Monday 14 May 2018

Sister Nivedita: The Dedicated - Who gave her all to India – 53

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:


The offerings

Her deep love for India was expressed in all walks of life –politics, education, art, literature, sociology, spirituality etc. A spiritual person is all dimensional. That is how Sister Nivedita was. She was a revolutionary, she was a Yogini too. She was an educationist and she was an art critic too. She was a writer and she was involved in rendering service to the people also, be at flood time or plague time. She was at once a child at the feet of Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi and also a Lokmata to all as she was called by Ravindranath Tagore and above all she was Sister of all.

Sister Nivedita was the fruit of penance that Swami Vivekananda did in the west. When Swami Vivekananda went to the west, he was without friends, without money and without recognition. Only the knowledge and experience of Hindu Dharma was with him. After his exposition of Hindu Dharma in the Parliament of Religions, he was revered in the West for his knowledge and help came from all quarters, the disciples gathered from all directions. Thus when he returned to India, he was a world-famous Swami Vivekananda; the western disciples were with him. This had a great visual impact on people of India. They could feel the greatness and relevance of Hindu Dharma. Epitome of this efficacy and relevance of Hindu Dharma and of the work of Swami Vivekananda was Sister Nivedita.

The self-confidence of Indians was at the lowest ebb at the end of 19th century as the result of Macaulay Education. As told by Rabindranath Tagore, we needed a friend from outside who could tell us what was good in us. And Margaret Noble as Nivedita was called before was from the very race which had robbed India of her wealth as well as of her confidence. But Nivedita came to India to live like us, to serve us and also to practice all that was higher and noble in our spiritual tradition. She could see beauty and wisdom in all walks of Indian life.

Swami Vivekananda had said, "O you of great fortune! I too believe that India will awake again if anyone could love with all his heart the people of the country -- bereft of the grace of affluence, of blasted fortune, their discretion totally lost, downtrodden, ever - starved, quarrelsome, and envious." Sister Nivedita was a person of that great fortune! She loved India and Indians with all their faults. May her life make us love our motherland and our people. May her life give us an insight in our own country and inspiration to work for Mother India. 







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