The Master (Sri Swami Sivananda) was a person of unrestrained spontaneous generosity. Just as he gave himself to others, he gave a myriad of things as well. Flowers, money, eatables, clothes, books—whatever offerings the devotees brought to him—found their way to others. The Master acted as a centre for collection and redistribution. He knew who needed what—and always offered the right gift to the right person.

The Master often bought fruits, peanuts and ice creams from roadside vendors. The pilgrim who lost his purse, the penniless Sadhu needing a blanket, the poor student wanting money for his school fee—all of them found a ready helper in the Master.

The Master gave without embarrassing the recipient. Maybe a distressed man came to him with a plea, “Swamiji I am in need of a blanket. The cold wind is freezing me.”

The master would say, “Kindly sing a Kirtan. You have a very good voice.”
The man would sing or chant “Ram, Ram, Ram” or “Radhe Shyam” for a few minutes. The Master would then quietly give a ten-rupee note to him, saying, “Kirtan was very nice.” The money took on the colour, not of a lofty gift, but of a present, a token of the Master’s appreciation of the Kirtan. What mattered more than the money was the heart. The Master had a large heart.

A small instance. In the thirties, when the Master had just settled at Anand Kutir and was living on rations—mostly rotis and a little rice—from the Rishikesh Kalikamaliwala Kshetra (a centre where alms were distributed), a forest ranger from South India came to stay with him. The ranger was not accustomed to wheat diet, and so the Master and his disciples gave all their rice to him. After eating all that the guest still felt hungry. Then the Master went to the jungle and came back with some bael fruits. The ranger could not eat the fruit. He said the fruit was tasteless. Undaunted, the master brought sugar from the kitchen and asked him to try the fruit with the sugar.

If a generous disposition was one of the hall-marks of the Master’s personality, self-reliance was another. He believed in a life of hardship and endurance. He would never entrust to others a work which he himself could do. When on tour people would garland him as soon he stepped down from the train. Immediately without waiting for a coolie and without giving a chance to his devotees, the Master would carry his bedding or trunk on his own head and come out of the station.