Sivanesan Swamiji

By: Dr.G.R.Vijayakumar

SRI Sivanesan Swamiji introduced Nama Japa by chanting “Om Sai Sri Sai Jaya Jaya Sai” by groups. He advised the devotees about ‘Pradakshina’ around the Gurusthan, Nanda Deep and Dutta Mandir for their good. During the four and a half decades, that Swamiji spent in Shirdi, he became the best apostle of Sai Baba.Sree Sivanesan Swamiji was born as the third and last child of Smt. Alamelu and Shri. Muthaiah on 12th April 1927 on the holy day of Ramnavami in Peria Nayakkan Palayam in Coimbatore District in Tamilnadu. He was born with the blessings of Lord Ram. At the time of his birth, the child had already two front teeth and a ‘jata’ (a small tuft of hair at the back of the head) and the astrologers foretold that he would not lead the life of a householder but would become an ascetic or sanyasi. From his early  childhood, he started withdrawing  from  the worldly matters and used to be alone, calm and meditative and sometimes used to forget about his food. He was fond of loneliness. He had very fond memories of his maternal grandmother at whose home he spent lot of time happily and was also liking his paternal uncle who had a good collection of books which he greatly loved. He had formal education only up to the eighth standard but did not like further studies, even though he belonged to a family of good standing with comfortable means. He had a wonderful memory. He was originally an atheist and later became a devotee of Baba.

Later on, he worked as a Record Room Assistant in the High Court in Madras on a temporary basis for a short time. He also worked as a helper in the Electricity Department on daily wages in Coimbatore for some time at a very young age and actually he was not eligible to work based on his age and used to hide himself in the nearby fields when the Inspecting officials were visiting the Department. He also worked as a sales assistant in a bookshop which he liked very much because he loved reading books. But as he showed more interest in reading the books than in selling them, he was removed from the job.

After the death of his mother, he left his home and did not return to his native place. He had developed lot of interest towards spiritual learning. He reached Bombay in his wanderings during 1944 at 17 years of age. He did many sundry jobs for his livelihood. He also worked as a railway porter at a railway station. He was fond of meditating and was also meditating in the seashore area. 

Later he met Muthaiah Swamiji, who also hailed from Coimbatore District. Though Muthaiah Swamiji was a householder, he considered Swamiji as his GURU and achieved some spiritual progress from his guidance and learnt about meditation and vedanta. For some time, he stayed in Bombay and then moved to the ‘math’ of Sree Nityanand Swamiji at Vajreshwari where he had achieved much spiritual progress. Then he moved to Tryambakeshwar, in Nasik District and was with Mauni Baba in that place. He then finally left for Shirdi in 1953.

Finally, he made Shirdi his home. But in Shirdi, there was no place for him to stay and sleep and no scope for him to get food. He was sleeping here and there, living on a cup of tea and sometimes was eating some flowers and many times starved himself. With Baba’s Grace, he got some shelter and was getting some food daily. When he arrived at Shirdi, he brought with him some books which he considered as his treasure as he liked the books and was interested in reading them. He was spending his time in Shirdi by doing seve(services) at all the temples in Shirdi, including Dwarakamai, Chavadi and Lendi Bagh. All other time he spent in deep meditation. 

On being pleased with his dedicated services, the Shirdi Sai Sansthan allowed him to sleep in a room adjoining the Dwarakamai. As he knew several languages, he was entrusted with the work of writing names and addresses on the envelopes used for sending Udi as ‘prasad’ to the devotees who sent money orders to Shirdi. In return for these services, the Sansthan started paying him Rs.15/- per month as honorarium. The honorarium money was utilized by him for the needs of the devotees and others. He was concentrating more on decorating the Chavadi especially for the ‘Palki’ procession on Thursdays.

He was keen in helping the devotees in the spiritual path He encouraged devotees to set up Sai Baba temples in their own towns and villages in India and abroad with Dhuni with perpetual light and fire. He began to have a vast following because of his innate urge to serve people. The practice of performing Akanda Nama Japa by chanting “Om Sai Sri Sai Jaya Jaya Sai”, by groups of devotees was started by him. Thus, he was also instrumental for spreading the messages of Baba to all the places.

His life was simple. His clothes consisted of cotton towel wrapped round his waist, a Maharashtrian vestment with a pocket and half sleeves, and a small towel wrapped round his head to cover his long hair as a turban as shown in his picture above. All items of dress, dhotis, shawls and sweaters presented to him were not at all used by him but distributed to the poor and needy. Even three days before his Mahasamadhi, he arranged distribution of the blankets and bed sheets, received during his short period of illness. He always slept on the floor, spreading a blanket and thick bedspread on the floor; his seat was a gunnysack, with a paper stuffed pillowcase as a bolster. He did not care for the scorching sun and the rain and distributed the umbrellas he received. He did not wear any footwear during his entire stay in Shirdi and always moved with bare feet.  

He sang several bhajans which he knew by heart in sweet voice, some of which he himself had composed and the devotees got some of these bhajans printed in booklets. He believed and advised the devotees in Dhuni Puja and participation in Satyanarayana Puja for their good. He strongly advocated ‘Anna-dana’ as the best charity.

He breathed his last at 00.10 hrs on Monday, 12th February 1996, at Shirdi and merged with Sai Baba; Many believe that the swinging of the lantern in the Dwarakamai indicated this merger. Sivanesan Swamiji’s samadhi was built in Shirdi, off Pimpalwadi Road, two and a half kilometers away by Smt. Zarine and her associates.

Swamiji often sang: “Haridwar, Mathura, Kashi Shirdi mein teerath saare hain, Sai Baba ke charano mein Charo dhama hamare hain.” conveying the meaning that Shirdi is a pilgrimage place in which Haridwar, Mathura and Kashi are all embraced and encompassed. All the four great places of worship are found at Sai Baba’s Holy Feet.