SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA
DAILY READINGS
From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji
Day 540
[Pictured: Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi with Margaret Noble, direct disciple of Swami Vivekananda, who became the Hindu Nun, Sister Nivedita]
Swamiji continues speaking on the Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi
The only thing left for you to do is to accept it and love her personality, then from the personal you can become impersonal. You can only become impersonal when you become that quality. It remains personal as long as you see that person as separate from you. No sooner do you not see the person than it has become part of you. You are good because she was good. If you keep saying, 'She is good, she is good,' it means you are not yet good.
So please, whilst you have her photograph here and there, look at it a couple of times during the day and speak to her in your own fanciful way and tell her your trials and tribulations. Tell her your weaknesses as if she did not know them. Tell her those things as if you are telling your worldly mother. Sincerely try your best to turn away from negative, narrow things and become the Universal Mother that she has become.
It was not easy in those days in India to accept Western people [due to the then extreme rigidity of the Hindu Caste system]. They were regarded as maleech [or Mlechcha – meaning, without caste (out-caste), literally 'heathen' as in Christianity of 'kafir' in Islam], cow eaters, pork eaters, beef eaters. People would say, 'They are so defiled. Do not allow them in my temple or near my person.' But the same Holy Mother took Sister Nivedita and made her sit almost on her lap. She found that Sister Nivedita, the 'touch-me-not' of others, was actually a diamond in disguise.
How many other people must have looked at Sister Nivedita and rejected her? What did the Holy Mother see that she accepted her, that she even made them build a school [see footnote] in her name, that she even served her by getting prasad and giving it to her? At that time it was not easy for a person to do this - above all for one of the brahmin caste to do this. Holy Mother accepted her even at the risk of being rejected by the so-called orthodox, learned people. But you and I cannot do it because we are so afraid of what our neighbours are going to say, we are so afraid of what our friends are going to say. But she did not care even if she was excommunicated [made an outcaste]. She knew she was looking at purity, the purity of a child.
Footnote: Sister Nivedita started her first school at Bosepara Lane, a very disadvantaged area, in Calcutta/Kolkata.
She took in primarily child brides, child widows and the married women of the area who were without education and had no prospect of getting any. The school was later largely run by her colleague Sister Christine whilst Nivedita worked the speaking circuit as a human rights and indeed political activist for the rights of Indians against the British government. Today there are schools throughout India bearing her name. A commemorative postage stamp (seen alongside) was also issued by the Indian Government to mark the esteem in which Nivedita is held.
1) Care should be taken by the reader to understand and take Swamiji's
words in these postings, in context. Every teaching or instruction that he gave
was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time.
2) Mouse-over the words highlighted in
red in the posting for further explanation
or links.
There are currently available, over 100 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order. Click HERE for the second website on Swamiji's life and teachings.
