July 26, 2015 Sunday: Mother As I Saw Her (Being Reminiscences of Holy Mother Sarada Devi)
26-July-2015 (Sunday)
Mother As I Saw Her – Swami Saradeshananda
The Mother as a Paramahamsa:
Mother’s Readiness to bear others’ Sorrows – 4
After this, a neighbour brought a newspaper and read out to the Mother that in certain places, some women, not being able to cover their bodies properly for want of cloth, had committed suicide in their despair. Thinking about these heart-rending tales, the Mother started sobbing, and then burst out crying like a small girl, unable to control her pent up emotions any longer. “What will the women do, not getting cloth to cover their nakedness? What else can they do to hide their shame than commit suicide?” Utterances like these were coming out of her lips from time to time, and she was profusely crying in great agitation. We had no words to console her. Those who were listening to these lamentations of the Mother had their hearts filled with great sorrow and their faces became tense. Was it the accumulated sorrow of all the women of the country due to the lack of cloth that finding expression through the heart of the Mother! Those who witnessed this scene, became conscious of their own helpless condition. The Mother, thinking that this calamity was due to the fault of the rulers of India, the English, said again and again in an agitated voice, “When will they go away? O Lord, when will they leave?” In her anguish the Mother was asking those around her, “When will the English leave this land? When will that happy day dawn?” Her hearers stood n perfect silence, overcome by the atmosphere of grief and sorrow. Then controlling herself a little, she started expressing her sorrowful thoughts. “All this is due to the people giving up their old habit of spinning and weaving their own cloth. The Company made them happy by providing them with cloth very cheap – four to a rupee with some change returned! They became Babus with the cheap cloth on. Now they are suffering.”
[Mother As I Saw Her (Being Reminiscences of Holy Mother Sarada Devi) – Swami Saradeshananda. Translated by Prof. J. N. Dey. Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore Madras-600004: p 174 – 175]
