Christine, Sister (1866-1930)—Christine Greenstidel, born at Nuremburgh in Germany on 17.8.1866, eldest of six daughters of Frederick Greenstidel. Resident of 418, Alfred Street, Detroit, with her parents at the age of 3. Having lost her father at 17, took up teaching. Humility, courage and self-sacrifice were her principal characteristics. First saw and heard Swamiji at the local Unitarian Church on 14.2.1894, along with her friend Mrs. Mary Funke. Attended all his 8 lectures there. Learning of Swamiji’s spending the summer at Thousand Island Park travelled there with Mrs. Funke locating him after a weary search and gladly accepted by him to join the group of disciples assembled there whom he was teaching. Initiated them and gave vows of brahmacharya to Christine who became known as Sister Christine. Gave up teaching. Visited London in July 1899 with Mrs. Funke to meet Swamiji on his arrival there, his second-trip to the West. Met sister Nivedita there. One of Swamiji’s most beloved disciples, in the blessed company of Swamiji for about a week at her Detroit residence (528, East Congress Street) in July 1900. Came to India (7.4.1902) and dedicating herself to the cause of women’s education in India joined Sister Nivedita’s School for Girls (1903). Due to failing health returned to America (1914). Came back to India (1924) and resumed work but her health failing, was looked after by Boshi Sen. Ailing, she was taken to Belur Math where she stayed for a few days. Before she returned to America finally (1928), she was given the money Swamiji had left for her. Died at New York on 27.3.1930. The Prabuddha Bharata published her reminiscences of Swamiji serially (January-December 1931) under the title “Memoirs of Sister Christine”. Its golden Jubilee number (1945) too carried an article by her. Her reminiscences in Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda (3rd ed., pp. 187-88) included Swamiji’s prophecy about forthcoming revolutions in Russia and China, “The next great upheaval which is to bring about a new epoch will come from Russia or China. I can’t quite see which, but it will be either Russia or China.” Swamiji’s numerous letters to her and her memoirs provide much information about Swamiji.
In early youth she outgrew her passionate devotion to church doctrines and became one of the first Christian Scientists of Detroit. But nothing satisfied the yearning of her soul till one day, as she writes in her memoirs:
“It happened. The stupendous thing for which we have been waiting – that which dispels the deadly monotony, which turns the whole of life into a new channel, which eventually takes one to a far-away country, which sets one among strange people, to whom, from the very first, we feel a strange kinship; wonderful people who know what they are waiting for, who know the purpose of life.”
On the 24th of February, 1894, Christine with her friend, Mrs. Mary C. Funke, went rather unwillingly to a lecture given by one ‘Vivekananda, a monk from India.’ She recalled:
“Surly never in our countless incarnations had we taken a step so momentous! For before we had listened five minutes we knew that we had found the touchstone for which we exclaimed, ‘if we had missed this—’. It was the mind that made the first great appeal, that amazing mind! What can one say that will give even a faint idea of its majesty, its glory, its splendour. Yet marvelous as the ideas were, and wonderful as that intangible something that emanated from the mind, it was all strangely familiar. I found myself saying, ‘I have known that mind before.’ For six weeks he remained in Detroit. We missed no occasion of hearing him. We knew we had found our Teacher. The word guru we did not know then. Nor did we meet him personally, but what matter? It would take years to assimilate what we had already learned. And then the Master would somehow, somewhere, teach us again.”
But it happened earlier than they expected. It was on the 6th of July, 1895, hearing that Swami Vivekananda was spending the summer at Thousand Island Park, that Sister Christine and Mrs. Funke started out, uninvited, to seek him and to learn more of his wonderful teachings. About these two, Swamiji used to say: “The disciples who travelled hundreds of miles to find me they came in the night and in the rain.” When they met, Sister Christine greeted him with the simple declaration: “We have come, just as we would go to Jesus if he were still on earth and ask him to teach us.” Swamiji’s gentle reply was: “If only I possessed the power of the Christ to set you free now!”
The day after Sister Christine’s arrival, Swamiji, with her permission, read her mind. When he asked: “May I read all?” she replied: “Yes, of course.” “Brave girl!”, he exclaimed. He told her then that she had only three veils left and that her third eye would open in this life. The next day Swamiji initiated her.
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The one who knew her best was her guru. In 1996, Swamiji dedicated a poem to her. It became one of her mantras:
What though thy bed be frozen earth,
Thy cloak the chilling blast;
What though no mate to cheer thy path,
Thy sky with gloom o’ercast—
What though if love itself doth fail,
Thy fragrance strewed in vain;
What though if bad o’er good prevail,
And vice o’er virtue reign—
Change not thy nature, gentle bloom,
Thou violet, sweet and pure,
But ever pour thy sweet perfume
Unasked, unstinted, sure!
To her last breath she embodied this ideal. Life made its hardest demands upon her. She had always to meet the most difficult task, the most desperate conditions. Her life before she went to India was hard, and equally hard were those first years in India! None of Swamiji’s western disciples who went to India had to face what she did. Yet when anyone felt sorry for her, she would say: “Would I have had it different? No, a thousand times no. It is seldom that Vivekananda comes to this earth. If I am to be born again, gladly will I endure a thousand times the hardships of this life for the privilege that has been mine.” One felt that the strength, the force, of all hardships had entered into her, for her’s was the strength radiant, and not explosive. The stress and storm of life made her indomitable. Her outpouring tenderness and sympathy for the deprived and the defeated generally masked that will of hers, of which she wrote to me:
“I meditate upon my experiences and a beautiful thing happens. It seems as if a bud which has been tightly closed and hard, opens petal by petal, graciously turning them to the sun. Oh, the slow, the beautiful, gracious movement! A great serenity and peace comes over me. As the petals unfold, I see layer after layer of the mind unfolding. I see, I see! Life after life! The long endless series. So long, so sorrow-laden. Never having forgotten the innate omnipotence, how I tried to mould my life life after life to my will! The mistakes, the suffering, the heart-break through long years! Age after age. Then in this life my will had become an occult will. It had mighty power. Sometimes I felt I could move the stars out of their courses. I almost felt that I dared to say to Yama: “Thus far shalt thou go and no further!’ I overcame insurmountable obstacles. It was this will that brought me to India. It was this will that kept me in the body when it seemed humanly impossible. And now I surrender it. The Divine Will now, not my will but Thine be done!” (Source: Western Women in the Footsteps of Swami Vivekananda)