How One Religious Center Negotiates Its Dual Identity
The Chinmaya Maruti temple in Andover, Massachusetts, fulfills dual roles through its location at the junction of cultural life and religious life. On the one hand, it provides space and activities to perpetuate traditional Indian culture and foster community among immigrant Indian families; on the other, it openly proclaims a message of spiritual development capable of application in any life, regardless of cultural orientation (1).
As I worked with this community over a period of several months in 2006 and 2007, I was continually intrigued by its proactive and welcoming but not overbearing approach to “missionary” work. Thus, this paper begins with a discussion of mission and missionary in this Hindu context. Next, I discuss the history of the Chinmaya movement and its founder in order to reveal the historical and political world in which this movement arose and which it continues to address. Finally, I offer portraits of four members of the Chinmaya Maruti to demonstrate the many levels at which the center is capable of operating. The temple understands itself as both a cultural center serving a particular community and also as a disseminator of a philosophical worldview that can benefit anyone, regardless of cultural background. This dual orientation creates a space that is both obviously missionary in its desire to share ideas, and yet distinctly non-colonial in its approach to this work.
Is Hinduism Missionary?
The term “missionary” often bears a negative connotation due to its historical connection to European imperialism and colonialism. However, the Chinmaya Mission does not shy away from referring to itself as just that – a “mission” – or from referring to its most revered teachers as “missionaries.” Therefore, I have developed a working definition of “missionary” which is based less on the historical usage of the word (normally applied to Western or Christian movements) and more on my personal experience and research of current religious movements (2). First, a missionary movement has an obvious message, vision or purpose with religious goals either explicitly or implicitly stated. Second, a missionary movement possesses a program for dissemination of its message, usually involving educational programs or centers, trained missionaries, teachers or clergy, and distribution of books, pamphlets and other media. Finally, missionary movements allow a possibility for conversion. Conversion is a loaded word with negative ties to Christian missionary movements in recent centuries or to religion spread “by the sword” in pre-modern Islamic and Christian expansions. For the purpose of this discussion, the term “conversion” indicates an adoption of a religious worldview to which one did not hitherto adhere, and which may result in a change of thought patterns and lifestyle (3).
Hinduism has been characterized by adherents and by scholars as a non-missionary religion (4). Such categorization of Hindu traditions was encouraged by Orientalist scholars like F. Max Müller, who did not observe the tendency in Hindu traditions to engage in proselytization, which was common in Islam, Christianity and Buddhism. The famous presentation of the Hindu religion given by Swami Vivekenanda at the Chicago Parliament of World Religions in 1893 further reinforced the impression of Hinduism as a non-missionary religion; he described Hinduism as a universal religion that could accommodate a plurality of spiritual paths. Swami Vivekenanda’s landmark visit was many American’s first encounter with Hinduism and his characterization of the faith remains central to many Westerners’ understanding of Hinduism (5).
Now, a century-and-a-half after Müller’s allegation that “the non-missionary religions were dying or dead,” (6) the phenomenon of Hindu revitalization and expansion stands as a challenge to his grim claim. Nevertheless, academic works that survey Hinduism and textbooks on world religions tend to overlook or downplay this ubiquitous feature of contemporary Hinduism. For example, Gavin Flood’s book, An Introduction to Hinduism, mentions missionary work only in the context of Christian missionary activity in colonized India (7). While John Esposito’s textbook, World Religions Today, does make mention of “organized Hinduisms” and reviews the impact of the Ramakrishna Mission (8), Denise Carmody and T.L. Brink’s world religions textbook, Ways to the Center, makes no mention of modern Hindu movements, let alone Hindu missionary activity (9).
C.V. Mathew, in his book on modern Hindu movements, mentions several explanations why Hindu traditions are not typically considered missionary. First, he cites the influence of figures like Swami Vivekenanda, who represents a “modern” and “liberal” form of Hinduism that diverges from “orthodox” or “traditional” Hinduism (10). Second, Mathew references the widespread impression of Hinduism as an ethnic religion, connected to India and to one’s birth within an Indian family (11). Third, the terms mission and missionary carry negative connotations of imperialism and colonialism, and therefore are avoided by contemporary evangelical movements.
