Swami Chidananda, whom people in San Francisco Bay Area have known since the year 1993, will be visiting the area between September 30 thru October 21.
On his arrival, Swamiji will first speak on Saturday, September 30, at a special function to commemorate Shri Ramana Maharshi’s advent at Tiruvannamalai in 1896. This event will be held at 11 am at the Fremont Senior Center, 40086, Paseo Padre Parkway, Fremont.
His main lecture series will be at the University of Silicon Andhra, 1521, California Circle, Milpitas, for 7 evenings: October 8 thru 14 (Sun thru Sat). In these 7:30 – 9 pm sessions, he will explore “Drinking from the Fountain of Bhagavad Geeta: Meeting with Daily Life Challenges,” where the themes to be taken up are hurt, fear, loneliness, envy, anger, pleasure and death.
Trained mainly in Advaita Vedānta as presented by Shri Shankarāchārya, his thought has been much touched by the teachings of Shri Ramana Maharshi and Shri J Krishnamurti. In other words, self-enquiry (Who am I?) of Maharshi and self-observation of Krishnamurti come up time and again in his elaboration of the sublime truths conveyed by Geeta and the Upanishads.
He will also hold 9 sessions at 11 am on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays between October 3 and 19. The topic will be “Salient Features of Adi Shankara’s Interpretation of the Upanishads.” The venue is: Sanatana Dharma Kendra, 3102, Landess Avenue, San Jose.
Swamiji gave up a career in Electronics Engineering to join the Chinmaya Movement. He was the Acharya at Chinmaya Mission San Jose between 1993 and 1998. After leaving the Chinmaya Mission in 2002, he lived in the campus of J Krishnamurti’s Education Center in Varanasi for ten years. Since 2013, Swamiji has been living in Solan in Himachal Pradesh. Between his lecture tours, Swamiji lives a life of solitude and contemplation.
Swamiji has been active on Inter-faith platforms and at corporate events periodically. He visited the Bay Area many times during the period as part of his lecture tours. In 2015, Swamiji spoke at an Inter-faith Confernce in Rome and met Pope Francis. He has spoken at US companies like Lucent Technologies in mid-2000s and at Microsoft India.
Swamiji has published books like The Equanimous Mind (2007), Erase the Ego (2010), Light on Right Living (2013), Daily Bytes (2014) and Mukunda Mālā (2017), in addition to a number of audio and video talks on various Hindu scriptures.
In 2006, Swamiji founded Fowai Forum in India, a non-profit organization. Fowai is an acronym for Flame of Who am I? Swamiji’s teachings available to people online at the website www.fowai.org. In association with Dr Sid Gautam of Fayetteville, North Carolina, Swamiji launched a special website www.aupa.in, a forum which makes the Upanishadic knowledge universally available. After the demise of Dr Gautam, Swamiji continues to maintain this source for all seekers. Since October 2015, this AUPA project has been presenting a webinar every Sunday on themes related to the Upanishads.
For details of his programs in October in SF Bay Area (and in Southern California), please write to suhridaya@yahoo.com or go to Swamiji’s website at chidananda9.blogspot.in.