Follows Sri Aurobindo from his return to India till he left it all behind in 1910, after a decade of dangerous revolutionary action which awakened the country. But through it all something else was growing within him ; a greater task now awaited the Revolutionary.
The Mother : Biography
THEME/S
60 Sister Nivedita
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"I hear, Mr. Ghose, you are a worshipper of Shakti." That is how Sister Nivedita greeted Sri Aurobindo when they first met at Baroda in 1902.
Nivedita has flitted in and out of our narrative; a longer look at her will enrich us.
Sister Nivedita. Daughter-disciple of Swami Vivekananda. That is how she came to India on 28 January 1898.
Miss Margaret Noble was born in North Ireland on 28 October 1867. Her parents were Reverend Samuel Richmond Noble and Mary Isabelle Hamilton. Samuel's father, John Noble, was by profession a Protestant priest. But he was a rebel at heart. He rebelled against the subjugation of his motherland by the British. His heart was torn to shreds at the inhuman torture inflicted upon his countrymen, not to speak of the indignities heaped on his people by the foreign rulers. With the fire of rebellion he travelled from town to town, from village to village, and set alight the heart of his countrymen with revolt. Samuel and Mary continued with his unfinished work under the leadership of Parnell. Margot was brought up by her grandmother Noble.
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In this way little Margot's nature was moulded by her family of revolutionaries. She had a fantastic retentive memory; and was naturally a brilliant student. But, as her father died quite young, she shouldered the responsibility of her family, that is to say, her mother, her younger sister and brother. So she took up a job as a teacher in a school at Keswick. That was her first job in educational lines. She had decided to make education her life's work. Then, when at Texton, she heard of a new method of education of children developed by J.H. Pestalozzi (1746-1827), the Swiss educational reformer, and F. W. A. Froebel (1782-1852), the German educator and the originator of kindergarten. She went to Liverpool to learn this method from a disciple of Froebel. Then she was offered a job at a children's school and with great love and care began to form children.
Finally Margaret settled in London. Here she met the exiled Prince Peter Alekseyevich Kropotkin (1842-1921), author and revolutionist. She also joined a revolutionary society named 'Free Ireland.'
Just when her name had become well known to educationists, scientists and writers —the cream of London's intellectuals—the root of her life was shaken by the advent of Swami Vivekananda. It was six days to go before her twenty-eighth birthday. October 22, 1895 would be written in her heart with golden letters. That was the first time she saw and heard Swamiji.
It was not to be the last. Though shaken to the core, this sharp intelligence would not accept the utterances of the Indian Sannyasin unquestioningly. She once told him frankly,
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"My nature is not such as to understand or accept as truth all that you say." Vivekananda's mind had been very agnostic, and it had taken him years before he accepted Ramakrishna. So he replied happily, "I never ask anyone to accept any words without testing."
But he had seen the leaping flames in her heart. Wrote Vivekananda to M. Noble on 7 June 1896. "My ideal indeed 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.... One idea that I see clear as daylight is that misery is caused by ignorance and nothing else....
"I am sure, you have the making in you of a world-mover, and others will also come. Bold words and bolder deeds are what we want. Awake, awake, great one! The world is burning with misery. Can you sleep? Let us call and call till the sleeping gods awake, till the god within answers to the call. What more is in life? What greater work? The details come to me as I go. I never make plans. Plans grow and work themselves. I only say, awake, awake!
"May all blessings attend you for ever!"
Margaret Noble arrived in India on 28 January 1898. On 11 March she made her first public address in Calcutta. The venue was Star Theatre. It was a full house. Vivekananda presided. He introduced her to the audience with the words, "Nivedita is the fairest flower of my work in England."
On 16 March 1898 her Guru gave her the mantra.1 As he breathed it at her ear, he breathed into her a new life, a dedicated life: 'Nivedita'.