These factors mask the fact that Hindu missionary movements exist and flourish. Mathew states rather boldly that “an ideology of mission is present in Hinduism and this has always been an integral part of its historical development.[…] In the modern period, Hinduism has become all the more zealous and aggressive in its mission on a global scale.” (12) Numerous movements exist to support Mathew’s claim, in India and elsewhere. These movements have, in their various ways, updated and reinterpreted Hinduism for the modern individual. Among them are the Ramakrishna Mission, the Vishva Hindu Parishad, the Hare Krishna Movement, Transcendental Meditation movement, the Brahma Kumaris movement, the Divine Light Mission, Sri Ram Chandra Mission, Swami Narayan Hindu Mission, and finally, the focus of this study, the Chinmaya Mission.
The Chinmaya Mission is a contemporary Hindu movement. Through one of its centers, the Chinmaya Maruti temple, it offers both a locus for cultural preservation and a place from which missionary outreach is meant to originate. The movement provides a support system for maintaining traditional Indian religious and cultural expressions. At the same time, it offers answers to life questions that are universally applicable and holds that its method and teachings can be valid for anyone, regardless of their cultural upbringing (13). While it does not discount the validity of other religious traditions and does not actively seek converts, the Chinmaya Mission, by my definition, is missionary (14).
The Foundation
On an average Sunday morning visit to the Chinmaya Maruti in Andover, Massachusetts, one would first witness an aarthi, or worship service, performed before the center’s presiding deity, Lord Hanuman, and a small collection of other deities. Two brahmin priests, a father and son with dhotis wrapped around their waists and cloth draped across their bare chests, wave incense and fire before the images, chanting Sanskrit verses. Fruit, rice, clarified butter, juice and cloth are offered before the deities as the gathering of children and adults sing traditional prayers in Sanskrit. After these prayers, the priests move to the large portrait of Swami Chinmayananda and perform similar offerings before the guru, as the congregation sings a prayer in his honor. After brief announcements and birthday wishes, the children, usually numbering about fifty, disperse to their classrooms while the adults gather in front of a large television to view and discuss a video-taped lecture by Swami Chinmayananda.
The center’s activities revolve around the person of Swami Chinmayananda, and any account of the center’s philosophy and programs must begin with its charismatic founder. Swami Chinmayananda’s personal and educational experiences shaped his approach to his religious tradition, which in turn influenced his reinterpretation of Vedanta and Hindu religious life. He insisted that religious teachings be clear and logical and that they meet the demands of rational inquiry and science. This approach appealed especially to educated and modernized Indians in the latter half of the 20th century, and continues to appeal to contemporary religious seekers in India and around the world.
Born Balakrishnan Menon in the southern Indian state of Kerala in 1916, Swami Chinmayananda took vows of renunciation in 1949, joining a long line of sannyasins, or renunciates, in the Advaita Vedanta tradition founded by theologian-philosopher, Adi Shankaracarya in the eighth century CE. Formerly a journalist and activist with a degree in English literature, Swami Chinmayananda became an eloquent spiritual teacher, and traveled around India and eventually around the world from the 1950’s until his death in 1993 (15). The Chinmaya Mission was established in 1953, independent of Swami Chinmayananda’s initiative. He eventually came to lead the organization, which is today a loosely structured network of more than three hundred centers, ashrams, schools, hospitals and temples around the world; there are currently thirty-six centers in the United States (16).
Swami Chinmayananda’s vision was to make the wisdom of Vedanta available to people living and working in the modern world. Vedanta is a particular school of Indian philosophic thought based on the teachings of the Vedas, the ancient Hindu Scriptures, and especially the material in the last part of the Vedas, the Upanishads. In very basic terms, much Vedantic teaching, writing, and activity has emphasized that the primary purpose of the individual should be to discern the true nature of the world and his relationship to it. Swami Chinmayananda was a follower of a sub-school of Vedanta philosophy called Advaita Vedanta, which holds that the ultimately real is Brahman, that Brahman is the source and essence of the entire created world, and that atman, the individual self, is not different from Brahman. Though sometimes called “God,” Brahman is not a God or God, but is the underlying, pervasive essence of all that exists. According to Advaita Vedanta, the world which humans experience and notions of the self are illusions that obscure the true nature of Brahman, or Ultimate Reality.
