Chinmaya Mission West Invests in its Youth

KAUAI, HAWAII, April 29, 2024 (Hinduism Today, by Nimmi Raghunathan): It was 1965 when Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda made his first visit to the US—to the San Francisco of social commotion of experimentation, peace, and New Age ideas. His first three-day lecture series stateside was impactful enough for him to come back every year after that. This guru was different. He did not think his task was to just pop up, talk to a group of people, jet back to India, and forget about the seekers and the curious. He took them seriously. Decades later, Swami Swaroopananda, Global Head of Chinmaya Mission, smiles and says, “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam—the whole world is one family. That’s the message of our rishis; and when Gurudev set up Chinmaya Mission West (CMW), he demonstrated commitment right then. It was a signal to the people that we are with you. It was a permanent idea.”

Flashback again. It was 1973, and Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda was in Long Island, New York. Sharada Kumar was accompanying him and chanting the Bhagavad Gita, as she had always done at his satsangs. At bhiksha one evening, he instructed her, “Start Bala Vihar.” Bala means children and vihar means play. Today, for many in North America, Chinmaya Mission is synonymous with Bala Vihar—a far cry from its inconspicuous beginnings, where little groups of children met once a week in Los Angeles, San Jose, Boston and Chicago, in the homes, basements and garages of their parents. The remarkable truth of this expansion is that its success has been purely driven by word of mouth. Communities will be hard-pressed to find glossy printed testimonials and television ads; but an anxious parent of a toddler has to simply utter worried words like, “culture,” or “learning about Hinduism,” at a gathering, and he or she is likely to be informed about CM and the efficacy of its BV program by a parent who has had a child attend.

Read more on how Bala Vihar would balloon to touch the lives of thousands of Indian American children, laying the foundation blocks of Hindu values and shaping their perspective of life through the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta, at source.
https://www.hinduismtoday.com/magazine/april-may-june-2024/chinmaya-mission-west-invests-in-its-youth/