1. Atmano mokshārtham jagad-dhitāya cha, i.e., "Free the Self and serve the world."
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After Swami Vivekananda left his mortal frame on 4 July 1902, she began to tour India, to come into contact with people and spread the revolutionary message of Swamiji. She had come to India with the idea of doing Yoga. She did too. As Sri Auro-bindo affirmed, "She found no difficulty in arriving at realisation on the lines of Vedanta." She took up politics as a part of Vivekananda's work. "Her book2 is one of the best on Vivekananda," remarked Sri Aurobindo. "Vivekananda himself had ideas about political work and had spells of revolutionary fervour. Once he had a vision which corresponded to something like the Maniktola Gardens. It is curious that many Sannyasins at that time had thought of India's freedom. Maharshi's young disciples were revolutionaries. Thakur Dayananda was a revolutionary, I think."
During one of her addresses on her tour she said, "Swamiji is verily our great national hero." She asked, "What was the idea that caught Vivekananda?" Answering her own question she said, "He saw before him a great Indian nationality, young, vigorous, fully the equal of any nationality on the face of the earth."
When, at Sri Aurobindo's request, she took up the editing of the Karmayogin, she wrote the editorials. On 12 March 1910, we find this 'Daily Aspiration for the Nationalist':
1. The Master as I Saw Him.
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"I believe that India is one, indissoluble, indivisible.
"National unity is built on the common home, the common interest, and common love.
"I believe that the strength which spoke in the Vedas and Upanishads, in the making of religions and empires, in the learning of scholars, and the meditation of the saints, is born once more amongst us, and its name to-day is Nationality.
"I believe that the present of India is deep rooted in her past, and that before her shines a glorious future.
"O Nationality! Come thou to me as joy or sorrow, as honour or as shame! Make me thine own!"
(Signed.:) N.
It was in September 1902 that Nivedita began her whirlwind tour of the North. She went to Nagpur during Durga Puja. There she met Bal Gangadhar Tilak. She knew already that Tilak was an intense admirer of Swami Vivekananda, who had spent a few days with the former when he was on his India pilgrimage.
From there she went to Baroda'. Sri Aurobindo and Khaserao were delegated by the Maharaja to receive the State guest. "I do not remember whether she was invited," Sri Aurobindo wrote in a note, "but I think she was there as a State guest. Khaserao and myself went to receive her at the station and to take her to the house assigned to her." While at Baroda she gave some lectures.
"I do not remember Nivedita speaking to me on spiritual
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subjects or about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. We spoke of politics and other subjects. On the way from the station to the town she cried out against the ugliness of the College building and its top-heavy dome" —"What an ugly pile !" quotes Barin — "and praised the Dharamshala [a shelter for pilgrims] near it. Khaserao stared at her and opined that she must be at least slightly cracked to have such ideas !"
Sri Aurobindo was more forthcoming in his talks. "She had an artistic side too," he said amplifying. "Khaserao Jadhav and I went to receive her at the station. Seeing the Dharamsala near the station she exclaimed, 'How beautiful!' While looking at the College building she cried, 'How horrible!' Khaserao said later, 'She must be a little mad.'" But Sri Aurobindo, agreeing with her, said, "At any rate it is the ugliest dome possible."
Indeed, Nivedita took an active interest in Indian art. Already, in New York in June 1900, she had given a lecture on the art of ancient India, at the instance of Vivekananda. She it was who arranged for Nandalal Bose and Asit Kumar Haldar in December 1909 to accompany Mrs. Herringham to Ajanta. She was so happy, so happy and full of praise when she went there herself and saw the two Indian artists' work of copying the murals of Ajanta. These two boys were students of Abanin-dranath Tagore, whom she knew so well.
Artist Abanindranath Tagore and his students owe her a lot. Her critical articles in Indian magazines and periodicals contributed in a great measure to the understanding of Indian art by the then rather ignorant intellectuals.
She left an abiding impression on Nandalal Bose.