Swami Chinmayananda asserted that Vedanta is a completely scientific and systematic means of ascertaining the nature of reality. He considered this important to impress upon the minds of Hindus who had been alienated from their religion because of claims that it was superstitious or irrelevant in the modern age of science and secularism. Swami Chinmayananda fleshed out this perspective on Vedanta by using examples from common sense evaluation of experience, scientific theory, and his “Om Chart”, which is a hierarchical chart of the three worlds of human experience and how they relate to the Ultimate Reality (17).
The impulse to spread the message of Vedanta took the form of jnana yagnas, “knowledge-worship”, which began as a one-hundred-day long series of lectures on the Kena Upanisad in Poona, India. The lectures were accompanied by exercises for physical and emotional discipline, and the program was called the Gangotri Plan by the Swami, because it had been formulated during a period of his meditation on the Ganges River. According to Swami Chinmayananda, the goal of the plan, and the essence of Vedanta, is for people to realize that, “man – at the peak of his achievement – is God himself.” (18)
With Swami Chinmayananda at its head, the Chinmaya Mission grew steadily and by 1964, the mission had established a network of at least one-hundred centers around India, developed a sophisticated children’s education plan and children’s conferences, held conferences for women, founded a Vedanta university, expanded the Swami’s program of jnana yagna seminars in Indian cities and organized the publication and distribution of lectures and commentaries (19).
Moving to America
Swami Chinmayananda made his first trip out of India in 1964, during a world tour that included Thailand, Malaysia, Mauritius, South Africa, Western Europe, the West Indies and North America. In the United States, he often addressed gatherings of students at universities. On these initial trips, Western students of Vedanta greatly outnumbered South Asian followers (20).
Following the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which dispensed with a racially determined quota system, the South Asian population in the United States grew. Families who were either part of the Chinmaya Mission in India or learned about it in America through nascent centers began to organize into more extensive networks. The Chinmaya Mission West, as it is now called, includes thirty-three centers across the continental United States, of which the Chinmaya Maruti in Andover, Massachusetts, is one.
Indian immigrants, like all immigrants, must cope with the feeling of isolation from other Americans, with whom they might have little more than occupation in common. They must also deal with separation from family, friends and native languages, foods and cultural practices. The alienation from one’s cultural heritage that Swami Chinmayananda identified and addressed in the 1950s is exaggerated by the physical distance between immigrants in America and their homes in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Centers like the Chinmaya Maruti, as well as temple complexes like the Sri Lakshmi Temple in Ashland, Massachusetts, and various South Asian networks formed around language or state of origin, including Bengali, Tamil, Telegu, serve as crucial loci for immigrant communities as they attempt to preserve a connection with their cultural and personal history and transmit their heritage to the next generation.
Swami Chinmayananda’s program reconnects individuals with their spiritual heritage through a combination of ritual performance and philosophical meditation. It provides a venue for many immigrant Hindus to affirm their identities as Hindus or Indians and to foster their own spiritual growth in a way that keeps them connected to the everyday world. Swami Chinmayananda’s emphasis on the practical application of Vedanta cannot be exaggerated in this respect. While the Chinmaya Mission utilizes cultural mediums to transmit its message, its leadership and members believe that the core message of the movement transcends cultural boundaries. Chinmaya Maruti of Andover, as a religious center serving a mostly immigrant community, negotiates these two areas of identity – cultural and religious.
My curiosity about the ways in which the center negotiates these aspects of its identity led me to four people: Chandni Kulkarni, Brahmacarini Bhamati Chaitanya, Naresh Mahabani and Barbara Hillhouse (21). Chandni was first attracted to the Chinmaya Mission because of its children’s programs, but after a spiritual transformation, she has studied and incorporated the teachings of the center into her own life. Bhamati Chaitanya is the official spiritual director of the center, trained to coordinate its activities and lead classes on spirituality, sacred texts, and yoga. Naresh Mahabani is an active member of the center who finds the spiritual-philosophical teachings of Vedanta critical for his own development and the development of others; he is often the spokesperson for the center’s outreach activities. Finally, Barbara is an American woman whose interest in the practice of yoga led her to the center. Barbara does not engage with the center on the cultural level, but finds its teachings enriching and applicable to her spiritual development. Each of these individuals has been drawn to the center for different reasons and their experiences highlight the most important aspects of the Chinmaya Mission’s endeavors. When their separate stories are considered in parallel, the Chinmaya Maruti’s dual role as both a cultural and a religious center emerges.
