We have been speaking of special
souls that came to help India,
bring a new birth to her. Sister Nivedita who came from another land is another
example. And of course there is the Mother’s; she came to India to meet Sri
Aurobindo; she stayed in India to do Sri Aurobindo’s work, that is, to serve
the Truth, that is, to hasten the Rule of divine Love upon earth. We have
already seen briefly Annie Besant. Here is Nivedita.
Nivedita was born, again like Annie
Besant, into an Anglo-Irish family, but in Ireland, as Margaret Elizabeth
Noble, on 28 October 1867. One precious gift she had received from her father
was the service to humanity. Her career started as a teacher and she was also
drawn towards the teaching of the Buddha. That turned out to be the secret
arrangement of destiny when soon in 1895 she met Vivekananda in London. Within three years
of this meeting she was in Calcutta,
when Vivekananda gave her the name Nivedita, one dedicated to God; this was on
25 March 1898. She became an adept in the Vedantic ideal of life and dedicated
herself to it fully. The Irish fire that burned in her soul made certain to
Vivekananda that she was bound to serve India as her country. Vivekananda
himself was drawn to the service of the poor and the destitute, and the
disciple began devoting herself to altruistic activities. The concern for the
women of India,
irrespective of their caste, was at her heart and she started a school for
girls in 1898. For her that work became a means for the spiritual growth.
Apart from these activities,
Nivedita also devoted herself to intellectual and artistic pursuits. Among her
friends were Jagadish Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, archeologist Havell,
and the Art critic Ananda Coomaraswamy. Artists like Nandalal Bose and
Abanindranath Tagore derived inspiration from their association with her. But
something else waited for her in the future.
Soon Nivedita found herself
devoting to the cause of the Independence of India. Again the invisible hand of
benevolent destiny drew her in the company of Sri Aurobindo. The passion for
the Independence Movement was so strong in her that finally she had to take the
decision to severe her contacts with the Ramakrishna Mission; because of her
political activities she did not want the Mission
to get implicated in any way. Exactly the same thing had later happened in the
case of Sri Aurobindo; he resigned from the post of the Principal of National
College. They were men of principles. But as is perhaps the cruel way of
destiny, not to give a long life to good souls, Nivedita passed away on 13
October 1911; she was holidaying in Darjeeling
with Jagadish Bose and his family. She wanted to be cremated according to the
Hindu rites.
“Friends, your Church is true, our
temples are true; and true is Brahman, formless and eternal, beyond the two.
Time has come when nations would exchange their spiritual ideals as treasures,”
Vivekananda was lecturing in London
in 1895, “as they are already exchanging the commodities in the market. These
ideals are but various impressions in different modes of manifestation of the
One. 'All these are threaded upon Me, like pearls upon a string,' so says the
Lord in The Gita. Love is the highest virtue, love knows of giving alone, never
expecting anything in return. Love God, but don't barter worldly pleasures and
comforts in exchange for that.” Nivedita was in the audience. That lecture
settled the course of her life.
“Love of India was an intense passion of
Vivekananda's being—it was interwoven with his consuming love of God.” In it
arose his call of Prabhuddha Bharat, “Awake, Arise, India!”
Nivedita, who lived closer to him and knew him more intimately than anybody
else, says that India
was the queen of the world.
Nivedita had the distinct privilege of
coming in contact with three great spiritual figures in India—Vivekananda, Sharada Devi,
and Sri Aurobindo.
Nivedita the Writer
Nivedita was a prolific writer but
we may take just a few examples from her Footfalls
of Indian History. She writes about the rise of Buddhism: “The events of
history follow sequences as rigid as the laws of physics. Buddha was the first
of the faith-organisers, and first in India of nation-builders.But Buddha could not rise and do his work
until the atmosphere about him had reached a certain saturation-point in
respect of those ideas which the Upanishads preach. The founders of religions
never create the ideas they enforce. With deep insight they measure their
relative values, they enumerate and regiment them; and by the supreme appeal of
their own personality they give them a force and vitality unsuspected. But the
ideas themselves were already latent in the minds of their audience. Had it not
be so, the preacher would have gone uncomprehended. Through how many centuries
had this process of democratizing the culture of the Upanishads gone on? Only
by flashes and side-gleams, as it were, can we gather the faintest idea.”
Therefore it should not come as a wonder that in those far off ancient days,
such as of Chandra Gupta, the king found no difficulty in ruling over vast
regions extending from east to the west of the country. The unity founded on
ideas given by the spiritually great souls had a universality which made things
easy from the point of view of governmental organization.
