A Place where devotees gather to share inspiration.
"Holy Mother" painted by Swami Tadatmananda
Used courtesy of the Vedanta Society of Southern California
I can't decide whom I love more, Jo Jo, Saint Sara, or Margot!! I am loving the beautiful letters of Nivedita. They are beautiful from all angles. Great to be here again!! More on letters this weekend, I hope!
Location: New Bern, NC
"Like every other aspiring Vedantin, my heart is filled with love for
Sister Nivedita........even though she deviated from the path of
non-attachment, by becoming attached to a political ideal......."
Hmmm, what is "attachment"? Do you mean that by taking up the cause of India's freedom she was "attached"? Is detachment about never taking a position or standing for anything that seems worthy of effort?
Or is it as Krishna teaches in the Bhagavad Gita and Swamiji himself elaborates in his lectures on Karma Yoga: namely renunciation of expected outcomes? Swamiji declares that Vedanta makes one bold and fearless. Swamiji said that a wall is detached, but we do not want to be callous and without feeling like the wall. Rather, we want the ability to both completely attach ourselves to what is before us and to immediately detach ourselves when the time comes to do so. What trips us up, what paralyzes us with fear, what makes us weak is our attachment to outcomes. We want things to turn out as WE WANT, rather than taking up a a cause or action for its own sake and leaving the outcome to God ...... whatever the outcome may be.
A devotee's detachment may be like this:
"It appears that I am supposed to take up this (whatever it may be) but I cannot do it on my own. I know God is with me and will cause everything to work out"
The karma yogi hasn't the luxury of thinking that God might cause to happen what he or she wants or expects or thinks is best. To truly be karma yoga, one can only envision an outcome for the purpose of deciding what to do, but once determined, one must "work for work's sake" and be ready to shift gears at any moment.
Both are practices, and both the bhakta and the karma yogi must also evolve to perfection. In the beginning, for God to "cause everything to work out' tends to mean 'as I think it should' for the devotee, but the very act of trusting God leads one to grow spiritually. And for the karma yogi, learning not to be attached to outcomes requires constant self-reflection and reminding. But both head toward being nonattached to outcomes, never to the cessation of work or comment itself.
Beyond this, I'd be somewhat hesitant in concluding that Nivedita "deviated" when it was Swamiji himself who chose, trained, and sent her to be a lightening rod to awaken India. He also said India would need to throw off its shackles in order to reclaim its heritage,
Also, to what was Swamiji referring re "politics"? The parliamentary or legislative processes are also part of the political system. Does one's experience of not being disappointed by trusting any particular political process make it, on its own merit, "less political"? Or does it give way to further "expectation"? :)
Perhaps, just perhaps, Swamiji was saying that the attitude of the those in the early freedom effort was like slaves asking for power. Perhaps, just perhaps, this is why he sent Nivedita to interject the strength of Vedanta into the effort and why much of India sees both Swami Vivekananada as national heroes in the Independence movement.
I confess, my own approach as a political activist has been transformed by Vedanta.
Location: San Diego, CA
Thank you,Sister Jayanti. This message means a lot to me, as it sounds just as if it came from Swamiji himself....you do say things so well!
Location: New Bern, NC
Here is a rather pretty letter to Jo Jo.
All 3 women, Josephine, Sara, and Margot, all had a very forthright and beautiful way of speaking in their letter writing.
Somehow, I cannot ever see these three women as being separated...
This letter written from ship, in March--2 months after Sara Bull's passing away...
"The Letters of Sister Nivedita", p 1188, edited by Mr. Basu
To Mrs.J. MacLeod
P.& O.S.N. Co.
SS
Friday afternoon
24.3.11
Beloved Yum,
It is 3 in the afternoon--cold--the sea quiet--and the coast of Italy fading out of view--and all I can think of, in the Europe we are leaving, is you and all your sweetness and goodness. This is terrible attachment! I am trying to follow your acts and plans...
...One knows so exactly what you think on almost every subject, that there seems no reason much, for writing letters. And yet--and yet--one's heart clings so! And I could break down and cry like a child, at being alone! There's strength for you! ...I'm just going to trust--trust--trust--and be silent. Isn't it true that oly 20 years of solitude in a cave, could wipe out all these impressions of nervous attachment, and make one really free and self-sufficient? But even then, it would not be so, unless in that solitude, one had plunged all the time into Brahman! In that infinite realisation, one could be ever blissful."
Siva! Siva!
Location: New Bern, NC
I should have named this thread "The Refiners' Fire" as that indeed was the state of Nivedita's life after 1911. This book is checked out until December 31, 2011. I could not find a way to purchase it in the States, unusual, I think...
however, here is something Nivedita said in a letter to Mrs. Ole Bull (Saint Sara) on Augut 11, 1910, and I think it has something to do with faith and patience...