Chandni: The Mother, Teacher and Devotee
Chandni Kulkarni is the director of children’s education at the Chinmaya Maruti and, along with her husband, is one of the founding members of the center. Chandni and her husband moved to Boston from Bangalore, India, in the 1980s. Their initial interest in the Chinmaya Mission was on behalf of their children – they wanted their son and daughter to be aware of their cultural and religious heritage. Toward this end, Chandni’s husband enrolled their children in a summer camp organized by the Chinmaya Mission. Despite her initial reluctance to become involved with “spiritual things,” Chandni eventually borrowed teaching materials from the mission and started a class for her children. In an attempt to spark their interest and keep their attention, Chandni invited other children from Hindu families to her classes. The classes became so popular that soon Chandni was holding two sessions per week. Chandni now organizes classes and programs for approximately 250 children. She currently teaches two bala vihar, or children’s meeting, classes on Sunday, one in Andover and one in Framingham. She also hosts music lessons on Sundays and a teachers’ class in Nashua on Fridays (22).
Chandni attributes her spiritual transformation to Swami Chinmayananda’s two visits to the Boston area in 1989 and 1992; she considers Swami Chinmayananda to be her first guru, or spiritual mentor. She describes being in his presence as one of the most peaceful experiences she has ever had. She hosted him in her home in 1992 and keeps the room where he stayed almost exactly as it was on his last visit. Chandni credits the Swami’s presence and teaching with the development of an inner strength which she has drawn from to continue children’s education classes, training of teachers and her own personal spiritual growth.
Chandni’s personal journey of the last twenty years is representative of those of many adults in the Chinmaya network. My discussions with other women in the community have suggested that many families are first attracted to the Chinmaya Maruti because of the comprehensive children’s education program, which offers classes for children in pre-school up through elementary, middle school, high school and young adult age groups. The program starts with simple stories from Hindu mythology in order, as Chandni says, to provide a context for teaching and create an affection for God. From there, instruction progresses to the explanation of rituals in the Hindu tradition. For example, children learn what the meaning of the greeting “Namaste” is, why they prostrate themselves before certain people, and why they wave fire before the images of God. By the seventh grade, students learn to translate the meaning of these rituals into life values that they can apply when making personal decisions. From this stage onward, increasing introspection and inner awareness is cultivated. The classes incorporate crafts, songs and take-home activities in the lower grades, and yoga, community service and Scripture interpretation in the higher grades. Many Hindu parents of children growing up in America, where the opportunities to learn about Hindu culture and religion are few, are delighted with the program of the Chinmaya Mission.
Some parents simply drop their children at the center on Sunday mornings and return after a few hours to collect them from their classes. However, as parents observe their children’s new religious knowledge and as they become more aware of the Center’s programs for adults, they often begin to attend satsang, a religious meeting, and eventually become involved in the center’s activities. Almost every adult I have interviewed has told me that they previously had little or no knowledge about their own religion, and that the Chinmaya Maruti has provided an unexpected source of spiritual illumination and emotional support.
Bhamati-ji – The Missionary
In 2004, the Center in Andover was assigned a specially trained leader. By this time, the community of Hindu families in the greater Boston area had grown tremendously. As ties with more developed Chinmaya centers in Texas and California solidified, the Chinmaya Mission of Boston was able to rent property, then later buy property, build its current facility, and finally acquire a full-time director to administer to the needs of the community.
