Swami Sivananda was an eminent sage hailing from Tamil Nadu who had settled down in Rishikesh which was at that time in Uttar Pradesh and currently in Uttaranchal (region of UP carved out to create the new state Uttaranchal). Sivananda was a trained medical doctor who had done a lot of philanthropical work before he decided to pursue the spiritual path. He established the Divine Life Society in Rishikesh which is the largest ashram in this spiritual town.

I have myself been to the Divine Life Society ashram (and i have written about this visit--Vakavaka was around when i wrote this), and i read in the library of the ashram Sivananda's views on various religions and various prophets and mystics. I was amazed that a hindu sage had taken the trouble to learn about so many different faiths from around the world--including some esoteric ones like shintoism.

Anyways, bottomline is that Sivananda also wrote about Islam and Prophet Mohammad and he praised both of them. According to Sivananda, it is a mistake to think that Islam encourages conversions because the prophet has said in the Koran that 'let there be no compulsion in religion'. Furthermore, according to Sivananda, the word jehad has been misunderstood. Actually it means exerting oneself and uplifting oneself spiritually; so the war that is being fought is with oneself. The followers of the prophet misinterpreted this word according to Sivananda. He also points out that several good aspects of Islam. Sivananda's disciple Chidananda also wrote an article on the 'spiritual significance of Ramzaan' in which he correlated the fact that even in Hinduism fasting is considered to have spiritual benefit.

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Now, Sivananda's writings have been uploaded on the website of the Divine Life Society: http://www.dlshq.org/

But Sivananda's views on Islam and Prophet Mohammad have been removed. They were in fact present on the website earlier, but now they are gone. If you click on the link to his essay on Mohammad you get a 404 Page not found error, and if you click on the link to Islam you are taken to the wikipedia page on Islam.

My suggestion is that the Divine Life Society has been taken over by the Chaddis who have shamelessly tried to suppress the writings of Swami Sivananda. If this trend continues, Hinduism itself will be in danger since the Hinduism of the Chaddis is a perversion, a distortion of genuine hinduism.

Vakavaka, Smartha et al please share your thoughts on the above. Would u agree that the actions of the Divine Life Society , in suppressing the views of Sivananda on certain issues , positively anti-Hindu?