यतो धर्म: ततो जय:
Nivedita as admirer of Indian womanhood - 2
When Nivedita was on her tour in the West, she went to the Church to pray for Mrs Sara Bull who was ill. That time what she experienced can be seen in her own words, Beloved Mother:
This morning, early, I went to church – to pray for Sara. All the people there were thinking of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and suddenly I thought of you. Your dear face, and your loving look, and your white Sari and your bracelets. It was all there. And it seemed to me that yours was the presence that was to soothe and bless poor S. Sara's sickroom. And – do you know? – I thought I had been very foolish to sit in your room, at the evening service to Sri Ramakrishna, trying to meditate. Why did I not understand that it was quite enough to be a little child at your dear feet? Dear Mother! You are full of love! And it is not a flushed and violent love, like ours, and like the world's but a gentle peace that brings good to everyone and wishes ill to none. It is a golden radiance, full of play. What a blessed Sunday that was, a few months ago, when I ran in to you, the last thing before I went on the Ganges, and ran back to you for a moment, as soon as I came back! I felt such a wonderful freedom in the blessing you gave me, and in your welcome home! Dearest Mother – I wish we could send you a wonderful hymn, or a prayer. But somehow even that would seem too loud, too full of noise! Surely you are the most wonderful thing of God – Sri Ramakrishna's own chalice of His Love for the world – a token left with His children, in these lonely days, and we should be very still and quiet before you – except indeed for a little fun! Surely the wonderful things of God are all quiet – stealing unnoticed into our lives – the air and the sunlight and the sweetness of gardens and of the Ganges, these are the silent things that are like you!
Do send to poor S. Sara the mantle of your peace. Isn't your thought, now and then, of the high calm that neither loves nor hates? Isn't that a sweet benediction that trembles in God, like the dew-drop on the lotus-leaf, and touches not the world?
Ever, my darling Mother, your foolish Khooki (Child)
Nivedita.
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