The Relevance of Sister Nivedita

A Synthesis of Eastern Wisdom and Western Knowledge

Abstract

Nivedita, who was Margaret Noble, of Irish-Scottish origins, and serving in England, was a child of the West, adopted by the East and an exponent of Vedantic learning. Her psychological and spiritual journey towards the East started in 1895 when she met her Guru, Swami Vivekananda. She was inquisitive, enthusiastic, driven to attain truth and inclined to unveil life's deeper realities. Her Guru, the King, the master and then the father, was the force that influenced the minds of the West. He respected all religions, accepted all and hated none. A modern monk who talked about practical Vedanta among sceptic rational humans: he was against all superstitions and beliefs which came in the way of treating humans as humans, and the ways which believed in the accident of birth and few were privileged in the kingdom of fanaticism. In 1893, Vivekananda, a Hindu monk, shook the roots and beliefs of Americans. A Vedanta society was started in a nation struggling not only with outer slavery but also with a spiritual vacuum. The Hindu Yogi led a wave of spiritualism and gave birth to such divine people who translated the Bhagavad Gita and other scriptures of Hinduism and made a path into the West. Writers, scientists, philosophers and thinkers joined Vedanta society and contributed to the eternal Ocean of wisdom. In the Transcendentalism movement, Emerson, Whitman, and Thoreau contributed to Vedanta. Swami Vivekananda established the first Vedanta Society in New York in 1894. That was when the West dived deep into Eastern consciousness for ancient wisdom and to fill the spiritual void of existence.