Scene 1

SARADA DEVI: Naren, tell me something about your mother.

VIVEKANANDA: Mother Divine, your infinite compassion is illumining my life of ignorance. You want me to speak of my physical mother. In my childhood I found my confidante in nobody but my mother. I disclosed everything to her. Only on rare occasions, in very trying times, did she lose her patience and faith. I have often exploited her kindness and sweetness as I now exploit your compassion and forgiveness.

SARADA DEVI: Naren, sweeter than the sweetest is the smile of our physical mother. Deeper than the deepest is her affection. Mightier than the mightiest is the power of her blessing. Vaster than the vastest is her hope for her children. From your physical mother you inherited not only moral purity and an aesthetic sense, but also many intellectual faculties and a unique memory. Her influence moulded your life considerably, and your influence is shaking the world.

VIVEKANANDA: Mother, my dearest spiritual Mother, Mother of my soul and eternal Life, however great the earthly mother may be, her love is no match for the disinterested love of the spiritual Mother. It is absolutely necessary to feel that our spiritual Mother is our real Mother and that we are her real children and divine warriors.

(Enter Bhuvaneshwari and one of her friends. They stroll towards Vivekananda and Sarada Devi, but do not notice them.)

BHUVANESHWARI: I am glad you have come with me to Belur Math to see my son Naren’s work, his great accomplishments.

FRIEND: Yes, all these newly constructed buildings, and such beautiful surroundings.

BHUVANESHWARI: My Naren has done all this.

(Vivekananda overhears his mother and immediately turns to her.)

VIVEKANANDA: Mother, I must correct you. Not your Naren, but hers. (Points to Sarada Devi, who is meditating.) Your Naren is by no means capable of such achievements. I am seated between two extremes: an utmost incapacity and an omnipotent power. Your Naren is all incapacity. He could not even support his mother and the younger members of his family after his father’s death. My divine Mother’s Naren is all capacity. It is her unconditional blessing alone that has made me what I am now. My real source is her heart. My only goal is her feet.

(Naren sings.)

Ekla ami tomar kachhe jabona ma jabona
ekla ami tomai kabhu bandhbona ma bandhbona
tomar hiyar mauna bhasha
ei dharanir dipta asha
tomar praner premer dhara
moder lagi bandhan hara
ekla ami tomar kachhe jabona ma jabona
sabar sathe tomai pabo ei shudhu mor sadhana

(Alone I shall not go to You, Mother,
I shall not go.
Alone I shall not bind You,
I shall not bind You.
Your Heart’s silence-language
and the illumined hope of this world,
and Your Heart’s nectar-flow,
Are always boundless for us.
Alone I shall not go to You, Mother,
I shall not go.

With all I shall get You:
this is my life’s only aspiration,
only meditation, only Goal.)