Swami Tejomayananda is the former Head of Chinmaya Mission Worldwide, a position he held from 1993 after Swami Chinmayananda attained Mahasamadhi till early 2017. If Swami Chinmayananda served the cause of Vedanta with his service, knowledge and pioneering qualities, Swami Tejomayananda – fondly addressed as Guruji – completed that with his natural attitude of devotion. This is richly and abundantly evident in his talks, his singing, and his demeanour.
Swami Tejomayananda stands out as a teacher who is eloquent yet humble, putting into practice what he teaches as the right way of living. The spiritual call came to him in 1970 when he heard a Geeta discourse given by Swami Chinmayananda. He was inspired to join the Vedanta Course at Sandeepany Sadhanalaya in Bombay. On graduating as Brahmachari Vivek Chaitanya, he served the cause in the field for a few years. Then he was posted at Sandeepany Himalayas as Acharya and conducted a Brahmachari Training Course in Hindi. In 1983, he was initiated into Sannyasa by Pujya Gurudev and came to be known as Swami Tejomayananda.
Swamiji has conducted over 200 yajnas in English, Hindi and Marathi. He has written commentaries on a few Vedanta text books and translated Gurudev’s writings to Hindi. He trained two groups of resident students at Sandeepany Mumbai between ’84 and ’88.
He was assigned as Acharya to Sandeepany San Jose in 1988. While he was in San Jose, Swamiji toured all over the United States and Canada giving Yajna-s and camps. He also conducted Vedanta Courses covering all the major Upanishad-s, Bhagavad Geeta, Tulsi Ramayana and Srimad Bhagavatam. Pujya Gurudev attained Maha-samadhi on August 3rd, 1993. Swamiji was then appointed the Head of Chinmaya Mission.
Swami Chinmayananda’s vision, mission and drive were as if passed on with the mantle and every dream is fulfilled with the same organizational zeal. The number of Chinmaya Mission centres have almost doubled. Notable new projects initiated by Pujya Guruji include:
• Chinmaya International Residential School in Coimbatore,
• Chinmaya Centre of World Understanding in New Delhi,
• Chinmaya International Foundation near Cochin,
• Chinmaya Heritage Centre in Chennai,
• Expansion of the Chinmaya Mission Hospital in Bengaluru and
• Chinmaya Vibhooti Vision Centre near Pune
• Upanishad Ganga tele-serial
• Planning for Swami Chinmayananda’s Birth Centenary Celebrations in 2015-2016
None of these are mean in stretch or vision, each take the Chinmaya banner wider and further, yet with the thrust on broadening and advancing the vision of Vedanta. Add to these the courses Swami Tejomayananda has added to the study and spread of Vedanta through postal and online lessons in:
• Sanskrit
• Bhagavad-gita
• Vedic Maths
