru and his disciple in words of beauty and wisdom: ''The Guru must be worshiped as God. He is God, nothing less than that. The Guru is the bright mask which God wears in order to come to us. As we look steadily on, gradually the mask falls off and God is revealed. He is the embodiment of the BLISS DIVINE, the personification of the highest knowledge and the giver of the greatest beatitude, who is pure, perfect, one without a second, eternal beyond pleasure and pain, beyond all thought and all qualifications, transcendental. Such is in reality the Guru. No wonder the disciple looks upon him as God himself and trusts him, reveres him, obeys him, follows him unquestioningly. This is the relation between the Guru and the disciple''. Such a relationship exists between Sadguru Sivananda Murty. The reverence, affection and veneration shown and expressed by them towards their Guru in eternally beautiful words of spiritual power all proclaim to the world 'OM NAMO BHAGAVATE SRI SIVANANDAYA'.

        To quote the sublime words of David Frawley about Sadguru Sivananda Murty: ''We cannot entirely rely upon our own ability to contact God within. Yet many of the external means of approaching God that are available to us are also not reliable. The solution is that we must find a true Guru or Spiritual Master to aid us in our internal quest. A true Guru is an enlightened soul who is in communion with Isvara, the supreme Guru, and can bring the divine word into human expression….Sadguru Sivananda Murty is such a true Guru. He has represented the role of a true Guru in an age in which the Guru business has often all but obscured it, keeping that ancient role alive and vital for the future of humanity. May the light of his teaching spread to all corners of the planet.''

        I have just finished reading 'Thoughts of a Seer-on Contemporary Issues', two lectures delivered by Sadguru Sivananda Murty. Swamiji makes it clear that we are intellectually poor, inwardly torn, profoundly uneasy and ignorant of the future. There are fearsome forebodings of evil. The bonds that unite us are rudely sundered by dirty politics today. We have a small powerful minority of corrupt and unscrupulous leaders who depend for their existence on Indian disunity or at any rate profit by it and therefore feel no sort of longing for India's unity, greatness or its future destiny. He makes it clear that India, impoverished and harassed, the pray of communal schism and division, must be raised to a happy and prosperous condition with internal unity, social cohesion and illumination of spirit where the wayward youth of India will have unlimited opportunities in an atmosphere of peace and tranquility. Our chief weapons should be common sense, sanity, balance, restraint and coolness. There is no easy substitute for hard work, self control and effective propaganda for proper public education.

        Since the Islam-embracing, Christianity-coveting and Hindu-hating UPA Government is held bend on torpedoing and destroying for ever the Rama Setu Bridge in Rameshwaram which has withstood the onslaught of centuries, I requested Sadguru Sivananda Murty to give a message to the nation. He has given this inspiring message: “Rama Sethu controversy should not have a place in a true democracy. The sentiments of millions should be honoured without researching into the nature of that structure; whether it is man made or otherwise etc. Even if it is a natural formation, it is enough that the great king Rama walked across those rocks to destroy one outside enemy with sufficient provocation. Ramayana is history and Rama is still a much-adored hero who had destroyed the agents of an outside enemy Ravana harming the people inside southern peninsula. The underwater formation of a ridge could have been crossed by makeshift floating bridges by the followers of Sri Rama. Call it monkey made if not man made, nevertheless the stone ridge can be treated to have a historic significance. If it is monkey made as it is believed, it is much more precious. A small bridge in Europe gains great historic importance because perhaps Napoleon had crossed that bridge. Such is the sentiment in any nation about any historic structure. The Government should honour such sentiments in a true democracy.”

        After reading Sadguru Sivananda Murty's KATHA-YOGA and his other spiritual writings and messages to his innumerable disciples we get the following spiritual messages from Him.

        When the conflicting currents of the unconscious create engulfing whirlpools, the waters can again be guided into a single current if the dam sluice be opened into the channel of prayer-and if that channel has been dug deep enough.

        How can you expect to keep your powers of hearing when you never want to listen? That God should have time for you; you seem to take so much for granted as that you cannot have time for him.

        Calm is the soul that is emptied of all self,

        In a restful harmony-

        This happiness is here and now,

        In the eternal movement of co-inherence,

        A happiness within you-but not yours.