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"I have seen such spiritedness and radiance and purity on her face, not to be commonly seen, but once seen one can never again forget it." This many-splendoured personality radiated beauty. "Oh, how to make you understand what I saw!" Abanindranath said sadly. He described a party thrown by the Art Society which was full of glow and glitter. So many aristocratic European men and women had come, all of them fashionably dressed, all bejewelled. The party was in full swing when Nivedita entered. She was dressed in the "same white ankle-length robe, a necklace of rudraksha3 round her neck, her silver-and-gold hair tied in a top-knot. When she came in it was as though the moon had risen among the stars. All the ladies present instantly lost their lustre."
Abanindranath had kept a photo of Nivedita on his table. When Lord Carmichael4 saw the photo, struck by its beauty, he wanted to know whose it was. Hearing that it was Nivedita's, he said, "Oh, so this is Sister Nivedita? I want just such a photo." And he took it away with him. Then Abanindranath said, "Had you but seen the photo you would have known beauty at its highest excellence." She never dolled herself up, he said, and compared her to a mountain bathed in moonlight. "A talk with her fortified one's spirit."
Lord Carmichael seems to have been a congenial person.
1.Beads made with the dried seeds of an ornamental tree, called 'Bead tree' (Elaecarpus ganitrus).
2.Lord Carmichael was the first Governor of Bengal (1912-16) after its eastern and western parts were reunited and made into a province but without Assam, Bihar and Orissa.
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Sri Aurobindo, while denying that there was ever any ban on his re-entry into British India, said, "On the contrary, Lord Carmichael sent somebody [in 1915] to persuade me to return and settle somewhere in Darjeeling and discuss philosophy with him. I refused the offer."
Vivekananda had once taken Nivedita to Jorasanko to meet Maharshi Debendranath. She came to hear about his youngest son, Rabi. One day she went to meet him. The young poet too had heard about the disciple of Vivekananda. From the first meeting they were drawn to each other, both felt a profound respect for each other. From then on Nivedita became a frequent visitor to that cultural centre. What enhanced the character of the young Rabi to the eyes of Sister Nivedita was that when Tilak was arrested by the Government on a charge of sedition, Rabindranath raised money to help finance his defence. Also at a mammoth protest meeting held in the town hall he read out an essay on 'gagging.'
As Nivedita wrote in a letter of 7th april 1910, after the Karmayogtn had been stopped by the Government, "They want to leave no adverse voice. A paper must be broken up if it shows the slightest independence. Evidently the Govt, is thirsting for the day when the propaganda of assassination shall be the only method of service for men who desire to give their lives to their country."
Baron Okakura had come to India with Vivekananda. He was a Japanese artist and art critic, besides being a revolutionary who dreamed of One Asia, a dream he set forth in his book Ideals of the East. So between Okakura and Nivedita and
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Sarala Ghosal and the Tagores, Jorasanko became a lively centre for revolutionary activity; just as it had become a cultural centre with Havel, Justice Woodroffe, Okakura, Ananda Coomaraswa-my, Nivedita and Abanindranath.
Every facet of Indian life interested Nivedita. And she gave herself unstintedly to propagate Indian art, Indian culture, Indian science. She "had the eye of sympathy and intuition and a close appreciative self-identification," is how Sri Aurobindo described it. She it was who stood by Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose when he was all alone, encouraged him when he was depressed, and even helped him in the setting up of his laboratory and the preparation of manuscripts of his scientific works, such as Plant Response. Nivedita herself was a botanist. Sweet was her relationship with J. C. and his wife Lady Abala.
"I was very much enamoured at the time of her book Kali the Mother," Sri Aurobindo wrote in a note, "and I think we spoke of that; she had heard, she said, that I was a worshipper of Force,—'believed in strength and was a worshipper of Kali' —by which she meant that I belonged to the secret revolutionary party like herself, and I was present at her interview with the Maharaja whom she invited to support the secret revolution; she told him that he could communicate with her through me. Sayajirao was much too cunning to plunge into such a dangerous business and never spoke to me about it."