Brahmacarini Bhamati Chaitanya, or Bhamati-ji, as she is respectfully called by members of the community, is the brahmacarini, or spiritual student-teacher, of the Chinmaya Maruti. After I attended a quiet session of yoga led by Bhamati-ji one Saturday morning, she described to me the rigorous training she undertook in order to become a full-time leader of the Chinmaya Mission. She studied at the Sandeepany Sadhanalaya near Bombay, India, a university designed and founded by Swami Chinmayananda for the purpose of training missionaries of Vedanta. Once they have completed their training, the male brahmacaris and female brahmacarinis are dispatched to assignments in schools, villages and hospitals around India, or, as in the case of Bhamati-ji, to a specific Chinmaya center. Bhamati-ji’s training consisted of intensive study of the Sanskrit language, the Upanishads and other Hindu texts, combined with daily services at the on-site temple and routine chores and exercise. Students of the university are required to limit communication with their family and friends, and must remain within the compound at all times, except in the case of a special religious event or an emergency. Bhamati-ji says that, although the training was very difficult, her experience at Sandeepany Sadhanalaya was the best period of her life (23).
The missionary spirit of the Chinmaya movement is epitomized by the establishment of the Sandeepany Sadhanalaya in Bombay and its sister schools in three other cities. Regarding the purpose of these universities, Swami Chinmayananda proclaimed, “The message of the Upanishads is to be interpreted, taught and broadcast – carried from door to door.” (24)Furthermore, Chidananda and Rukmani record, in their history of the Chinmaya movement, that the university was open to students of any background, since “the spread of knowledge was not be confined to the geographic frontiers of India but was intended to embrace the whole world.” (25) At its founding in 1963, Swami Chinmayananda envisioned the school as a location where approximately one hundred students could be trained for service, then sent out to train more students. Originally, Swami Chinmayananda intended for the school to close down after it had trained the first batch of students. However, Chinmaya-trained workers were, and still are, in demand around the world. The Sandeepany Sadhanalaya at Bombay has continued classes since 1963, graduating a total of 385 students as of 2000 (26).
Despite this strong drive to propagate the Chinmaya message, Bhamati-ji is insistent that proselytization is not a goal of the Chinmaya Mission. It is this reluctance to talk in the language of conversion that sets Hindu movements like the Chinmaya Mission apart from Christian missionary work. When I asked Bhamati-ji about the possibility of someone from non-Indian descent converting to the Hindu faith, she explained that the aim of the mission is neither to encourage nor discourage conversion. “If you feel comfortable in this place, that’s good,” she said. The important thing is that the individual learn her true nature and the true nature of the world. Bhamati-ji and many members of the Chinmaya community believe, as the Upanishads state, that there is only a single Truth, but many paths exist by which to reach it. Bhamati-ji explained to me that, in her view, the teachings of Jesus, Muhammad, and the Indian sages are essentially one and the same. The appearance of difference is merely an illusion. As I left, she walked out into the hall with me and pointed to the Chinmaya pledge posted on the wall. At the bottom of the poster are the words, “Om Tat Sat,” which Bhamiti-ji translated for me as, “That thou art.” This short sentence is intended to sum up the core teaching of Vedanta, which is that all things in the world and all people are manifestations of one Ultimate Reality.
Naresh – The Scientist-Philosopher
These abstract teachings about the nature of the world, the self, and Ultimate Reality attract members like Naresh Mahabani, who has been involved with the mission for almost two decades. Naresh finds that the teachings of Vedanta provide an accurate explanation for the world in which we find ourselves: it is an illusion. Over coffee at Naresh’s home in Lexington, Massachusetts, he described to me the illusory nature of the coffee mugs before us. “It is no more than the product of our minds,” he told me. The world, as we experience it, is simply a manifestation of one Ultimate Reality. In essence, all things are this Ultimate Reality. This includes every individual. The Upanishads also state, “Atman is Brahman.” The individual self is the Ultimate Reality. Naresh finds this and other Vedanta teachings to be compatible with the findings of modern science (27).
The rational and scientific nature of Vedanta was always emphasized by Swami Chinmayananda in order to make its concepts more relevant to a growing class of Indian engineers, scientists and doctors, as well as to Western students who were comfortable with this medium of instruction. He wished to eradicate the view that the Hindu religion was no more than a haphazard collection of rituals and superstitions. For Naresh, the rituals practiced in the temple are not nearly as relevant to him as the lectures and discussions on self-awareness. While he appreciates the symbolism in the ritual offerings and prayers to God, he finds the real substance of the center’s message to be in its attendance to the everyday concerns of individuals. He describes the Chinmaya program as a “yoga of the mind,” in which one’s thoughts are directed inward, toward the source of Ultimate Reality. He considers Vedanta a scientific and philosophical path that allows one to methodically remove the barriers of illusion and eventually come to enlightenment and bliss.
