Swami Chinmayananda Saraswati (IAST: Svāmī Cinmayānanda Sarasvatī), born Balakrishna Menon; 8 May 1916 – 3 August 1993, was a Hindu spiritual leader and a teacher.
1942
Approaching August 1942, in the midst of a wide-scale attempt by Indian activists to make the British "Quit India," Balan was one of the students to join in writing and distributing leaflets to stir up national pride.
A warrant was issued for his arrest.
When word of this reached him, he went undercover spending the next year moving around in the state of Abbottabad, out of range of British officials, and then moved to Delhi.
1944
In 1944, almost two years after the British had issued his arrest warrant, believing his case was long forgotten, Balan arrived in Punjab and associated himself with several freedom groups.
He advised students on distributing leaflets and organising public strikes but was arrested and imprisoned.
He spent several months in unhygienic conditions in prison and caught typhus.
This caused him to be among those who were carried out into the night and tossed beside a road on the outskirts of the city, where he was found by a passing Indian Christian.
Reminded of her son serving in the army, she took him to her home and called for a doctor, who insisted that he be taken to a hospital.
Balan slowly recovered his health.
K. Rama Rao gave Balan his first job, as a journalist at The National Herald, a young newspaper that had been founded a few years back by Jawaharlal Nehru.
He wrote a series of articles on the imperative of socialism in a society where the vast majority of people were poor.
He covered subjects ranging from history and culture to social and political issues.
Articles such as "In Praise of the Postman," and "The Mochi—Symbol of Craftsmanship," gained him a reputation as a controversial character.
1947
In 1947, he began a new series of articles for The Commonweal.
It was while working as a journalist that he travelled to Sivananda's ashram in Rishikesh for this purpose of writing an exposé of the sadhus.
He later said, "I went not to gain knowledge, but to find out how the swamis were keeping up the bluff among the masses."
In the summer of 1947, Balan arrived in Rishikesh, by the banks of the Ganges and made the one-mile hike to the Divine Life Society, the ashram of Swami Sivananda.
The sages opened his eyes.
Balan extended his stay from a week to a month, then more and more.
At the age of 31, he went from being a sceptic to an enthusiast, finally becoming a renunciate monk.
He began reading more about Hindu scriptures and reviewing spiritual books.
Sivananda recognised Balan's latent talents and entrusted him to organise a Gita Committee.
1949
Having returned to the Divine Life Society ashram, on 25 February 1949, the holy day of Mahashivratri, Balan was initiated into sannyasa (Hindu vow of renunciation) by Sivananda, who gave him the name Swami Chinmayananda, or "bliss of pure Consciousness."
With Sivananda's blessing, Chinmayananda sought out one of the greatest Vedantic masters of his time, Tapovan Maharaj of Uttarkashi, and devoted the next few years of his life to an intensive study of Vedanta under his tutelage.
As his disciple, from 1949, Chinmayananda led an extremely austere lifestyle and underwent a rigorous study of the scriptures.
1951
In 1951, he founded Chinmaya Mission, a worldwide nonprofit organisation, in order to spread the knowledge of Advaita Vedanta, the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, and other ancient Hindu scriptures.
Through the Mission, Chinmayananda spearheaded a global Hindu spiritual and cultural renaissance that popularised these spiritual texts and values, teaching them in English all across India and abroad.
Chinmayananda was originally a journalist and participated in the Indian independence movement.
Under the tutelage of Swami Sivananda and later Tapovan Maharaj, he began studying Vedanta and took the vow of sannyasa.
He gave his first jñāna yajña, or lecture series about Hindu spirituality, in 1951, starting the work of the Mission.
Today, Chinmaya Mission encompasses more than 300 centres in India and internationally and conducts educational, spiritual, and charitable activities.
Chinmayananda's approach was characterized by an appeal to the English-educated Indian middle class and Indian diaspora; he gave lectures and published books in English.
Chinmayananda also helped found the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), an Indian right-wing Hindu organization that is considered a member of the Sangh Parivar.
In 1951, flying in the face of orthodox Hindu traditions but with the blessings of his guru, Chinmayananda decided to bring the teachings of Vedanta to the masses.
In May of that year, he left the Himalayas with a plan to set out on an all-India tour and to visit places of worship to see how Hindu religious heritage was being handed down.
1964
In 1964, he convened delegates to create the VHP at Sandeepany ashram and served as the organisation's first president.
He aimed to "awake(n) the Hindus and to make them conscious of their proud place in the comity of nations," saying that, "Let us convert Hindus to Hinduism, then everything will be all right."
Chinmayananda authored 95 publications, including commentaries on the major Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita.
He was a visiting professor of Indian philosophy at several American and Asian universities, and he conducted university lecture tours in many countries.
