Written by Ariel Inker: December 6, 2019
Description
The Chinmaya Mission is an organization dedicated to providing 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.[1] The Mission boasts branches across the globe. They offer many educational programs for various ages, but my focus is on the Bala Vihar program at their branch in Floral Park, NY. Bala Vihar functions as a supplementary religious school for children from pre-kindergarten through high school, educating Hindu children about aspects of Hindu culture, spirituality and the fundamentals of Vedanta practice. The classes are based on Advaita Vedanta, a strain of Hindu thought focused on “oneness.” The word advaita means “non-dual.” Though it may seem that Hinduism is a polytheistic religion, in the view of the Chinmaya Mission it really concerns a single overarching Truth, or one God, manifest in many forms. The Bala Vihar curriculum covers topics relating to the Vedas, Puranas, Itihasas, and the Bhagavad Gita. The Bala Vihar in Floral Park, Queens, meets in a public elementary school. Bala Vihar meets once a week for an hour and a half, with an hour dedicated to lessons given by age group and the last thirty minutes taken up by an assembly of the entire school, where students learn and worship together. The assembly opens with prayer, a short lesson, a puja ceremony of worship, a closing prayer and the Chinmaya Mission Pledge. In the pledge, the students promise to fight against “low tendencies” and serve their country.[2] The classes are taught by trained volunteers in the community—usually parents, but sometimes Chinmaya Mission monks.
Bala Vihar takes place in Irwin Altman Middle School 172 in Floral Park, Queens.
History
The Chinmaya Mission was established in 1953 by devotees of Swami Chinmayananda. Chinmayananda was working as a journalist in Delhi when he decided to investigate Tapovan Maharaj’s ashram in the Himalayas in 1947. He arrived as a skeptic, but quickly became an ascetic and decided to start a series of public discourses on the power of Vedanta. Tapovan Maharaj disapproved of this plan because he thought that the divine knowledge should be preserved secretly. Yet Chinmayananda persisted, with the help of the Divine Life Society and later, an independent benefactor. He taught accessible classes on traditional Hindu texts, forming the Chinmaya Mission.[3] The main idea of the Chinmaya Mission is to serve the cause of social integration by recreating bonds of solidarity.[4] The Chinmaya Mission espouses an ideology of service that is expressed through religious and civil practices, philanthropic giving, collective prayer and rituals. Bala Vihar has become one of the Mission’s most popular and well-attended programs.
Chinmayananda founded the first Bala Vihar in Bombay in 1965, with a mission to ‘Mold the Child, Mold the Future”.[5] He wanted to inspire a new generation of Hindus. Over the years, Bala Vihar has become more standardized and formal. Originally Bala Vihar consisted of a few families that met in each other’s homes. Now, most programs meet in either schools, community centers or temples. The Floral Park Bala Vihar meets in a public elementary school. The curriculum has also been revamped. Initially teachers made their own lesson plans, but parents—some of them teachers themselves—began to realize that their children were learning the same thing year after year.[6] The lessons tended to be repetitive and boring, they felt, and not specifically geared to any particular age. This led to a general revamping of the Chimmaya Mission curriculum, which is now fairly standardized and emerges as a set curriculum from Chinmaya Mission headquarters.
Students and parents standing for the closing prayer and the Chinmaya Mission Pledge.
Characteristics
When I visited the Floral Park Bala Vihar on October 6th, I sat in on the oldest class. Most of the students were in eighth or ninth grade. The class consisted of about thirteen students, with more girls than boys. Some students wore traditional dress, while others wore Western clothes. The backgrounds of the students are diverse in respect to region of origin, but less so in terms of socio-economic status. Most students come from middle to upper-middle class backgrounds, and live in Queens or Long Island, close to school. Religious practice at home varies. Some of the students come from families that worship regularly at home and at temple, while for others Bala Vihar is their only “Hindu” time.
In general, the students participated and were engaged in the lesson. The class was co-taught by two women. The older of the two is a mother of Bala Vihar students in a different class, while the younger is a Chinmaya Mission monk. The monk, Ms. Shubhani, mostly teaches the lessons related to Hindu practice or the Chinmaya Mission, while the other teacher facilitates the more interactive components of the class. The sessions vary in topic.
I sat in on three classes, and each was completely different from the others, though each class started and ended with a prayer, regardless of the lesson of the day. The first class was a lecture on karma, a key topic in Hindu thought, the second was a shortened session focusing on the life of Swami Chinmayananda, and the third session was dedicated to community service. The teachers never lectured for the entirety of the session. There was always an interactive component, which kept the students engaged. According to a student who moved to New York recently and used to attend Bala Vihar in Atlanta, Floral Park Bala Vihar is more engaging, standardized, and focused on service. This comment showed me that though the curriculum is now standardized, there is variation among the different Bala Vihars.
The assemblies that followed these lessons also varied. The first educated the students about the upcoming holiday of Navratri, the second was a special puja for Diwali, and the third featured a parent who served in the Marines in honor of Veterans Day. Many parents, even those who do not volunteer, come to assembly. They pray and recite the Pledge along with their children. To me, their participation showed how Bala Vihar is a family affair. These classes highlight the main values of Bala Vihar in Floral Park: education grounded in tradition, guru-adherence, and service. The assemblies showcase the central themes of worship and American patriotism, as expressed in the language of the Chinmaya Mission Pledge. Bala Vihar is a dynamic, interactive educational program, fit for Hindu children of all kinds of backgrounds.
The Diwali Puja performed by students and families during assembly.
[1] “ABOUT CMNY.,” Chinmaya Mission New York, accessed November 29, 2019, http://www.chinmayanewyork.org/about-cmny.
[2] “Chinmaya Mission Pledge,” accessed November 29, 2019, http://www.chinmayahouston.org/resources/20-chinmaya-mission-pledge.
[3] Samta P. Pandya, “‘Guru’ Culture in South Asia: The Case of Chinmaya Mission in India,” Society and Culture in South Asia 2, no. 2 (July 2016): 208.
[4] “ABOUT CMNY.,” Chinmaya Mission New York, accessed November 29, 2019, http://www.chinmayanewyork.org/about-cmny.
[5] Shana Sippy “Diasporic Desires: Making Hindus and the Cultivation of Longing” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2018), 168.
[6] Sippy “Diasporic Desires,” 184.
From the Bala Vihar at the Chinmaya Mission
Local website: http://www.chinmayanewyork.org/balavihar/
General website: http://www.chinmayamission.com/what-we-do/activities/balvihar-activities/