The Letters of Sister Nivedita, by Mr. Basu, p 1130
" I am so glad you care for Dr. Cheyne's letter. I think that that one has extraordinary value, in which he sums up the facts about the Christian story. You see, he is not even sure that Christ came to a violent end. Did I tell you that someone came to me and brought me the missing word from Swamiji's Dream off Crete? It was Essence from Isha-niya, belonging to God or Dedicated. I always believed that it was extant somewhere and would come to me and it did."
Siva. Siva.
Location: New Bern, NC
Letters, ibid, p. 1137
To Josephine MacLeod August 25, 1910
"Strangers may say and feel anything they like about me. I am absolutely indifferent. It is all very well for you. In your freedom, you can afford to cultivate this social sweetness. But in my battle for life, if I had looked at it your way, I should have been lost. No! No! Both types have their uses, and the constant fear of hurting that is to prevent your clearly defining your own position and idea, is not the virtue in one that it may be in another. So you see I am unconverted still--and it's not worth while to try to better me! You love everyone perhaps--but there are many whom I very frankly loathe and despise. Nor shall I ever think it a virtue to try to conceal this! Nor are people of that type so sensitive as you think. At least that is my conviction."
I wonder if Nivedita means of Jo Jo's "freedom" that she is talking of her material riches. There is a different kind of freedom when one is wealthy. Nivedita talks of her "battle" in life (as opposed to Jo Jo's freedom). Poverty is a struggle and brings a different outlook in the social realm.
Is this what she means, I wonder? I think so.
Siva.Siva.
Location: New Bern, NC
Poverty does bring an inherent "battle" to living. Wealth does "afford" an inherent "freedom". I really think this is what Nivedita meant. Even though poverty is considered a virtue in the spiritual realm, the lack of money hindered Nivedita in her work. The generosity of her friends bonded her to them, especially to Mrs. Ole Bull and to Josephine MacLeod via Mr. Leggett (I think.)
Siva Siva
Location: New Bern, NC
Aut 11, 1909
"We saw Swamiji's brother, eldest, just before Christine left. He was looking grand. Such a change has come over the country. All call themselves disciples of Swamiji. He, amongst the number!!! The other day I said to the Holy Mother, "The time is very near that was promised by S.R.K. when you should have too many children. The whole of India is yours!" She answered, "I am seeing it!"
Letters of Sister Nivedita, Vol II, p 995
Mr. Basu
Location: New Bern, NC
to Alice Longfellow, from Calcutta, Sept 5, 1911
"Swamiji would say, there could indeed be no conduct if life without standards. But by severe self-discipline of all these standards, we acquire power to turn away from life and realize the Oneness that embraces all phenomena."
Letters of Sister Nivedita, p. 1233, Mr. Basu
Location: New Bern, NC
To Miss J MacLeod, Aug 16, 1911
Oh Yum, I would be glad to die. Life has in many ways been such a failure, and I cannot feel that I am really essential to the Women's Education--and yet, as long as I live, and we are not rich enough to separate, I have to be counted. Everything would it seems to me go better, if I could be left out! Only one or two books remain...
...I dread outliving everyone I care for. Of course it would be different if one could realise the golden aspirations of 1898--and live in a cell. But even then--and it seems impossible to attain, nor does one seem commonly worthyo fo the chance--oen could write no more and teach no more!"
Letters of Sister Nivedita, Vol II, pp 1223, Mr. Basu
Location: New Bern, NC
To Miss J MacLeod
Brooklyn
Monday morning
Dec. 19, 1910
"...I suppose I have really made a tempest in a tea cup about S. Sara's notions and Mrs. Brigg's influence. The whole world is a criss-cross of psychic desires and intentions, and we wade knee-deep through it all the time. I think there is perhaps a certain truth in it, and yet it is not so important as I felt it while I was writing to you. Mrs. Hellyer's view is just, too. And the actual danger of death or insanity is proably non-existent. I want to be sane. At the same time, the experience was a very real one and the horror overwhelming. The net result is an echo of Swamiji "give up this Maya! Seek to reach Mukti!" Let them settle it as they will--let Psychic influences fight it out amongst them. There is only one salvation, and that is Mukti. There is only one way to help--and that is to reach it!"
Letters of Sister Nivedita, pp 1170 - 1171, edited by Mr. Basu
Location: New Bern, NC
TERRIBLY, WONDERFULLY, PRACTICALLY TRUE LETTER. THANK YOU, SISTER FOR SHARING.
Location: New Delhi, India