“Buddhism in India,” writes
Nivedita, “never consisted of a church but only a religious order. Doctrinally
it meant the scattering of that wisdom which had hitherto been peculiar to
Brahman and Kshatriya amongst the democracy. Nationally it meant the first
social unification of the Indian people. Historically it brought about the
birth of Hinduism. In all these respects Buddhism created a heritage which is
living to the present day. Amongst the forces which have gone to the making of India,
none has been so potent as that great wave of redeeming love for the common
people which broke and spread on the shores of Humanity in the personality of
Buddha. By preaching the common spiritual right of all men whatever their
birth, he created a nationality in India which leapt into spontaneous
and overwhelming expression so soon as his message touched the heart of Asoka,
the People’s King.” What Chandra Gupta achieved was only a political
nationality, but here grew a solidarity that derives its strength from the
common people of the land. Without Asoka, opines Nivedita, “this blossoming
time of true nationality, when all races and classes of Indian folk were drawn
together by one loving and beloved sovereign, would not have been possible.”
Here we hear more the voice of Nivedita who
was first introduced to Buddhism than the voice of the Vedantic follower.
Tracing further the development of history, she concludes: “Hinduism is born,
not as a system, but as a process of thought, capable of registering in its
progressive development the character of each age through which it passes.”
There are other observations also which need reconsideration.
Here is Nivedita’s Savitri. She wins
victory over Death by “sheer force of spiritual ideal. Born of prayer itself,
prepared for the supreme encounter by vigil and fast, Savitri is no Vedic
princess, but a tender, modern, Hindu woman. She belongs almost unconsciously
to the coming era of subjective soul-staying faiths. The boisterous days of
storm and fire and forest worships are now far behind.” True Savitri has now
been recovered for us by Sri Aurobindo.
Nivedita’s association with Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo refers to Nivedita on
several occasions. When under the divine command or ādéśa Sri Aurobindo left Calcutta,
first for Chandernagore and then Pondicherry,
he requested Nivedita confidentially to continue the work of Karmayogin in his absence. There were
mistaken notions that it was at Nivedita’s suggestion that Sri Aurobindo, to
escape arrest, took shelter in Chanderngore and that she had seen him off at
the ghat taking the boat; but it is true that she did advice Sri Aurobindo to
leave British India. Her advice was based on the information she used to get
about the government moves. Under these circumstances, Sri Aurobindo wrote a
signed article, his last will and testament, and published it in the Karmayogin July 1909. Nivedita had told
him that it had served the purpose. About these events Sri Aurobindo
reminisces:
Here are the facts of that
departure. I was in the Karmayogin Office when I received the word, on
information given by a high-placed police official, that the Office would be
searched the next day and myself arrested. (The Office was in fact searched but
no warrant was produced against me; I heard nothing more of it till the case
was started against the paper later on, but by then I had already left
Chandernagore for Pondicherry.)
While I was listening to animated comments from those around on the approaching
event, I suddenly received a command from above, in a Voice well known to me,
in three words: "Go to Chandernagore." In ten minutes or so I was in
the boat for Chandernagore. Ramachandra Majumdar guided me to the Ghat and
hailed a boat and I entered into it at once along with my relative Biren Ghose
and Moni (Suresh Chandra Chakravarti) who accompanied me to Chandernagore, not
turning aside to Bagbazar or anywhere else. We reached our destination while it
was still dark: they returned in the morning to Calcutta. I remained in secret entirely
engaged in Sadhana and my active connection with the two newspapers ceased from
that time. Afterwards, under the same "sailing orders" I left
Chandernagore and reached Pondicherry
on April 4, 1910.
Nivedita visited Baroda in 1904 when Sri Aurobindo was there.
He and Khasirao had gone to the station to receive her. They generally spoke
not on spiritual but political and social subjects. His relations with Nivedita
were purely in politics, but the occult factors surely make them deeper than we
can imagine. Her visit to Baroda
was at the instance o the Maharaja of Baroda; there she gave some lectures. She
was however aware of Sri Aurobindo’s ideas of revolution, he a child of Kali
the Mother. The bond forged in Baroda became
stronger when Sri Aurobindo went to Calcutta.
There he occasionally began to make time to go and see her at Bagbazar. During
one such visit she informed Sri Aurobindo about the government move to deport
him. But without waiting for that to happen he himself went to Chandernagore
under the divine command. At Chandernagore the revolutionary Motilal Roy
received him and made arrangements for his stay in a small store room of his
house, a room no bigger than 12’X6’. That room is now maintained as a sacred
place where one feels the spiritual calm filling it even now. The warrant to
arrest Sri Aurobindo was suspended.
