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Swami Chinmayananda

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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Stop 1 of 4Born

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.

See other sages who lived in Ernakulam→

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Swami Chinmayananda’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works

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