About Us

The Sri Sarada Mahila Samiti of Northern California is an association of women dedicated to the study of the universal teachings of the Holy Mother, Sri Sarada Devi and Sri Ramakrishna as taught by Swami Vivekananda in the West. We promote well rounded character development, strengthening head, heart and hands. We focus on individual potential while being mindful of the welfare of all.

Our members and friends draw from diverse spiritual traditions, personal experiences, cultural backgrounds, the creative arts, as well as academic disciplines. We are young and old, multi-ethnic, married, single, students, career women, mothers and grandmothers, and retired women. Each one of us is dedicated to individual spiritual practice which is enhanced through collective activities. We offer monthly Samiti Satsang gatherings, retreats, spiritual study, pilgrimage within the United States and India, and a wide array of activities.

We gain inspiration especially from the Holy Mother, Sri Sarada Devi. In fact, some of us hold that we are now in the midst of the Age of Sri Sarada: it is she who guides and protects us. Day by day, her influence is spreading everywhere around the world.

Sri Ramakrishna left Sri Sarada Devi in the world to demonstrate the very pure ideal of motherliness to all beings. She expressed all the qualities of women that are conducive to the welfare of humanity. The spiritual glory of women had never before been so fully exemplified. Holy Mother lived in the world, ?tying the ideal of Vedanta in the corner of her cloth.' From Sri Sarada Devi and Sri Sarada Math. President, Sri Sarada Math. 2003.

Revered Pravrajika Shraddhaprana, the third President of Sri Sarada Math, declared to women of both the East and the West:

When we say that the Sarada Age has come, we also know that with it comes a thousand times greater responsibility for us mothers. It is always mothers who have sacrificed, whether willingly or otherwise. It is on the foundation of their sacrifices that this civilization stands, that society becomes strong, that a family learns its true meaning and significance. The time has come now for India and [and we would add, the West] to regain its old excellence in the spiritual, social and ethical spheres. In order to achieve this, the greatest responsibility will have to be taken by mothers today and by those who are to be mothers tomorrow. By mothers, I do not necessarily mean those who give birth to children, but I use the word in the meaning of matribhava, the motherly trait towards all, the capacity to look upon all children as our own, just as Sarada Devi did, for to her everybody was her own. Samvit. September, 2000.