Activities for Adults
Mere listening will not add to your beauty. These ideas are to be reflected upon deeply and digested slowly. This process is hastened only when you discuss what you have studied with others. Study Groups constitute the heart of our Mission. The ideas, when discussed with others, not only become deeply rooted in you, but as they become clearer in your own understanding, they also inspire those who listen to you. Thus, each student, while trying to strengthen his own understanding, can become an instrument for the spread of this knowledge. This process is the dynamic study scheme followed in the Vedantic tradition. This is not a Chinmaya methodology; it is the most ancient Vedantic tradition of study.
Swami Chinmayananda
Activities List
Jnana Yagna
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In a traditional Vedic yajna, the ritual calls for the invocation of Fire and other deities in a sacrificial trough. As devotees single-pointedly offer oblations into the trough, they chant Sanskrit mantras and hymns of praise for blessings and protection. It is from the image of this ritual that Swami Chinmayananda coined the term, ‘Jnana Yajna.’ Here, the spirit of sacrifice and cooperation are retained, but instead of offering grains and herbs in a physical fire, ignorance and negative tendencies are sacrificed in the fire of Vedantic knowledge.
‘Jnana Yajna’ is also a term used by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita to refer to the study of scriptural texts by a student as a ritual of worship at the altar of Knowledge.
To invigorate and inspire the masses for Vedantic scriptural studies and consequent contemplation on them, trained teachers, swamis/swaminis and brahmacharis/brahmacharinis of the Chinmaya Mission conduct periodic Jnana Yajnas on various spiritual texts and subjects. Spearheaded by Swami Chinmayananda in 1951, this method brings the knowledge of the scriptures to the general population.
Jnana Yajnas could spread over five-to-seven days with 60-90 minute public discourses every day on the Bhagavad-gita, Upanishads or other Vedantic texts for about seven days. Jnana Yajnas are free of charge. Gurudakshina is a voluntary offering devotees make to the Acharya on the concluding day of the yajna.
Chinmaya Mission Bhavnagar’s Acharya Br. Samaatma Chaitanya’s Jnana Yagna are held in Bhavnagar at regular intervals round the year. Br. Samaatma regularly visits other cities of Gujarat to conduct JnanaYagna. Acharyas from other Mission centers also visit Bhavnagar to hold Gyana Yagna on regular basis.
