04-May-2012 (Friday)
Reminiscences of The Holy Mother!!!
THE HOLY MOTHER : OUR ETERNAL HAVEN - 01
SISTER NIVEDITA

March 17, 1898. St. Patrick’s Day – a day of days! That day we (Mrs. Sara Bull, Miss Josephine MacLeod and Sister Nivedita – then Miss Margaret Elizabeth Noble) paid our first visit to Sarada Devi, wife of Sri Ramakrishna. (Mother had returned to Calcutta from Jayrambati just a few days before that and was in residence at a rented house at 10/2 Bosepara Lane in Baghbazar.)

To begin with, she is dressed in a white cotton cloth like any other Hindu widow under fifty. (Holy Mother was born on December 22, 1853. Therefore she was about 45 years old when Nivedita first met her.) This cloth goes round the waist and forma a skirt, then it passes round the body and over the head like a nun’s veil. When a man speaks to her, he stands behind her, and she pulls the white veil very far forward over her face. Nor does she answer him directly. She speaks to another woman in almost a whisper, and this woman repeats her words to the man. In this way it comes about that the Master [Vivekananda] has never seen the face of Sarada! (See Note 1)

Note 1- Nivedita has written in greater detail about this is a letter to Mrs. Eric Hammond (Nell), dated 9 March 1899. “Neither Swamiji nor Sri Ramakrishna himself ever saw her unveiled – after her marriage, that is when she was a little girl of five! Men come up to the zenana door and sometimes inside, to worship her – but her long white veil is immediately dropped over her face, though she sometimes closes it with a long point so that she can look down it with one eye. I have teased her so much about it that now she shakes with laughter the whole time if the man remains outside…A servant or a monk come to the head of the stairs and in a loud voice announces that so and so is coming to prostrate before the Mother. And then a sort of tense air comes over the whole room. All chattering stops. Even fanning ceases, veils are quietly dropped, saris drawn up to cover the whole person – a back is turned to the door, if the lady sits in the middle of the floor – and all this so quietly! The man comes, remains outside, and touches the threshold with his forehead, or comes in and touches the Mother’s feet, and tells her what he is going to do. He has just come to Calcutta – and brings presents or he is just going and begs her blessings etc. Then she whispers kind inquiries to the lady who sits next to her, and these are repeated in a louder tone to the man, and presently he prostrates for the last time, and she clasps her hands and is understood to bless him, and he goes. Then the tension relaxes. Old attitudes are resumed – chatter begins again and fans move – veils drop – and the rest.

“But fancy worshipping a man as she worshipped her Husband, and never giving Him even a glimpse of your face to make sure that He sometimes thought of you again! There is a deep self-abnegation about it all that fills me with amazement.” (LSN, To Mrs. Eric Hammond, 9/3/1899, Vol 1, 1982, pp. 76-77.) The reference to Mother’s not showing her face to Master is, however, not wholly correct. It is true after her coming to Dakshineswar she did not unveil herself before the Master for a very long time. Later an old woman-devotee from Varanasi persuaded herto give up her diffidence. (MK- Sri Sri Mayer Katha [Bengali], Part II, 7th edition, 1380 (BS), p. 132, footnote. Also see the memoirs of Sister Devamata included in this volume, p. 138) Appearing on Page numbers 122-123 of the book.

(REMINISCENCES OF Sri Sarada Devi by Monastics, Devotees, and others -Compiled and Edited in Bengali by SWAMI PURNATMANANDA - Translated by MALOTI SEN GUPTA : P 106)

May we follow the spiritual path shown by Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda to reach God, the goal of our lives, and by His power help others also in their struggle to reach Him.

Location: Bangalore, India