These truths, Naresh believes, are applicable in any cultural context. For this reason, he has tried to carry the teachings of Vedanta beyond the doors of the temple and has attempted to attract non-Indian seekers to the center. With his encouragement, the center recently held an open house in an effort to assert its presence in the Andover community and to introduce itself to new individuals and families who had not yet visited the center. Naresh is currently contemplating ways to engage the center with the wider Andover and Greater Boston communities. One way he thinks this might be accomplished is by making the center’s facilities available to groups who want to hire a space for functions. He says that if people can become comfortable with the space and realize how beautiful and welcoming it is, they will be open to the teachings of the center. Naresh also hopes to work with college-age students, who he views as especially open to new experiences and ideas. He recognizes a distinction between religious dialogue and religious transformation and he does not hold that people should be exposed to Vedanta merely for the sake of increased awareness, tolerance or dialogue. More than simply wishing to expose outsiders to a “different” religion in their midst, Naresh wants outsiders to see that Vedanta has something life-changing to offer them (28).
Barbara: The Convert?
Barbara Hillhouse is a white, American-born woman who discovered the Chinmaya Maruti on her own. Barbara’s interest in yoga has led her along an ongoing journey of spiritual fulfillment. About six years ago, Barbara changed career fields and began to make more time in her life for yoga. She studies BKS Iyangar Yoga with Patricia Walden in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is looking forward to becoming a yoga instructor herself. Seven years ago, as Barbara increased her practice of yoga, she became increasingly curious about its religious origins. She studied numerous texts on the subject, including the classic Yogasutra of Patanjali. On a visit to a local Indian market three years ago, Barbara saw a newsletter for the Chinmaya Maruti in Andover. She began to visit the center, found the satsang discussions interesting and was encouraged by the kindness of members like Naresh. When I asked Barbara how much of the Vedanta teachings she incorporates into her lifestyle, she said, “Everything.” Like Naresh, she finds Advaita Vedanta philosophy to be the most accurate and morally positive account of reality.
Other than one or two American spouses of Indians, Barbara is the only non-Indian frequenter of the center. She realizes that she appears out of place in this environment, but she feels the experience is worthwhile. During our conversation at a café in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Barbara’s hometown, I asked her how she might categorize herself religiously. She was pleased by this question and admitted that she had been considering it ever since a talk that we both attended at the center in November, entitled, “Who is a Hindu?” Barbara says that, as she listened to the discussion, she realized that all the beliefs used to describe a Hindu applied to her (29). With growing confidence, Barbara finally told me that yes, she is a Hindu. She feels most comfortable in this religious tradition and feels that it describes her beliefs and faith most accurately (30).
It seems natural to categorize someone like Barbara as a convert to Hinduism, or at least to Vedanta. After all, she does not fit in any other religious category and all her beliefs fall into line with the teachings of Swami Chinmayananda and the center. In fact, she probably has more knowledge of the texts and teachings associated with Vedanta than many of the Indian attendees at the center. The situation is more complex than that, however, because the Chinmaya Mission is adamant that its goal is not to seek converts. The assertion that conversion is irrelevant is rooted both in precedents set by Swami Chinmayananda and by the implications of the core philosophy of Vedanta.
Swami Chinmayananda did not think that conversion was appropriate or desirable. Commenting on his approach to interested Western students, Patchen writes that, “In his talks in the West, he emphasized that all truth is one. Christians were not to become Hindus, but by study of Hindu philosophy they would become better Christians.” (31) For such an audience, the Swami’s emphasis was philosophical rather than religious. In Vedanta, the direction of spiritual fulfillment is not outward, toward an identified or named God, but within, to the divine nature in oneself. On the ultimate level, there is no need to profess belief in a system or a particular God. Cultural, even religious, identity ceases to be a factor at the highest levels of self-awareness and enlightenment.
