Chinmaya Yuvakendra West (CHYK-West)
By: Ramya Radhakrishnan (CHYK-LA
Secretary)
Who Are We?
CHYK stands for Chinmaya
Yuvakendra and its members represent the youth wing of the Chinmaya Mission
organization from all over the world.
CHYK-West is comprised of CHYK groups from all across the North American
continent and is comprised of university students and young professionals
dedicated to the pursuit of self-study and self-growth. It helps youth from the ages of 18 – 30 to
develop a sense of unity and purpose while realizing their true potential.
Picture: Our first CHYK Hiking Trip to Switzer Falls with Swami Ishwarananda in May 2005
(Left to right: Siva Bharadvaj, Tapasya Desai, Aditi
Mehta, Swami Ishwarananda, Ramya Radhakrishnan, Sunil Goklani)
CHYK-West strives to unite young adults by providing a forum to explore,
discuss, and practice Vedanta while strengthening their lives in every
endeavor. We aim:
·
For personality
unfoldment, through enlightenment of the intellect and enrichment of character.
·
For a systematic and
deliberate preparation, to enable youth to face the challenges and realities of
life with a smile.
·
To cultivate qualities
necessary to win the game of life, such as clarity of vision, team spirit,
capacity to rise above ones weaknesses, equipoise and creativity.
·
To develop new habits,
trends, goals and ways of living.
·
To
achieve a TRUE EDUCATION - A spirit of enquiry into the principles of life in
the light of our Ancient Philosophy.
CHYK-West
Kick-Off Conference 2005 – Chicago, IL
At the end of March
2005, I was fortunate enough to attend a weekend conference in Chicago’s
CM center – Badri. This was not only a
planning meeting, but was also the official launch of CHYK-West in North America. The weekend consisted of several discussion sessions
and meetings deliberating the structure, communication, activities and
immediate plan of action for our new umbrella organization. I was also fortunate enough to meet many
other enthusiastic participants from all over the continent. On the last day of the conference and after
many hours of hard work, our plan was finally established. It was also at this time that Swami
Ishwarananda appointed some of us to be local chapter Secretaries for our home
cities. I was given the privilege of
serving as the CHYK-LA Chapter secretary and for the past 10 months now, I have
been trying my best to increase the participation level among our local youth
in Los Angeles and the greater Southern California area.
The passion and conviction that I saw among many of my fellow CHYKs during
this conference (most of whom are now also secretaries of their respective cities)
was more than I had ever seen in my 15 years with Chinmaya Mission. This was my inspiration to make CHYK-LA as devoted
and motivated as its sister groups around the continent.
After a very productive and rewarding session in snowy/slushy Chicago (yes, it was still
snowing at the end of March!), I am proud to say that we now
have a living, working, breathing organization that we are all responsible for
maintaining. I hope that CHYK-LA will
move its way up to becoming one of the few CHYK groups with the largest membership
in the country.
Picture: CHYK-West 1st National Conference
– Chicago, Badri (March 25 – 27, 2005)
What Have We Been
Up To?
From its inception on January
1, 2005, CHYK-LA has been growing in its number of members as well
as in the number of activities that have been brought to fruition in the past
year. These have ranged from study
groups to self-improvement workshops to volunteer work and even a hiking trip
with Swami Ishwarananda which took place last May. The following is a summary of some of our
more recent events, written by a handful of CHYK-LA’s most active participants:
Food For Thought: “Stress in College and the Workplace” – by Sunil Goklani
On Saturday,
September 3rd, 2005 CHYK-LA hosted its largest event to date, Food for Thought: Stress in College and the
Workplace at the Mithila center.
This was the first event in the newly created/named “Food For Thought”
series which will consist of lectures/discussions/social events accompanied by
a dinner or lunch social. There was a diverse group of attendees ranging
from upper classmen in high school to young professionals who have been in the
working world for a few years. Swami Ishwarananda kicked off the event by
providing us with several words of wisdom on different types of stress (yes
there is good stress in addition to bad stress!). He also touched on the
causes and effects of stress, as well as on how to deal with it. After
the lecture, we formed small discussion groups amongst ourselves to talk about
possible strategies in preventing and dealing with stress. Topics ranged
from forming daily un-stressful routines to dealing with family, friends,
coworkers and bosses. Now that "Thought" had taken place, it
was time for the second part of our Food for Thought lecture, - the food!
