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When Swami Vivekananda had finished his trip to America and returned to India, he undertook a pilgrimage to the Himalayas. In the course of his pilgrimage Swami Vivekananda travelled to the temple of Kshirbhavani, near Srinagar, in Kashmir, where he had a profound spiritual experience. This spiritual experience has been documented in the book: Vivekananda – a Biography. The incident is as follows:
In Kashmir Swami Vivekananda retired to a temple of the Divine Mother, where he stayed alone for a week. There he worshipped the Deity, known as Kshirbhavani, following the time-honoured rituals and by praying and meditating like a humble pilgrim.
Every morning he also worshipped a brahmin’s little daughter as the symbol of the Divine Mother. And he was blessed with deep experiences, some of which were most remarkable. He had a vision of the Goddess and found Her a living Deity. Now this temple had been destroyed long ago by Muslim invaders, and the idol of the Divine Mother was placed in a niche surrounded by ruins.
Surveying this desecration, the Swami felt distressed at heart and said to himself: ‘How could the people have permitted such sacrilege without offering strenuous resistance? If I had been here then, I would never have allowed such a thing. I would have laid down my life to protect the Mother.’
Thereupon he heard the voice of the Goddess saying: ‘What if unbelievers should enter my temple and defile my image? What is that to you? Do you protect Me, or do I protect you?’
Referring to this experience after his return, he said to his disciples: ‘All my patriotism is gone. Everything is gone. Now it is only “Mother! Mother!” I have been very wrong…I am only a little child.’
Another day, in the course of his worship, the thought flashed through the Swami’s mind that he should try to build a new temple in the place of the present dilapidated one, just as he had built a monastery and temple at Belur to Sri Ramakrishna.
He even thought of trying to raise funds from his wealthy American disciples and friends.
At once the Mother said to him: ‘My child! If I so wish I can have innumerable temples and monastic centres. I can even this moment raise a seven-storied golden temple on this very spot.’
‘Since I heard that divine voice,’ the Swami said to a disciple in Calcutta much later, ‘I have ceased making any more plans. Let these things be as Mother wills.’
