Sister Nivedita: The Dedicated - Who gave her all to India - 4

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

Margaret meets her Master

On the cold afternoon in November 1895, Margaret entered Lady Margesson's house more to honour her invitation and with hardly any hope that the speaker, the Hindu Monk who was from a conquered country could have anything new to say. This speaker was none other than Swami Vivekananda who had shot to fame two years before in Chicago in America for his speeches on Hindu Dharma in the Parliament of Religions. 

Though Margaret was impressed with the personality and oration of Swami Vivekananda, her pride in being British citizen did not allow her to accept the uniqueness of Swamiji's thoughts who was viewed by her as a person from a conquered nation. When asked by her friend her impression about the lecture, she commented, 'Nice but nothing new'. However, later, as she pondered over all that the speaker had said she felt that her remarks were not only unkind but unjust. She felt that, 'If I am in search of a truth, I must be ready to accept it from wherever it may come'. Thus, gradually she realized her bias and started attending all Swamiji's formal as well as informal sessions by changing her schedule completely so as not to miss his single session. In all the sessions she would be ready with her questions or with her 'ifs' and 'buts'. Swami Vivekananda too noticed the spark in her. Margaret found her skepticism melting away. Ultimately, she realized that the Vedantic Truth of Oneness alone has the capacity to guide a person spiritually and help the humanity for peaceful co-existence in spite of diversities.

Lizelle Raymond, her biographer writes, "She had at last discovered a religion whose foundations, classification of elements, and forms of worship could be discussed scientifically; a religion which constantly maintained contact between spiritual and practical life through the medium of experience. Such a religion relied exclusively on what was noblest and best in mankind-that quality of spiritually progressive freedom as opposed to sin-entangled slavery. As Margaret analyzed these reasons, with considerable lucidity, she declared herself the Swami's disciple by addressing him as "Master." This word, on her lips, proclaimed the submission of her intelligence. She had understood that Swami Vivekananda lived for the Truth, and that he would serve It wherever It was to be found".

One day in his class Swami Vivekananda said, "What the world wants today is twenty men and women who can dare to stand in street yonder and say that they possess nothing but God. Who will go? Why should we fear? If this is true, what else could matter? If it is not true, what do our lives matter?" "Really can I be the one of those who can say this?" Margaret mused to herself. Another day in the class Swami Vivekananda said, 'The Earth's bravest and the best will have to sacrifice for the good of the many'. Margaret felt the call in his words but still may be she was waiting for the direct call and that too came. Maragaret started writing letters to Swamiji whenever he was out of London. In one letter she asked him what exactly is his plan of work. Swami Vivekananda wrote, "My ideal can be put into a few words and that is to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life… You have the making in you of a world mover. Bold words and bolder deeds is what we want. Awake, awake great one! The world is burning with misery, can you sleep?.."

To be Continue

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Sister Nivedita: The Dedicated - Who gave her all to India - 3

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

Margaret as a seeker of Truth

The love for poor inculcated in Margaret by her father propelled her to participate in Church-sponsored service work. It was during one such service work she was pulled up by the Father of the Church who told her that she had erred in giving the benefit of the service to those who did not belong to their Church. This was a shock for Margaret. She thought, 'Was not the love of Jesus for all? How can we limit it to only those who belong to our denomination or our church?' More she studied the tenets of Christianity more she found them inconsistent with the truth.

Margaret revered Jesus Christ for his life and his sacrifice but the theological and dogmatic approach of church did not appeal her. Though she questioned the religious theology, she did not give up the spiritual urge. Actually, her spiritual urge became stronger with every doubt that entered in her mind about Christianity. She gave up regularly going to the Church. She started her search of such spiritual vision in which there would be a place for whole humanity, in which no name of God was denounced or in which followers of any path were accepted. Whether there existed such spiritual practice? She did not know.