For her part, Nivedita found a kindred spirit in Sri Aurobindo. "In Aurobindo," she wrote in her diary, "I at once discovered a great spiritual personality. Here is a dormant volcano in the sultry desert of the Guzerat which is destined to erupt soon."
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Was she not just 'some sort of revolutionary'? "What do you mean by 'some sort'?" Sri Aurobindo retorted. "She was one of the revolutionary leaders. She went about visiting various places to come into contact with the people. She was open, frank and talked freely of her revolutionary plans to everybody. There was no concealment about her. Whenever she used to speak on revolution, it was her very soul that spoke, her true personality that came out. Her whole mind and life expressed itself thus. Yoga was yoga but revolutionary work it was that seemed intended for her. That is fire! Her book, Kali the Mother, is very inspiring but revolutionary and not at all non-violent......There was no non-violence about her."
Gandhi once criticized Nivedita, reported Nirod, as being volatile and mercurial; there was violent protest and he had to recant. "Nivedita volatile? what nonsense! She was a solid worker." Sri Aurobindo too protested forcefully. When a disciple asked "How much is India indebted to Sister Nivedita?" "Indebted?" replied Sri Aurobindo. "There can be no measure of our indebtedness to Nivedita."
Sri Aurobindo would, once in a while, drop in to see her at her Bagbazar Road house-cum-school: No17 Bosepara Lane. It was in a narrow lane. He like others had seen her eyes. "Her eyes showed a power of concentration and revealed a capacity for going into a trance." But although they don't seem to have spoken of spiritual matters, yet "once or twice she showed the spiritual side of her but she was then speaking to someone else who had come to see her while I was there."
But the Ramakrishna Mission got afraid of her revolutionary activities and asked her to keep them separate from the
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Mission's work. She refused. In January 1903 the Mission's authorities, headed by Swami Brahmananda, made her write an open letter which was published the next day in the Amrita Bazar Patrika, and in The Statesman whose editor Ratcliffe was a friend of hers; in the letter she said that she was cutting off her relations with the Mission of her own free will.
The Mission made the error of keeping too much to the forms of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. The authorities did not keep themselves open for new outpourings of their spirit, thus making the error of all organized religious bodies, all 'Churches.' Yet was Vivekananda fiercely progressive. Yet was Sri Ramakrishna an Avatar for them.
Thus the Instrument which Swami Vivekananda had forged so meticulously over the years — from 1895 to 1902—was rejected by the monks of the Ramakrishna Mission which too was Vivekananda's handiwork. They disowned Nivedita.
Ma Sarada Devi, on the contrary, never ceased to pour her maternal love on the 'child' —her pet name for Nivedita was 'Khuki.'
India took this daughter in her arms and in her heart.
The awakened Spirit of India was then pouring itself out in myriad streams. The beautiful daughter, who had seen the beauty of India's soul, poured her own energies into these streams.
She was "for many years a friend and a comrade" of the revolutionary Sri Aurobindo.
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Sri Aurobindo went away at the call of a greater work. She was now alone. The work she was given by her Guru was done. The Boses took an ailing Nivedita to their house in Darjeeling. On 13 October 1911, a few days away from her forty-fourth birthday, she took a last breath of India's air. An eventful, tumultuous life found its rest in the Eternal. ... For a time. A live Volcano is never extinguished. We may see it erupt once again.
Sri Aurobindo went away at the call of a greater work.
She was now alone.
The work she was given by her Guru was done.
The Boses took an ailing Nivedita to their house in Darjeeling.
On 13 October 1911, a few days away from her forty-fourth birthday, she took a last breath of India's air.
An eventful, tumultuous life found its rest in the Eternal. ... For a time.
A live Volcano is never extinguished.
We may see it erupt once again.
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