Swami Chinmayananda began with the Jnana Yagnas & brought the knowledge of Vedanta to the common man. To make it easier for everyone to understand Vedanta, he devised the BMI Chart. If this chart is understood properly, Vedanta will become easy to understand. To the left of Swami Chinmayananda’s Kutia is a huge BMI Chart. This chart has also been made into a 4 layered-concentric-circle installation on which one can climb, move about or sit and reflect on the concepts of Vedanta and its relevance in one’s life. 

 

The chart shows the relationship between our Real Nature and the relative reality or the world. It is a means to understand our personality, why we respond the way we do, and how to discover our True Nature. 

 

Using the equipments the (BMI), each individual(PFT) is seeking permanent happiness from the temporary world(OET). Each one seeks happiness outside, based on their own tendencies(V). In this process of being extroverted, one forgets one's True Nature - OM. Ignorance of one's True Nature creates a notion that i’m this limited individual(Jiva) and the World(Jagat) and its creator(Jagadeeshwara) are different from me.

 

Swami Chinmayananda put forth the essence of the upanishads - the oneness between Jiva Jagat and Jagadeeshwara through the BMI Chart. This Higher State of Oneness empowers an individual, loosens the bondage, destroys the ignorance and liberates the individual from ego. 

 

Each alphabet on the chart will be explained now:

1. Om – Om is the Sound Symbol to indicate the Our Real Nature: Consciousness or ‘LIFE’

2. Vasana – Vasanas are our innate urges & past tendencies, our desires in the seed form

3. BMI – Body, Mind & Intellect are the equipment of experience, through which Life expresses itself in the Universe & we respond.

4. PFT – Perceiver, Feeler and Thinker is the “experiencer” in us, the sense of individuality in each of us: I, the ego

5. OET – Objects, Emotions and Thoughts constitute the world of things and beings, which in totality provide make up the our field of our experience

Each Individual(PFT), due to ignorance and vasanas, is seeking Permanent Happiness amidst the temporary objects, emotions & thoughts (OET) through the Body, Mind & Intellect using their equipment (BMI). Hence one feels empty in spite of all achievements. 

 

Vedanta says that Permanent Happiness is not outside. It s is our own true nature as the Self (OM). Reducing the Vasana-Pressure & destroying ignorance through Self-knowledge is the way to experience Permanent Happiness.