During the Sankirtan tour in North India, at the end of the day’s programme, the Master (Sri Swami Sivananda) invariably announced from the platform that all those seeking medical attention were welcome to avail themselves of his free services.

It was a habit with him to carry three bags whenever he went. One would contain spiritual literature, another fruits and sweets and the third medicine and utility articles like candle, matchbox, scissors, thread, needle, etc. All these were readily made available by the Master to the needy.

The Master delighted in doing personal service. If anybody came to him in the hot sun, he often fanned him and gave him some refreshing drink. Sometimes he hastened to hold the umbrella over the head of a sick or an aged person. At other times he hurried to untie the bootlaces of stout or aged people, when they found it difficult to bend down. To him no service was menial: all was sacred.

When the Dowager Maharani of Mysore came to meet him in the year 1949, she preferred to sit on the bare ground and refused to sit on the chair brought for her. As soon as the Master knew it, he stooped down and removed the stones and pebbles on the floor making room for her to sit. When the Maharani protested this action of his, he said, “No, no, please do not stand on formalities. I am your own son!”

“What is my duty?” was the question the master asked himself constantly and not “What will others think?”

Once he carried a European Sadhu, Leik by name, on his head in a rope-cot and admitted him in the Punjab Sindh Kshetra Hospital in Rishikesh. On a different occasion a lady Sadhu fell down unconscious. The master carried her on his back to the hospital.

On another occasion the Master went to Ganga Sagar (a place of pilgrimage). There the water was rough and the ferry-boat heaved alarmingly. While all the pilgrims got onto the steamer from the ferry, an old woman, a member of the Master’s party, was frightened beyond her wits. She was at the same time too full of the instinctive feminine modesty to accept the Master’s aid. He immediately saw her plight and did not waste time to argue. In a trice the protesting woman found herself gently and reverentially lifted up and safely deposited on board the steamer.

How great an importance the Master attached to the service of man is revealed by a small incident. On the evening of November 25,1949 one R.Anantakrishna Sastri arranged to perform ceremonial worship of the river Ganga on its bank. The master watched the worship intently and then commented. “One year of daily ceremonial worship of the Ganga like this is equal to one week of whole-hearted service of a patient – washing his clothes and cleaning his bed-pan. Such service will at once purify the heart and bring about inner illumination.”