Nivedita saw in Sri Aurobindo the
fire of the future burning in its great yogic calm. She had no hesitation, no
reservation to support his political activities. In her biography of Nivedita, The Dedicated, Lizelle Reymond says that
for her Mother India had become an işta
devatā, the great and desirable beneficent goddess for worship and for
serving her. She considered what Sri Aurobindo was doing
was to impart an
esoteric significance to the nationalist movement, and make it a confession of
faith. In appearance a passive type, a quiet—even silent—figure, he was a man
of iron will whose work, personality, possessions, earnings, belonged to God
and to that India which he considered not as a geographical entity but as the
Mother of every Hindu; and he seized hold on the people and created between
them and the nation a profoundly mystic bond. ... The nationalism he taught was
thus a religion in itself, and it was so that he had become the teacher of the
nation. He wanted every participant in the movement to feel himself an
instrument in the hand of God, renouncing his own will and even his body and
accepting this law as an act of obedience and inner submission. ... This
injunction to act, endure, and suffer without question—to let oneself be guided
by the assurance that God gives strength to him who struggles—required
sacrifices which became in turn a reservoir of power from which new fighters
drew inspiration to go forward. The individual and the community were no longer
separated. ... Aurobindo Ghosh with his clear insight into the swadharma (law of action) of his own
people was suffusing it with a spiritual strength and making it live.
Aurobindo Ghosh was now out of
prison, and Nivedita had her school decorated... to celebrate his release. She
found him completely transformed. His piercing eyes seemed to devour the
tight-drawn skin-and-bones of his face. He possessed an irresistible power,
derived from a spiritual revelation that had come to him in prison. ...
With a mere handful of supporters—Nivedita
among them—he launched an appeal and tried to rekindle the patriotic spark in
the weakening society. His mission was now that of a Yogin sociologist. ...
He was already known as the 'seer'
Sri Aurobindo, although still involved in political life, and as yet not
manifested to his future disciples on the spiritual path. For Nivedita he was
the expression of life itself, the life of a new seed grown on the ancient soil
of India,
the logical and passionate development of all her Guru's teaching.
Aurobindo's open and logical method
of presenting his own spiritual experience, and revealing the divine message he
had received in his solitary meditation, created the necessary unity between
his past life of action and his future spiritual discipline. He said:
"When I first approached God, I hardly had a living faith in Him. ... Then
in the seclusion of the jail I prayed, 'I do not know what work to do or how to
do it. Give me a message.' Then words came: 'I have given you a work, and it is
to help to uplift this nation. ... I am raising up this nation to send forth My
word.... It is Shakti that has gone forth and entered into the people. Long
since, I have been preparing this uprising and now the time has come, and it is
I who will lead it to its fulfilment!'
Nivedita thought she could still
hear the voice of Swami Vivekananda stirring up the masses: 'Arise, sons of India!
Awake!' That had been the first phase of the struggle. Now this life-giving cry
was repeated differently, because the effort required in the changing
circumstances was no longer identical; but the source of it was still the same!
Now the new order was that every individual should become a sadhaka of the nation—a
seeker—so that 'the One could find Himself and manifest Himself in every human
being, in all humanity.' Aurobindo Ghosh was throwing out the first ideas of
the integral yoga he was to teach, depicting man in his cosmic reality. At the
same time in the Transvaal there was another
young leader, named Gandhi, practising with thousands of Hindus the doctrine of
passive resistance. Was Aurobindo Ghose to become the leader of another
movement of collective consciousness? No, his mission was of a different
nature. He was, as Nivedita understood him, the successor to the spiritual
Masters of the past, offering the source of his inspiration for all to drink
from in Yogic solitude. Since his imprisonment at Alipore, Aurobindo Ghose was
no longer a fighter, but a Yogi.
Nivedita saw in Sri Aurobindo
destined leader of the national movement, a path-breaker of the future. Her
one-decade long association with Sri Aurobindo is also a testimony of her own
capacity and capability to give herself to spiritual life. In one of the talks,
Sri Aurobindo remarks: “Nivedita was not only one of the revolutionary leaders but
was open, frank and talked freely of her revolutionary plans to everybody.
Whenever she used to speak on revolution, it was her very soul that came out.
She took up politics as a part of Vivekanand’s work.” Whenever she used to
speak on revolution, it was her very soul that came out—what a compliment!