Nevertheless, this form of Hinduism is one that many Westerners have found to be a comfortable fit, one with which they are happy to identify. While Barbara is the only regular American attendee at the Chinmaya Maruti, the reception she has found suggests that the members of the Chinmaya Maruti have no objections to outsiders staking out an identity there. Furthermore, the Chinmaya Mission has trained and been led by many Western devotees (German Swamini Shivapriyananda, American Acarya Vilasini and Canadian Brahmacarini Robyn are all currently serving at posts in North America). (32) While Swami Chinmayananda discouraged conversion in name, he believed that even many who considered themselves to be “Hindu” needed to re-convert to the true religion. His mission was to bring the message of self-unfoldment to everyone. This is reflected in the current vision statement of the Chinmaya Mission: “The purpose of the Chinmaya Mission is to provide individuals, from any background, the wisdom of Vedanta and practical means for spiritual growth and happiness, enabling them to become positive contributors to the society.” (33)
Conclusions
With its clear and culturally adjustable message, its educational programs for children and adults, and its trained missionaries, the Chinmaya project is a missionary endeavor. It stops short of seeking conversion, however, and this might be the feature that makes it accessible to both Indians and non-Indians seeking spiritual fulfillment. There is no need to commit oneself to a doctrinal belief system. The only commitment one makes is an openness to learn the path of Vedanta. This requirement applies equally to those within the Indian cultural tradition and those outside it.
It is true that the spiritual truths of the Chinmaya Mission are conveyed through cultural mediums such as art, imagery, food, clothing, language and other symbols of distinctly Indian identity and that the cultural factor is especially important to immigrant families separated from familiar surroundings. However, at least at the Chinmaya Maruti, it becomes immediately clear that these cultural trappings are not necessary in order for one to come to an understanding of the teachings of Vedanta.
My visits to Chinmaya Maruti and my conversations with its attendees have provided two insights into the functions of this religious center. The center recognizes that almost all its members are of South Asian descent and its leaders tailor their programs to attract and address the specific issues of this largely immigrant population. It is a home-base for the Indian community in the Andover area, providing a safe location that recalls temples of India, with its marble floors, gilded trim and flower-adorned deities. It provides a network for members of a distinct ethnic community to share similar experiences and advice on living in America.
At the same time, the teachings of Vedanta at the Chinmaya Maruti move beyond the cultural apparatus, into an abstract world of the inner soul. Members of the community who have found fulfillment in this path believe that it is appropriate, even imperative, for people outside the Indian culture to know about and be able to apply Vedanta to their lives. For this reason, the center adopts a welcoming and explanatory stance toward strangers, like me. The followers of Vedanta at the Chinmaya Maruti are trained to understand and teach inner development in a medium that can be applied to anyone from any background and in any walk of life. By creating a space where both culture and mission are supported, but not necessitated by one another, the Chinmaya Maruti achieves a balance between its two distinct roles.
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(1) This paper was written in 2007 and published in the 2008 edition of Cult/ure:
The Graduate Journal of Harvard Divinity School. I wish to thank Professor Diana Eck, who provided an introduction to the Chinmaya Maruti, suggested resources for research and supported this project through to its conclusion. I am also sincerely grateful to the several friends and advisors who have read and commented upon this paper and to the editors of Cult/ure, who worked diligently with me to prepare it for publication.
(2) For reading on this, see Peter Clarke. New Religions in Global Perspective: A Study of Religious Change in the Modern World. (London: Routledge, 2006), 241-255.
(3) A good overview of the various contexts and meanings of conversion can be found in a collection of articles edited by Christopher Lamb and M. Darrol Bryant. Religious Conversion: Contemporary Practices and Controversies. (New York: Cassell, 1999).
(4) Arvind Sharma. The Concept of Universal Religion in Modern Hindu Thought. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc, 1998), 5.
(5) C.V. Mathew. The Saffron Mission: A Historical Analysis of Modern Hindu Missionary Ideologies and Practices. (Delhi: ISPCK, 1999), 3. For Swami Vivekenanda’s speech, see The Complete Work of Swami Vivekenanda. (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1957), 1:1-24.
(6) Sharma, 5.
