The Master as I Saw Him

The Master As I Saw Him by Sister Nivedita (free ebook)

The Master As I Saw Him

This is an intimate look at the life and times of Swami Vivekananda through the eyes of the devout disciple named by him as Sister Nivedita. Born in Ireland, 1867, Margaret Elizabeth Noble became enamored of Vivekananda’s teachings when she heard him speak in London in 1895. She characterized her encounter with Vivekananda as providential; he being the deliverer of the call to service she had been waiting for. So, in 1898, she found herself in India, ready and willing to fulfill her life’s purpose. Three-months after arriving in India, she became the first Western woman to be received into an Indian monastic order. Soon, she opened a school for girls and spent the remainder of her life in service to India, teaching, caring for the ill and promoting Indian independence. But, of course, this book is not about her rather, it is about the man who inspired her, Vivekananda. In this portrait, you will find a God-driven man who gave his all for God and country, dedicating himself to the resurrection of India to her rightful glory. As a little bonus, we have added two appendices containing a few of Sri Aurobindo’s own words on Sister Nivedita, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda.


Book Details

Author: Sister Nivedita

Print Length: 244 pages

Publisher: Auro e-Books

Original source: Internet Archive

Contributor: Blindshiva

Book format: PDFePubKindle

Language: English


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Contents

  • Salutation
  • A WORD TO WESTERN READERS
  • I. THE SWAMI IN LONDON, 1895
  • II. THE SWAMI VIVEKANANDA IN LONDON—1896
  • III. THE CONFLICT OF IDEALS
  • IV. THE SWAMI VIVEKANANDA AND THE ORDER OF RAMAKRISHNA
  • V. WANDERINGS IN NORTHERN INDIA
  • VI. THE AWAKENER OF SOULS
  • VII. FLASHES FROM THE BEACON-FIRE
  • VIII. AMARNATH
  • IX. KSHIR BHOWANI
  • X. CALCUTTA AND THE HOLY WOMEN
  • XI. THE SWAMI AND MOTHER-WORSHIP
  • XII. HALF-WAY ACROSS THE WORLD
  • XIII. GLIMPSES OF THE SAINTS
  • XIV. PAST AND FUTURE IN INDIA
  • XV. THE SWAMI ON HINDUISM
  • XVI. GLIMPSES IN THE WEST
  • XVII. THE SWAMI’S MISSION CONSIDERED AS A WHOLE
  • XVIII. THE SWAMI VIVEKANANDA AND HIS ATTITUDE TO BUDDHA
  • XIX. THE SWAMI’S ESTIMATE OF HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY
  • XX. WOMAN AND THE PEOPLE
  • XXI. HIS METHOD OF TRAINING A WESTERN WORKER
  • XXII. MONASTICISM AND MARRIAGE
  • XXIII. OUR MASTER’S RELATION TO PSYCHIC PHENOMENA SO-CALLED
  • XXIV. THE SWAMI’S TEACHING ABOUT DEATH
  • XXV. SUPER-CONSCIOUSNESS
  • XXVI. THE PASSING OF THE SWAMI
  • XXVII. THE END
  • APPENDIX A. TO CHAPTER I
    • Notes of a Lecture Delivered in London November 16, 1895
  • APPENDIX B. TO CHAPTER I
    • Notes of a Lecture Delivered in London November 23, 1895
  • APPENDIX C. TO CHAPTER XVI
    • Notes of Lectures Delivered at the Vedanta Society, New York; Sunday Afternoons June, 1900
  • APPENDIX D. THE WORSHIP OF THE DIVINE MOTHER
    • Fragmentary notes, taken by Miss Waldo, on a Sunday afternoon in June, 1900
  • APPENDIX E. SRI AUROBINDO ON SISTER NIVEDITA
    • An Excerpt taken from Sri Aurobindo on Himself (SABCL vol. 26)
  • APPENDIX F. SRI AUROBINDO ON RAMAKRISHNA AND VIVEKANANDA
    • Excerpts taken from Synthesis of Yoga (CWSA vols. 23, 24)

Book Sample

The Master As I Saw Him

The mission of Buddha, in the centuries before the Christian era, was twofold. He was the source, on the one hand, of a current of energy, that swept out from the home-waters to warm and fertilise the shores of distant lands. India, scattering his message over the Eastern world, became the maker of nations, of churches, of literatures, arts and scientific systems, in countries far beyond her own borders. But within India proper, the life of the Great Teacher was the first nationaliser. By democratising the Aryan culture of the Upanishads, Buddha determined the common Indian civilisation, and gave birth to the Indian nation of future ages.

Similiarly, in the great life that I have seen, I cannot but think that a double purpose is served,—one of world-moving, and another, of nation-making. As regarded foreign countries, Vivekananda was the first authoritative exponent, to Western nations, of the ideas of the Vedas and Upanishads. He had no dogma of his own to set forth. “I have never,” he said, “quoted anything but the Vedas and Upanishads, and from them only that the word strength!” He preached mukti instead of heaven; enlightenment instead of salvation; the realisation of the Immanent Unity, Brahman, instead of God; the truth of all faiths, instead of the binding force of any one.

Western scholars were sometimes amazed and uncomfortable, at hearing the subject of the learned researches of the study poured out as living truths, with all the fervour of the pulpit, but the scholarship of the preacher proved itself easily superior to any tests they could offer. His doctrine was no academic system of metaphysics, of purely historic and linguistic interest, but the heart’s faith of a living people, who have struggled continuously for its realisation, in life and in death, for twenty-five centuries. Books had been to him not the source and fountain of knowledge, but a mere commentary on, and explanation of, a Life whose brightness would, without them have dazzled him, and left him incapable of analysing it. It had been this same life of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa that had forced upon him the conviction that the theory of Advaita, as propounded by Sankaracharya—the theory that all is One and there is no second—was ultimately the only truth. It was this life, re-enforced of course by his own experience, that had convinced him that even such philosophies as seemed to culminate at a point short of the Absolute Oneness, would prove in the end to be dealing with phases only, of this supreme realisation.