Margaret started reading religious literature of other faiths. She was greatly influenced by the life of Buddha and his teachings. She felt, 'Here is another person like Jesus who was ready to sacrifice his life even for the sake of the lamb'. She found at least the consistency in thoughts in Buddhism. Yet, many things remained unanswered. The search continued. Whenever she sought to seek comfort in religion, she was repulsed by the wall of intolerance. Few of her friends in elite circles were aware of the spiritual yearnings of Margaret Noble. It was at such times when Margaret was about 28 years old that her friend Lady Margesson invited her for a spiritual talk to her house. Some of her friends at Sesame Club like Mr. Sturdy and Miss Muller told her about extraordinary success of the speaker earlier at USA. She accepted the invitation, totally unaware of what was going to happen in her life.

To be Continue

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Article : A tribute to Sister Nivedita (Part 2)

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

...  In a short stay in India of about 14 years, between 1897 and 1911, Nivedita made lasting contribution to the major fields of national action that defined the early nationalist movement. Be it national education, be it the Swadeshi art and industrial movement, be it sustaining the revolutionary movement or providing succour to the revolutionary nationalists, be it supporting Indian scientific research as she did in the case of Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, ensuring that he continues with his path-breaking research and stands up to British, read colonial hegemony, and prove the point of Indian capacities in science and scientific research, Nivedita's imprint is hard to ignore, especially, if one were to disengage oneself from dialectical lenses while studying this phase of India's evolution.

The complete marginalisation of her contribution by the "mainstream" academia and intelligentsia is understandable though. Direct, forthright, unabashed and unrepentant when it came to India and India's interests, image and welfare, it is extremely difficult to stereotype Nivedita into categories. One who was so intricately and intrinsically identified with India's civilisational aspirations, one who so eagerly embraced the Hindu way of life, one who so minutely detailed the civilisational contributions of Hinduism — both in terms of history and religion, her Cradle Tales of Hinduism, Footfalls of Indian History and especially Kali the Mother was staple read once upon a time all over Bengal and other parts of India, while making a great impact abroad in countering false propaganda against the Indian way of life — could not be stereotyped — it was plain impossible.

Nivedita's descriptions of the various facets of our national life caught the essence, the spirit as it were, of our core civilisational construct, identity and expression. She was wholly accepted and absorbed in India, her stay in the "native" quarter of Calcutta, her project of a girl's school in the area, her efforts to create and evolve a national discourse on all issues and subjects that strengthened India's quest for self-hood was not only welcomed but saw genuine and unstinted supported from the people.

​So at ease and so accepted was she that Nivedita could easily speak at the temple of Kalighat on Kali and describe her centrality in the evolution of Indian religious experience. For her, India never need be apologetic — this same uncompromising nationalism saw her take on missionary calumny against India on foreign shores. One who simply said, when asked what she would do in India that "My life is given to India. In it I shall live and die", or who, in her daily aspiration meant for nationalists wrote thus, "I believe that India is one, indissoluble, indivisible" and that "National unity is built on the common home, the common interest and common love" and that the "strength which spoke in the Vedas and Upanishads, in the making of religion and empires, in the learning of scholars, and the meditation of the saints, is born once more amongst, and its name today is nationality" and one who believed that "the present of India is deep-rooted in her past, and that before her shines a glorious future", can hardly be compartmentalised while also being unmanageable for a large section of our self-anointed intellectual-guardians and conscience-keepers who have always worked to negate the India of the past altogether.

Above all, perhaps had it not been for Nivedita, we would not have discovered that Vivekananda which even the most conscientious biographer fails to capture. Who else but Nivedita, herself profoundly and unalterably identified with Bharat, could have written about the master thus, "There was one thing however, deep in the master's nature, that he himself never knew how to adjust. This was his love of his country and his resentment at her suffering. Throughout those years in which I saw him almost daily, the thought of India was to him like the air he breathed."

As we inch towards her 150th birth anniversary one would do well to recognise, re-evaluate her life and work and to rekindle a deeper and wider interest in Sister Nivedita. That would, in a sense, be a tribute of gratefulness to her as Lokmata.

{Courtesy : The Pioneer, by Shri Anirban Ganguly}