The Acharya of Ranchi Chinmaya Mission
Swami Madhavananda was born on 23rd June 1964 at Udayagiri, Dist. Phubani in Orissa. Since childhood he was interested in medicine and wanted to become a doctor. He was a brilliant student. He has got first class in M.A. (Hindi). To study medicine he came to Sambalpur, to join at Birla Medical College. There he happened ti listen to a disclosure at a Geeta Gyan Yagna organised by the Chinmaya Mission.
He was so impressed that he decided to pursue Spirituality. In spite of being underage, his conviction and determination to pursue spirituality impressed Pujya Gurudev, who allowed him to join Vedanta Course at Siddhabari (Himachal Pradesh) in 1984. He successfully completed in 1986 and got his Br. diksha from Pujya Gurudev and became Br. Sakshi Chaitanya by learning the preliminary texts of Shri Shankaracharya including Tatwa Bodh, Atma Bodh, Vakyavriti, Vivek Chudamani, Bhagavad Geeta, Upanishad, Brahma Sutra and Ramayana.
After that he served at the Chinmaya Vidyalaya at Nalco (Angul) Orissa as Secretary and Teacher. In 1998 he joined Chinmaya Mission at Kolkata where he became the Acharya and looked after the administration in addition to the spiritual teaching responsibilities. To meet the need and culture of Bengal, he studied Saptashati Chandi and Devi Bhagawatam and gave discourses on the same during the Durga Puja festival.
On 21st Feb, 2001 on the auspicious day of Shivaratri, he was initiated into Sanyas Ashram as Swami Madhavananda by Pujya Swami Tejomanayanandaji, the present head of Chinmaya Mission World Wide.
Seeing his dedication, Pujya Guruji assigned him the responsibility of Acharya to conduct the Brahmachari course in Hindi at Siddhbari started in 2002. After conducting 8th Vedanta Training Course, he had been posted to Rourkela as Acharya in January 2005. After establishing the activities of Rourkela Ashram, he has now been appointed as Acharya of Ranchi Chinmaya Mission since November, 2006.