(7) Gavin Flood. An Introduction to Hinduism. (New York: Cambridge Univ Press, 1996).
(8) John Esposito, World Religions Today. (New York: Oxford Univ Press, 2006), 305, 335.
(9) Denise L. Carmody and T.L. Brink. Ways to the Center: An Introduction to World Religions, 6th Ed. (Toronto: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006), 82-120.
(10) Mathew, C.V. The Saffron Mission: A Historical Analysis of Modern Hindu Missionay
Ideologies and Practices. (Delhi: Indian Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, 1999), 3.
(11) Ibid, 4.
(12) Ibid.
(13) This is evident from its mission statement, posted in the Chinmaya Maruti temple, on its website and on the Chinmaya Mission website: “To provide individuals, from any background, the wisdom of Vedanta and the practical means for spiritual growth and happiness, enabling them to become positive contributors to society.”
(14) It is important to iterate that the Chinmaya Mission is just one among many Hindu traditions, communities and movements, and that the Chinmaya temple profiled here is just one of the Chinmaya Mission’s many centers around the world.
(15) Patchen, Nancy. Journey of a Master: Swami Chinmayananda, the Man, the Path, the Teaching. (Mumbai: Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, 2005). Also see Krishnakumar, Radhika. Ageless Guru: The Inspirational Life of Swami Chinmayananda. (Mumbai: Eshwar, 1999).
(16) Chinmaya Mission West Website. http://www.chinmayamission.org/ accessed 18 January 2007.
(17) Patchen, 232, and Chimmaya Yuva Kendra Website. http://www.chyk.net/ accessed January 17, 2007.
(18) Patchen, 188, 191, & 194-198.
(19) Patchen, 246-256. Also see Swami Chidananda and Rukmani Ramani. Call of the Conch: The History of the Chinmaya Movement. (Mumbai: Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, 2001).
(20) Chandni Kulkarni, personal interview, 26 November 2006.
(21) Informants' names, with the exception of Brahmacarini Bhamati Chaitanya, have been changed.
(22) Kulkarni, Personal Interviews. 26 November and 11 December 2006.
(23) Bhamati Chaitanya, Personal Interview, 13 December 2006.
(24) Patchen, 260.
(25) In 1978, twenty-five of the seventy students were of Western backgrounds. One of the acharyas, head teachers, of the Sandeepany Sadhanalaya was American Swamini Saradapriyananda.
Chidananda, Swami and Rukmani Ramani. Call of the Conch: The History of the Chinmaya Movement. (Mumbai: Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, 2001), 47 & 50.
(26) This is the latest published statistic, found in Call of the Conch, 50.
(27) Naresh has requested that I add clarification on the points above. I quote him directly to do so: “The idea that "our world is an illusion " needs clarification. It is an "illusion" only from the standpoint of a higher unitive state of experience (which we can evolve to) --just like from the waking state of experience the dream state is an illusion. Vedanta requires us to live a life of service, values, spiritual knowledge, and engagement ....not to dismiss the importance of this life as a "mere illusion"...so we can evolve to a yet higher realization of our divine potential and identity.
“That our world is a projection of our mind is in a way a separate point and scientifically true....we only know the world through the instrument of our mind, the experience of the coffee cup is in my mind and projected by it. That there is something there that both you and I commonly experience as a coffee cup is not disputed. The significance of this point is that since our world is experienced by our mind, we can refine and elevate our experience, make it joyful, by training and purifying our mind - hence Vedanta as yoga of the mind. Ultimately we can purify our mind to a point where we transcend it, and arrive at a state of unitive consciousness, and from that state, yes, this world is illusion.” (Personal correspondence. March 30, 2007)
(28) Naresh Mahabani, Personal Interview, 18 December 2006.
(29) The traits were described and elaborated upon by Swami Tejomananda, in a taped lecture, as belief in 1) dharma, 2) the authority of the Vedas, 3) karma and rebirth, 4) the existence of God and the avatars (incarnations of God), and 5) the four stages of life.
(30) Barbara Hillhouse, Personal Interview, 28 December 2006.
(31) Patchen, 286.
(32) Chinmaya Mission West Website.
(33) Ibid.