We concluded our first - and very successful, Food for Thought event by having
a very yummy potluck! We hope to make
this series recurrent in the future.
Thanksgiving Celebration – by
Swetha Bharadvaj
This was the 2ndevent in our “Food For Thought” series! What better way to
celebrate Thanksgiving than sharing some unique, seasonal, vegetarian dishes? CHYK held its first annual Thanksgiving event
at the KASI center the Saturday night after Thanksgiving. CHYK members designed the tasty 5 course meal
(including Stuffed Pumpkin Pasta, Candied Sweet Potatoes, and Mushroom Salad
just to name a few) on their own. With
only the aid of 7 CHYKs in the kitchen, a fabulous meal was created (with a
little store-bought ice cream for dessert, of course)! While the food nourished our bodies, the
thought provoking movie, “What the Bleep
Do We Know?” nourished our minds. We
ended the evening by watching the movie and making the unique connection
between the spiritual and the scientific.
Picture: Preparing dinner in KASI for our Thanksgiving Celebration –
November 2005
(Left to right: Kunal
Patel, Swetha Bharadvaj, Stuti Desai and Ramya Radhakrishnan)
2006 Rose Parade Float Decorating! – by Tapasya Desai
25 youth members of CMLA were fortunate enough to end 2005
with a unique opportunity to use their artistic talents to contribute to the
117th annual Rose Parade - a tradition that has grown immensely and is
telecasted on New Year's Day. On Thursday, December 29th, Br.
Girishji accompanied 25 youth to help decorate the Cal Poly Rose
Parade 2006 float entry entitled "Enchanted Reverie" in Pasadena.
The Rose Parade floats are unique in that they are only allowed to be covered
and colored with natural materials-flowers, bark, seeds, and vegetables
for example. Adults and children over
the age of 16 were allowed to work on the high scaffolds gluing broccoli to the
dragon to make a green border pattern. Others were given tasks like preparing
flowers, applying bark to the tree, and painting fairies. Girishji made two of the wings on a fairy all
on his own by gluing thin flower petals in careful rows. On New Year's Day, many volunteers who had
never watched the parade before turned on their televisions to
see the float they helped with and proudly claimed, "I helped
with that!" This was no doubt, an
exciting and fun way of performing community service while also broadening
our imaginations.
Picture: Soon-to-be LA CHYKs at the float decorating event – December
29, 2005
(Left to right: Hyma
Kavuri, Venkat Kavuri, Veena Senra and Madhavi Venkatesh)
CHYK LA Weekly Study Groups
– by Chitra Balasubramanian
"Enjoy the world,
but let not the world enjoy you. Eat food, but let not the food eat you. Drink,
but let not drink drink you." -
Swami Chinmayananda
Over the past several months, CHYK members have come
together on Thursday nights at 8pm at
the KASI center to explore topics for self-enrichment such as Brahmacharya, or
self-control, as described by the quote from Swamiji above. These weekly
meetings have served as an informal forum for CHYK members to contemplate and
discuss the topics covered in Self-Unfoldment, a text containing the
writings and talks of Swami Chinmayananda. Discussions have ranged from topics
such as BMI, or Body, Mind, Intellect, to happiness, and have been greatly
thought-provoking. The CHYK group has also been fortunate to have Bala Uncle as
the moderator for many of the weekly sessions and is excited to continue the
weekly study groups through 2006. The study group is open to all youth who are
interested in learning more about Vedanta and its practical guidance for
living. Due to the structure of the text, the chapters stand alone, making it
easy to participate in the weekly study groups without previous weeks'
attendance. Please feel free to walk
into our study groups anytime if you are interested!
How Can You Join?
If you are interested in joining the Los Angeles Chapter of
CHYK West and are between the ages of 18 – 30 (or know someone who is), please
send an e-mail to chykla@gmail.com with
your name, age and a request to be added on our mailing list. You will receive weekly notifications of events
that will be coming up in the near future.
If you have specific questions, please feel free to e-mail Ramya
Radhakrishnan at luvxander@comcast.net
or our advisor, Bala Bharadvaj at balabharadvaj@yahoo.com. We hope to welcome many more new and
enthusiastic members in 2006! J