How and why I adopted the Hindu religion (Bombay, October 1902) SISTER NIVEDITA (1867–1911)

How and why I adopted the Hindu religion (Bombay,
October 1902)
SISTER NIVEDITA (1867–1911)

Sister Nivedita, who was born Margaret Noble, came to India inspired by

Swami Vivekananda. She devoted herself to the cause of education of

women and to Hinduism. On October 2, 1902, she was invited to speak to

the Hindu Ladies’ Social Club in Bombay. e organizers had requested

her to speak on ‘e Virtues of Indian Womanhood’. Sister Nivedita met

the members of the audience before her talk and decided to change the

subject of her speech. In her own words, ‘at the sight of the large

assemblages of Hindu ladies, I feel it would be presumption on my part to

speak to you on the subject because Indian womanhood is better understood

and practised by each and everyone of you than by me.’ She was requested,

instead, to speak on what induced her to change her religion. is speech

was the account of her conversion to Hinduism. Many of the values about

Indian womanhood that Sister Nivedita upheld are utterly unacceptable

today but the speech is an unusual one as it provides a moving account of an

Englishwoman’s conversion to Hinduism.

I am a born and bred Englishwoman and unto the age of eighteen, I was

trained and educated as English girls are. Christian religious doctrines were

of course early instilled into me. I was even from my girlhood inclined to

venerate all religious teachings and I devotedly worshipped the child Jesus

and loved Him with my whole heart for the self-sacrifices He always

willingly underwent, while I felt I could not worship Him enough for His

crucifying Himself to bestow salvation on the human race. But after the age

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of eighteen, I began to harbour doubts as to the truth of the Christian

doctrines. Many of them began to seem to me false and incompatible with

truth. ese doubts grew stronger and stronger and at the same time my

faith in Christianity tottered more and more. For seven years I was in this

wavering state of mind, very unhappy, and yet, very very eager to seek the

Truth. I shunned going to Church and yet sometimes my longing to bring

restfulness to my spirit impelled me to rush into Church and be absorbed in

the service to feel at peace within, as I had hitherto done, and as others

around me were doing. But alas! No peace, no rest was there for my

troubled soul all eager to know the truth.

During the seven years of wavering it occurred to me that in the study of

natural science I should surely find the truth I was seeking. So, ardently I

began to study how this world was created and all things in it and I

discovered that in the laws of Nature at least there was consistency, but it

made the doctrines of the Christian religion seem all the more inconsistent.

Just then I happened to get a life of Buddha and in it I found that here, alas,

also was there a child who lived ever so many centuries before the child

Christ, but whose sacrifices were no less self-abnegating than those of the

other. is dear child Gautama took a strong hold on me and for three

more years I plunged myself into the study of the religion of Buddha; and I

became more and more convinced that the salvation he preached was

decidedly more consistent with the truth than the preachings of the

Christian religion.

And now came the turning point for my faith. A cousin of your great

Viceroy Lord Ripon invited me to have tea with him and to meet there a

great Swami from India who, he said, might perhaps help the search my

soul was longing for. e Swami I met here was none other than Swami

Vivekananda who afterwards became my Guru and whose teachings have

given relief my doubting spirit had been longing for so long. Yet it was not

during one visit or two that my doubts were dispelled. Oh no! I had several

warm discussions with him and I pondered on his teachings for more than a

year. en he asked me to visit India, to see the Yogis and to study the

subject in the very country of its birth, and I found, at last, a faith I could

lean upon and obtain my Mukti through the uplifting of the spirit till it is

merged into Ananda. Now I have told you how and why I have adopted this

religion of yours. If you care to hear more, I would gladly go on.

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I love India as the birth place of the highest and best of all religions; as the

country that has the grandest mountains, the Himalayas; as the place where

the sublimest of mountains are located. e country where the homes are

simple; where domestic happiness is most to be found; where the woman

unselfishly, unobtrusively, ungrudgingly, serves the dear ones from early

morn to dewy eve; where the mother and the grandmother studies, foresees

and contributes to the comfort of her belongings, regardless of her own

happiness, and in the unselfishness raises womanhood to its highest

eminence.

You, my sisters, each of whom I dearly love for being the daughter of this

lovely land of India, each of you I urge to study the grand literatures of your

East in preference to the literatures of theWest. Your literature will uplift

you. Cling to it. Cling to the simplicity and sobriety of your domestic lives.

Keep its purity as it was in the ancient times and as it is still existing in your

simple homes.

Do not let modern fashions and extravagances of the West and its modern

English education spoil your reverential humility, your lovable domestic ties

consisting in the loving forethought the elders display for the beloved ones,

depending on them, and the resulting respectful deference filially and

dutifully accorded by the young to the aged. I make this appeal not to my

Hindu sisters only but also to Mohammedan and other sisters of mine too.

All are my sisters being the daughters of my land of adoption and where I

hope to continue the work of my revered Guru Vivekananda.