CHINMAYARANYAM, ANDHRA PRADESH
"It was a sight for gods to see. A village with
hardly fifty families in it, all of them poor, labourers half naked and
three-fourth naked. The lands were dry, men poor, and facilities nil."
This was how Swamini Saradapriyananda, the founder of Chinmayaranyam, described
the village when Swami Chinmayananda visited the place on February 8, 1982 for
the Bhoomi Pooja in Chinmayaranyam, Ellayapalle village, Kodur Taluka,
Cuddapah District, Andhra Pradesh. Seventeen donors had given twenty-four acres
of land to the Ashram run by the Chinmaya Mission, with the Swamini as the
Acharya. Swami Chinmayananda, sprinkling milk, turmeric water, sacred rice and
flowers worshipped Mother Earth and sanctified the twenty-four acre land by his
tapas and prayers. He narrated the story of the young man who worked
upon a dry piece of land to convert it into a beautiful garden and illustrated
how man had to offer only two percent as his contribution to anything from
Nature. The Lord would bless the man by doing the other 98 percent. Swamiji
proclaimed that this Ashram would be a new type of Ashram where the poor and
needy would be served with love and affection. It would set an example to the
whole country to show how village uplift had to be done. The plan was to have a
forest around the Ashram and the main activities would be cultivation and dairy
farming. The Ashramites would live in thatched huts studying and practising the
lofty ideals of the upanishads and other scriptures.
The village had two wells of which one was
dry and the second would go dry any moment. Against this background Swamiji was
visualizing a forest around the Ashram, which to many appeared to be a pipe
dream. Pointing out with his walking stick to two banyan trees, standing on
either side of the land, Swamiji said, "Dig along the line that connects
the two trees. Water is sure to come." And yes, water did sprout forth
from the well when it was dug.
Swamini Saradapriyananda, while writing about
Swamiji's first visit to Ellayapalle, said,
Where he sits is a temple,
Where he treads is hallowed ground.
She was one of Swamiji's foremost disciples
who made him feel proud of the work she had done in Andhra Pradesh for the
uplift of the rural poor. The villagers loved her and when she died on 17th
April 2000, they wept for her calling her "Amma" (mother). She had
created a special niche in the Chinmaya Movement which stood for selfless
service and unconditional love.
Chinmayaranyam at Ellayapalle, is to a large
extent concentrating on the spread of spiritual knowledge. They hold regular
camps-Jwala Sadas in summer and Geeta Sadas on Geeta
Jayanti Day, which many seekers of spiritual knowledge attend. The
summer camp coincides with the birthday of Swami Chinmayananda in May and the Geeta
Jayanti is the birthday of Swami Tapovanam.
Social service activities in Chinmayaranyam,
Ellayapalle are varied. True to the motto of the Chinmayaranyam, "Receive
the Light of Knowledge, Bring out the heat of action", the
Ashram is bristling with activities for the poor and needy. The orphanage
called Satyakama Mandir started in October 1982 with two children
abandoned in a hospital. Now there are 109 children, both boys and girls. Eight
of them are in college, and the remaining kids go to school. A boy is employed
in the
The children of the poor are educated in these
schools from grade 1 to grade 7, and they are given free mid-day meal and a
glass of milk before they go home. The student strength of the school now is 119.
There is a High School, which offers education from Grade 8 to Grade 10, and
has at present 39 students. In 1989, the first batch of boys and girls from the
orphanage were given Upanayana deeksha. With the funds coming as
donation from
In 1997, Chinmayaranyam took up a project
for intense rural reconstruction by adopting a village, "Vadipalle",
with 25 houses. Food, clothing, shelter, medical and educational needs of the
local inhabitants were identified and catered to. In 2001, they plan to adopt
two more villages. The Rural Reconstruction Project owes its success to the
generous donation received from Mumbai devotees, K. B. Shroff and his sisters
Vimala and Veena. The villagers have named the village as Shroff Nagar, after
the donor's family.
The Chinmayaranyam Project is an outstanding
example of how the activities undertaken by the Chinmaya Family change totally
the economic and social history of a village. Many foreigners and other funding
organizations have been greatly impressed with the sincerity and dedication of
the sevaks in Chinmayaranyam and they have given liberal donations.
Swamini Saradapriyananda has replicated the
activities of Ellayapalle at Trikoota also, which is called
"Chinmayaranyam - Trikoota". This centre is used mainly for
conducting Vedanta courses in Telugu and English. The two-language courses run
parallel and are very popular. So far nine Brahmacharis / Brahmacharinis have
completed the course in English and twenty-one have completed it in Telugu. All
the trained workers are being gainfully utilized for prachar work and
for implementation of various projects.
There are three other Ashrams in the
Chinmayaranyam complex-Chinmaya Sarada Tapovanam, Chinmaya Yoga Ashramam, and
Geeta Ashramam. All the Ashrams are engaged in the work of spreading the
spiritual texts to the seekers and providing facilities for meditation, satsang
etc.
Swamini Seelananda, one of the foremost
among the disciples of Swamini Amma, is presently the Head of the
Chinmayaranyam group of Ashrams.
Shiva Chinmayam - Dhyana Mandir
For more information:
Chinmayaranyam
Ellayapalle, Obulavaripalle
Cuddapah District, 516 108
Tel: 08566-46030
Fax: 08677-24204
Email: chinmayaranyam@indya.com
Website: www.chinmayaranyam.com