9th annual Om Run held at Vasona Park

India Post News Service

LOS GATOS: The Chinmaya Mission’s 9th edition of Om Run was held April 28 at the Vasona Lake County Park, Los Gatos, California. Proceeds from the event benefited American Red Cross, CORD, USA and Chinmaya Mission, San Jose.

The Om Run is a community building event that is aimed at bringing the larger Bay Area Chinmaya Mission families together for a day filled with fun activities. Om Mela featured karaoke singing by local talents, petting zoo, carnival games, traditional Indian games such as mallakhamb and kho kho.

A five-km run/walk, a 10-km run/walk and a half marathon were the highlights of the event. Over 2,000 Bay Area residents participated in these events. Training for this started in January and continued for three sessions per week for about four months.

A highly diverse group of professionals, including entrepreneurs and professionals information technology, healthcare, education, high tech, and banking sectors, government and public safety officials registered to participate in the event. Excel Test Prep, Britannia, Basis Independent School and Tata Consultancy Services were among those who sponsored the event.

Carrying the tradition of imparting Vedantic wisdom to the youth, which was very close to the heart of Swami Chinmayananda, the Chinmaya Mission helps youth to translate India’s rich ancient philosophy into practice by giving them a variety of tools to transform mindlessness to mindfulness, apathy to empathy, and prosperity to peace.

Swami Chinmayananda believed that “children are lamps to be lit, not vessels to be filled”. Thus started the Chinmaya Mission Bala Vihar, a cultural school, in 1981. Today, it has four locations in the Bay Area – San Mateo, San Jose, San Ramon, and Fremont. It has grown from a humble beginning of having six children to now having over 2,000 students spread across the four locations.

It conducts cultural classes for school children and study of Vedanta for youth and adults. The classes are arranged according to the school system – kindergarten through high school (K-12). The curriculum is balanced and has been aptly designed given the child’s attention span for that particular age.

The Chinmaya Mission is a Hindu spiritual organization engaged in the dissemination of Vedanta, the science of the self as expounded in the Vedas, particularly the Upanishads, and other important Hindu scriptures including the Bhagavad Gita. It was established in India in 1953 by devotees of the renowned Vedanta teacher Swami Chinmayananda Saraswati.