Sister Nivedita's Story

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Sister Nivedita's Story

 

How a fiery Irish school teacher, inspired by Swami Vivekananda, helped

liberate India When a great man has prepared his workers, he must go to

another place, for he cannot make them free in his own presence. I am nothing

more for you. I have handed over to you the power that I possessed; now I am

only a wandering monk. " With these stirring words, the mighty colossus, Swami

Vivekananda, sent his great disciple, Sister Nivedita, into the battlefield of

India's freedom struggle. She was to seek not only political freedom, but

freedom of the spirit as well. Born on October 28, 1867, at Dungannon in

Ireland, Miss Margaret Noble, as she was known in her youth, belonged to a

family of Irish freedom fighters. A school teacher by profession, she came under

the spell of Swami Vivekananda following his epochmaking appearance at the 1893

Parliament of the World's Religions at Chicago. Five years later, she traveled

with him to India. There she was initiated on March 25, 1898, and given the

name Nivedita, " the dedicated. " While touring India with Vivekananda,

Sister Nivedita, as she was known, saw with her own eyes the appalling

conditions of ignorance, poverty and disease into which India was pushed by the

alien rule. Her Irish blood boiled. As her first and foremost task in awakening

the Hindu nation, she took up the cause of women's education and, with the

blessings of Mother Sarada Devi, opened her school for girls in Calcutta in

1898. In 1899, Nivedita accompanied Vivekananda to England and America

to raise funds for her school. When she returned to England, she found the

agents of British imperialism engaged in a vile propaganda campaign against

Swami and her. On her return to India in 1902, she addressed a meeting of youth

in Madras and gave her rousing call to them to fight for freedom. The British

government immediately blacklisted her. Though she plunged into nationalist

activities with the blessings of Vivekananda, her action created anxiety in

the Ramakrishna Mission circle. Immediately after the passing of Swami

Vivekananda in 1902, she was asked to leave the mission. Soon she undertook a

tour of the country to give shape to her plans. Nivedita met Sri Aurobindo at

Baroda and persuaded him to come to Calcutta and take up the leadership of the

nationalist and revolutionary forces in Bengal. Her school became a haven for

patriots, revolutionaries, scientists, artists and journalists inspired by her

thoughts and actions. " If the dry bones are beginning to stir, it is because

Sister Nivedita breathed the breath of life into them, " said Dr. Rash Bihari

Ghosh, about her influence on the young patriots in India's freedom struggle.

Her powerful pen stirred the hearts of Indian youth through her stories and

editorials in patriotic journals.When Sri Aurobindo fell to the wrath of the

British, it was Sister Nivedita who persuaded him to go into safe exile in

Pondicherry, a French territory. Nivedita was not merely a

patriot and revolutionary, but also a visionary and saint. She wrote on

" Aggressive Hinduism, " but not as that of a bully over a weakling. She spoke of

the aggression and victory of character and spiritual power over human frailties

and mundane interests, making the world a better place to live in. Her Cradle

Tales of Hinduism is a gentle, nonviolent rendering of Hinduism's classic

stories. In her vision, she saw Mother India guiding the destiny of a world to

be full of peace and harmony. The enormous strain of her work affected her

health. She suffered an attack of blood dysentery in October, 1911. Sensing her

end, she wrote her will and left her possessions to the Ramakrishna Mission to

be used for her school. On October 13, at about 7:00 am, Nivedita chanted the

Upanishads, " Lead us from the unreal to the Real. Lead us from darkness to

Light. Lead us from death to Immortality, " and breathed her last. Today, in

distant Darjeeling, there stands a memorial inscribed with these

words: " Here repose the ashes of Sister Nivedita, who gave her all to India. "

By Sadhu Prof. V. Rangarajan, Chennai SISTER NIVEDITA ACADEMY, 118 BIG STREET

TRIPLICANE, CHENNAI 600 005 INDIA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honor her memory Long live the spirit of Aggressive Hinduism

 

" Hinduism would not be eternal were it not constantly growing and spreading,

and taking in new areas of experience. Precisely because it has this power of

self addition and re-adaptation, in greater degree than any other religion that

the world has even seen, we believe it to be the one immortal faith. "

(source: The Complete Works, Vol III).

 

 

 

 

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