Swami Chinmayananda
1916 CE–1993 CE · Modern · Ernakulam
1916–1993 CE (born 8 May 1916, Ernakulam; died 3 August 1993, San Diego)
Balakrishna Menon, born at Ernakulam in Kerala, worked as a journalist before turning to spiritual study; he took sannyāsa under Swami Sivananda at Rishikesh and studied Vedānta intensively under Swami Tapovanam in the Himalayas. As Swami Chinmayananda he launched, from the early 1950s, a campaign of public lecture-series ('jñāna-yajñas') expounding the Bhagavad-Gītā and the Upaniṣads in accessible English to urban Indian audiences, and in 1953 his followers organized the Chinmaya Mission, which grew into a worldwide network of centers, schools, and publications. A vigorous teacher and institution-builder, he carried classical Advaita Vedānta to a broad modern public in India and abroad. He died while on a teaching visit to San Diego, California, in 1993. His life is well documented.
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From newspaper reporter to a global lecture circuit
Swami Chinmayananda worked as a journalist (for the National Herald) before renouncing worldly life, and after founding the Chinmaya Mission in 1953 he spent four decades delivering the lecture series he called jñāna yajñas across India and around the world. He died in San Diego, California, in 1993 at age 77, having fallen ill while traveling for an overseas teaching camp.
How we know
Chinmayananda Saraswati: b. 8 May 1916, d. 3 August 1993 in San Diego, CA; founded Chinmaya Mission 1953; former National Herald journalist (Wikipedia; Hinduism Today, Oct 1993; Encyclopedia.com).
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Ernakulam
What they did here
Birthplace; born Balakrishna Menon on 8 May 1916.
About Ernakulam
Ernakulam is the mainland part of the city of Kochi, on the coast of Kerala, south-west India. It is the birthplace of Swami Chinmayananda (1916–1993), founder of the Chinmaya Mission and a noted expositor of Vedānta.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Swami Chinmayananda’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Jewish world
Christian world
Works
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