Sister Devamata

American disciple of the Ramakrishna Order, author of Days in an Indian Monastery — one of the earliest Western first-person accounts of life among direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna.

Overview

An American nun who travelled to India, spent time at the Madras Math under Swami Ramakrishnananda, and met several of Sri Ramakrishna’s direct disciples. Her reminiscences are a primary-source window — for English-language readers — into the lived texture of the order’s first generation: the poverty, the hardships, the intensity of worship, and the unselfconscious Vedantic non-dualism that direct disciples lived rather than theorized.

The exchange she records with Ramakrishnananda is cited in the Gita commentary as a direct demonstration of 2.18: she asks why a saintly person should have had to suffer so much; he looks startled and answers, “My real life is infinite. Let the Lord play with this little life as he will.”

Related

• ramakrishnananda — her teacher at the Madras Math; primary subject of her reminiscences
• ramakrishna, vivekananda — the order she joined

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 6 [59:31]: Sister Devamata introduced; Days in an Indian Monastery named.
• Ep. 6 [62:50]: Her exchange with Ramakrishnananda preserved as her record.