Nivedita a Revolutionary
Apropos of Nivedita, here is an
extract from talks with Sri Aurobindo as recorded by Nirodbaran.
Disciple: I heard that Nivedita
also was a revolutionary, is it true?
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean?
She was one of the revolutionary leaders. She went about visiting places in India
to come in contact with the people. She was open and frank and talked about her
revolutionary plan to everybody. When she used to speak on revolution it was
her very soul that spoke, her true personality used to come out. Yoga was yoga
of course, but it was as if that sort of work was intended for her: that
was fire if you like. Her book Kali–the
Mother is very inspiring, but it is revolutionary and not non-violent. She
went about among the Thakurs of Rajputana trying to preach them revolution. At
that time everybody wanted some sort of revolution. I met several Rajput
Thakurs who had revolutionary ideas, unsuspected by the Government. One Thakur
Ramsingh was afterwards caught in our movement and put to jail. He suddenly
died out of fright. But he was not a man to be frightened. They may have
poisoned him. You know Moropant afterwards turned moderate. More than one
Indian army were ready to help us. I knew a Panjabi Sentinel at Alipore who
spoke to me about the revolution.
Once Nivedita came to Baroda to see the Gaekwad
and told him that his duty was to join the revolution and she said to him:
if you have anything to ask you can ask Mr. Ghose. But the Gaekwad never
talked politics with me afterwards. But the thing I could not understand about
Nivedita was her admiration for Gokhale. I wondered how a revolutionary could
have any admiration for him. Once she was so much exercised when his life was
threatened. She came to me and said: Mr Ghose, it is not one of your men
that is doing this. I said: No. She was much relieved and said:
then it must be a free lancer.
The first time she came to see me
she said, "I hear Mr Ghose, you are a worshipper of Shakti?" There
was no non-violence about her. She had an artistic side too. Khasirao Jadhav
and myself went to receive her at station at Baroda. She saw the Dharamshala on the
station and exclaimed: "how beautiful!" Looking at the new College
buildings she uttered: “how ugly!” Khasirao said: “She must be a
little mad!”
Disciple: The college building is
supposed to be an imitation of Eton.
Sri Aurobindo: But Eton has no Dome.
Disciple: It is a combination of
modern and ancient architecture.
Sri Aurobindo: At any rate it is an
ugly dome. The Ramkrishna Mission was afraid of her political activities and
asked her to keep her activities separate from the mission.
Disciple: What about her Yogic
Sadhana?
Sri Aurobindo: I don't know;
whenever we met together we spoke about politics and revolution. But her eyes
showed power of concentration and a capacity for going into trance. She had got
something in her spiritual life.
Disciple: She came to India
with the idea of doing Yoga.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. But she took up
politics as part of Vivekananda's work. Her book is one of the best on
Vivekananda. Vivekananda himself had ideas about political work and fits of
revolution. Once he had a vision which corresponded to something like ManiktolaGarden. It is curious that many
Sannyasins at that time had thought of India's f’eedom. Maharshi’s young
disciples were revolutionaries. Yoganands' Guru had also such ideas. Thakur
Dayananda was also one such. (Turning to a disciple)
Do you know one Mr Mandal?
Disciple: The one with spectacles.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is he who
introduced me through someone else to the Secret Society, where I came in contact
with Tilak and others.
Nivedita, leader of the secret society
"Our aim was to establish as
many centres of training as possible, first in Calcutta, then later in the district towns
and even in the villages. These centres were not only for physical culture and
body-building, but were also meant to train young men to swim, to ride and to
handle weapons. Ostensibly, that was all that was done there, but the real
purpose was to select a few fit young men out of the many who attended those
clubs and secretly build a group of dynamic young revolutionaries, adept in all
the activities that a revolution demands. They would have to stockpile a lot of
weapons, also have to learn to make bombs. To these ends, if necessary they
might even have to go abroad, and some of them did so. Sister Nivedita helped
these young men, and some went to Jagadish Bose who instructed them in the art
of making bombs. An important activity of some of the leaders was to select and
recruit new members for this rebel group. Thus in quite a short while the
Revolutionary Movement grew strong and became widespread."
"Didn't the British
authorities guess what was happening?"
"No! Not at all! On the
contrary, they were quite pleased that the young Indians were so preoccupied
with physical culture, instead of politics. Only much later, when the bombs
began to explode, did their eyes open!"
"So you knew Sister Nivedita
in those days?"
"Knew her? Of course I did.
