A Place where devotees gather to share inspiration.
"Holy Mother" painted by Swami Tadatmananda
Used courtesy of the Vedanta Society of Southern California
Maa with her Khuki
29-May-2012 (Tuesday)
Reminiscences of The Holy Mother!!!
THE HOLY MOTHER : OUR ETERNAL HAVEN - 27
SISTER NIVEDITA
(On December 11, 1910, Nivedita wrote the following letter to the Holy Mother).
Beloved Mother (Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi),
This morning early I went to church – to pray for Sara. All the people there were thinking of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and suddenly I thought of you. Your dear face, and your loving look, and your white sari and your bracelets. It was all there. And it seemed to me that yours was the Presence that was to soothe and bless poor S. Sara’s sick-room. And – do you know? – I thought I had been very foolish to sir in your room, at the evening service to Sri Ramakrishna, trying to meditate – why did I not understand that it was quite enough to be a little child at your dear feet? Dear Mother! You are full of love! And it is not a flushed and violent love, like ours, and like the world’s, but a gentle peace that brings good to everyone and wishes ill to none. It is a golden radiance, full of play. What a blessed Sunday that was, a few months ago, when I ran to you, the last thing before I went on the Ganges, and ran back to you for a moment, as soon as I came back! I felt such a wonderful freedom in the blessing you gave me, and in your welcome home! Dearest Mother – I wish we could send you a wonderful hymn, or a prayer. But somehow even that would seem too loud, too full of noise! Surely you are the most wonderful thing of God – Sri Ramakrishna’s own chalice of His love for the world – a token left with His children, in these lonely days, and we should be very still and quiet before you – except indeed for a little fun! Surely the “wonderful things of God” are all quiet – stealing unnoticed into our lives – the air and sunlight and the sweetness of gardens and of the Ganges, these are the silent things that are like you!
Do send to poor S. Sara the mantle of your peace. Isn’t your thought, now and then, of the high calm that neither loves nor hates? Isn’t that the sweet benediction that trembles in God, like the dew-drop on the lotus-leaf, and touches not the world?
Ever, my darling Mother, your foolish Khuki, (Baby girl)
Nivedita
(REMINISCENCES OF Sri Sarada Devi by Monastics, Devotees, and others -
Compiled and Edited in Bengali by SWAMI PURNATMANANDA - Translated by MALOTI SEN GUPTA: P 118-119)
Location: Bangalore, India