Didn't I tell you that she had visited Baroda
earlier and we had met? Now to come back to the story of our Swadeshi Movement.
I visited Midnapur with Jatin and Barin to found there a revolutionary centre.
Hemchandra Das joined it as a member, taking the vow. His father was very
wealthy. He was one of those who later went abroad to learn how to make bombs.
"The main duty of these
leaders was to strengthen the Movement by gathering young men as well as
weapons, and to spread it into the villages, into the very heart of the
countryside. Later, when I met Jatin Mukherjee, he too joined in the work of
spreading the Movement in many directions. He was indeed a true leader. …
Nivedita on the one hand, Jatin on the other—these were the two real leaders of
our secret society. But I seldom used to meet Nivedita, it was Jatin to whom I
was close. Barin had the necessary ardour and enthusiasm, he could inspire the
youth with his words, but unfortunately the pride of leadership was prominent
in his nature. When he began editing the paper Yugantar in which he openly
advocated revolution, it sent shock-waves through the nation. My articles too
were published in that paper."
"Please tell us something
about Sister Nivedita. What actually was her role in the Movement?"
"First, to tour the country
and spread the message of revolt among the educated classes. Second, to
initiate the great and the small, even the Rajas and Maharajas into the Cause.
Her western background and her education made her most suitable for this work.
She would mix freely with the young revolutionaries, help them in their need by
providing them with money or shelter or even weapons. She sent some young men
abroad so that they might learn how to make bombs! She helped in so many ways!
Her contribution to the success of the Swadeshi Movement is invaluable. Nivedita's
Guru instructed her to work for the cause of India's freedom, that cause became
her Yoga and her Sadhana. She obeyed her Master with all her heart and soul. In
the first place Vivekananda had brought Nivedita to India so that she might teach the
women of his land to awaken and to arise. It is difficult for you to imagine
today the backwardness of the Indian women of that time. Nivedita not only
brought awareness to them, she energetically shook the whole sleeping India
awake, explaining to her that she could never make any advance or progress
unless she became free. What we should wish for is that instead of just one
Sister Nivedita a Nivedita be born in every Indian household."
Such times and such souls! India was born
in their birth. India
has to grow in the birth of such souls. Whence shall come these? Those who are
conscious of such occult workings have to pray to them. They are the ones who
sacrifice all of themselves for the greatness of the country, sacrifice without
any personal consideration. And nothing can be achieved without sacrifice,
nothing.
Nothing can be achieved without
Yoga, neither by man or Avatar or God. Brahma created this world by doing
Tapas; Vishnu sustains it by Yoga; Shiva's yogic Dance of Destruction is to
destroy the past that a new future shall arise. Aswapati did Yoga-Tapasya to
bring down the divine Power upon earth. Savitri in her mortal birth did the
occult Yoga of Meditation to house the divine Shakti in her soul in order to
conquer universal Death. The fourfold order in Man was established in the
Sacrifice of the Purusha, the Purusha Yajna. That is the Law and nothing can be
achieved without it. This is what the Gita says about sacrifice: (Essays on the Gita, pp. 107-08)
With sacrifice the Lord of
creatures of old created creatures and said, By this shall you bring forth
(fruits or offspring), let this be your milker of desires. Foster by this the
gods and let the gods foster you; fostering each other, you shall attain to the
supreme good. Fostered by sacrifice the gods shall give you desired enjoyments;
who enjoys their given enjoyments and has not given to them, he is a thief. The
good who eat what is left from the sacrifice, are released from all sin; but
evil are they and enjoy sin who cook (the food) for their own sake. From food
creatures come into being, from rain is the birth of food, from sacrifice comes
into being the rain, sacrifice is born of work; work know to be born of
Brahman, Brahman is born of the Immutable; therefore is the all-pervading
Brahman established in the sacrifice. He who follows not here the wheel thus
set in movement, evil is his being, sensual is his delight, in vain, O Partha,
that man lives.” Having thus stated the necessity of sacrifice,—we shall see
hereafter in what sense we may understand a passage which seems at first sight
to convey only a traditional theory of ritualism and the necessity of the
ceremonial offering,—Krishna proceeds to state the superiority of the spiritual
man to works. “But the man whose delight is in the Self and who is satisfied
with the enjoyment of the Self and in the Self he is content, for him there
exists no work that needs to be done. He has no object here to be gained by
action done and none to be gained by action undone; he has no dependence
on all these existences for any object to be gained.
If we have the greatness of the
country in our heart then we should be prepared to make glad sacrifices for her
sake. Whence shall arise such ones?